MSI Drops A Bling Bling Motherboard: the MEG Z590 Ace Gold Edition
by Gavin Bonshor on April 14, 2021 8:00 AM ESTOn the back of Intel's 11th generation Rocket Lake processor release last month, MSI has dropped a new Z590 motherboard which certainly raises an eyebrow towards aesthetics. The new Z590 Ace Gold Edition is a gold-inspired take of the regular MEG Z590 Ace motherboard, with all of the same premium features such as PCIe 4.0 support, 2.5 GbE, Wi-Fi 6E, and dual Thunderbolt 4 Type-C on the rear panel.
Built around its Enthusiast Gaming series, the MEG Z590 Ace Gold Edition injects a lot of flair and vibrance that the regular MEG Z590 Ace doesn't have. While aesthetics comes down to a matter of individual opinion, the MSI MEG Z590 Gold Ace Gold Edition is decked out in gold and brushed aluminum finishing, including the rear panel cover, power delivery heatsinks, PCIe slot armor, M.2 heatsinks, and the chipset heatsink.
Despite the refreshed and extravagant aesthetic, it includes the exact same feature and controller set as the regular MSI MEG Z590 Ace, which includes two full-length PCIe 4.0 slots that can operate at x16 and x8/x8, a third full-length PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, and two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. There are four memory slots that can accommodate up to DDR4-5600 memory, with a maximum capacity of 128 GB, and includes one PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot, three PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA M.2 slots, and six SATA ports which is plenty of storage options. Providing power to the CPU is the same 16-phase power delivery with premium 90 A power stages as the regular Z590 Ace and dual 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power inputs.
The rear panel also comes with plenty of features and includes a pre-attached gold and aluminum-colored rear panel cover (Ian: I can barely read those labels! What if you're colorblind!?). For connectivity, the MSI MEG Z590 Ace Gold Edition has dual Thunderbolt 4 Type-C with two mini-DisplayPort video inputs, two USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. The board also uses a Realtek ALC4082 HD audio codec and ESS Sabre 9018Q2C DAC combination, which powers five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output, as well as a BIOS flashback and Clear CMOS button pairing. On the networking side of things, MSI is using an Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE controller and Intel's latest AX210 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi.
At present, we don't know when the MSI MEG Z590 Ace Gold Edition is going to hit retail shelves, nor do we have any pricing. The regular MSI MEG Z590 Ace has an MSRP of $500, so we expect the gold variant to cost a little more.
We also have the MSI MEG Z590 Ace (regular version) in for review, which we will publish in due time.
Source: MSI
Related Reading
- The Intel Z590 Motherboard Overview: 50+ Motherboards Detailed
- Intel Rocket Lake (14nm) Review: Core i9-11900K, Core i7-11700K, and Core i5-11600K
- ASRock Z590 Taichi Review: An Intel Motherboard with Moving Parts (and Thunderbolt 4)
- The ASRock Z590 OC Formula Motherboard: By and For Overclockers
- The MSI Z590 Godlike, Comparing it to the Z490 Godlike
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Leeno - Thursday, April 15, 2021 - link
This battle is all because of AMD yes cause DDR5 Ram will soon drop & newer socket will be same Announced by Intel I need Explanations pleasenandnandnand - Thursday, April 15, 2021 - link
What is it that you want to know, exactly?shabby - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
Msi should fire some people for this.meacupla - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
I actually don't mind the color scheme on this.The price would have been justifiable if this was socket AM4
Exotica - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
With the latest bios updates as well as microcode updates, Rocket Lake 11700k performs quite a bit better than Comet Lake 10700k in most tasks, so why are people saying “waste of sand?”Also, some z590 motherboards send far too much power to the CPU, tomshardware should do a comparison analyze the same chip in a z490 vs z590 motherboard.
I’ve seen +60W more power consumption under load in an msi Z590 Ace (with an early bios) compared to a gigabyte z490 board, using the same exact cpu, voltage, frequency, and similar load line calibration. Similar scores in cinebench, etc. I got rid of the Ace as it forced the cpu to consume far too much power… if reviewers reviewed Comet Lake with z590 (instead of z490), the conclusion would probably be that comet lake is a power hungry beast. Some motherboards aren’t tuned properly.
Exotica - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
Anandtech* I mean should do a comparison.TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
*quite a bit better*within margin of errorin most games, and still nable to overcomeits 20% core defficiencyagainst the 10900k. The only thing the 11700k or 11900k win in is single threaded production workloads, and even then its often no better then a ryzen 5000.
Total waste of sand, just like turing was. Prices have gone up, performanc/$ has gone down or stayed the same. Boring, next.
Exotica - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
False, the 11700k is much better than the 10700k both in single and multicore. I’ve tested both, rocket lake is better on the more recent bios updates. For example, the 11700K gets 16200 in cinebench r23, and 1850/11300 in Geekbench single core/multicore. Much better than the 10700k.I agree that the 11900k is indeed overpriced, but the 11700k at $399 is actually less than what the 10700k was at launch ($430).
Mr Perfect - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
Rocket Lake makes some nice compute gains, but people are disappointed in it's gaming performance and power draw. Combine that with the socket change to LGA1700 in September for Alder Lake and it feels like a stop gap product on a dead socket.Silver5urfer - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
It's not going to launch in September. Idk how people are believing ADL will launch this year. It will be mobile first and next year in the Q2 or Q3 it will come.