MSI MEG X570S ACE MAX ATX Gaming Motherboard AM4 DDR4, (7D50-001R)

Great board tons of expansion for nvme drives. One problem , windows 11 22h2 won’t install on latest bios, causes crashes galore on 21h2 so do not update to latest bios if you want a smooth experience. I back dated to early 2022 bios and works fine now.

TLDR:
I would highly recommend looking at the MSI MEG X570S Ace Max if you’re in need and looking for an X570 solution at this point in the game. If you’re not in “need”, just wait for the next gen Ryzen 7000 series and the AM5 socket, or the 13000 series from Intel, they just aren’t that far away anymore. Whatever you decide, make sure you’re looking in the direction of MSI.

Background:
When I first built my new Ryzen rig a few years back, I went with the Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master for my motherboard of choice. It had great reviews, I’ve always been a bit of a Gigabyte fan, I wanted a full featured X570 board, it has 3x NVMe slots, and its plethora of USB ports helped push me in its direction. It paired well with my 3900X and overall, I was happy with my decision. Just over a year ago I decided to upgrade to a Ryzen 9 5900X and that’s when my happiness started to turn to frustration. Instability ensued; CPU temperatures were outrageously high, it required under-volting just to keep things reasonable, and eventually that board failed outside of its warranty period. Being extremely disappointed in the death of my Gigabyte board and having owned several MSI boards over the years (most recently the B450 Tomahawk, which is an amazing value board, not to mention durable. My dog literally chewed one of the PCI-E slots off mine and it’s still going strong.) I decided to return to MSI. So, enter the MSI MEG X570S Ace Max, and yep, that’s a mouthful.

I was a bit sour after my Gigabyte board had an untimely demise, and I wasn’t thrilled about having to replace it so close to a new socket being released. I also really wanted a board that didn’t have active cooling, but there were several reasons why I didn’t go with a B550 board which would seem like the obvious choice. Although I was very tempted to, I just couldn’t find one that dotted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s for me that wasn’t in the same price range as the X570 equipped boards. In the end, I was able to get the MSI MEG X570S Ace Max on sale for a price that just made it too hard to ignore, and giving it was the X570S, it didn’t require active cooling and was therefore silent. It’s a decision that turned out to be a great one, and I couldn’t be happier with the board.

Pros:
– X570S chipset means there’s no active cooling and therefore the board is silent
– Looks. It’s an exceptionally clean looking board with some nice ARGB zones.
– 2.5 gigabit ethernet.
– onboard Wi-Fi 6
– 12x USB ports
– 4x USB 2 Type A
– 4x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A @ 5Gbps
– 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type A @ 10Gbps
– 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type C @ 20Gbps
– Support for 6 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drives
– 4x NVMe slots native to the motherboard
– 2x NVME Gen 4 on a PCI-E gen 4 NVMe expansion card
– My 5900X never performed so well while staying so cool
– Mystic Light is way better than RGB Fusion
– The box comes loaded with accessories

Cons:
– Price, even on sale it wasn’t inexpensive
– MSI Mystic Light is good, but Aura Effects is better

Not really Cons:
– NOTE 1: The bottom PCI-E 16x slot (#3) is shared with onboard NVME
– NOTE 2: Using the second PCI-E 16x Slot limits the top slot to 8x Gen 4

Bottom Line:
First, I’ll mention the elephant in the room, the one problem the MSI MEG X570X Ace Max faces. I can’t recommend building a system right now. We’re just a few months away from all the new goodies hitting the market, so honestly, wait for that. If nothing else, you should get better deals on these things once the new stuff hits the market. It really comes down to this, as much as I like this board, I wouldn’t have bought it if my old one didn’t let me down. That said, when I do upgrade again in the future, I’ll be looking MSI’s way without a doubt.

Now to my thoughts on the board itself. I’m now a couple of months in to owning my MSI MEG and overall, it is a GREAT board. Plenty of connectivity, a lot of NVMe slots, while still providing 4x SATA ports. Setup was a breeze, it posted right away, and after a quick trip into the BIOS to setup XMP on my RAM I went straight to Windows. Benchmarks were solid, easily within margin of error compared to my Aorus Master, but without the ridiculously hot temperatures my 5900X had in the Gigabyte board (15c lower in fact!!!). So, it really comes down to one question, would I recommend the MSI MAG X570S Ace Max? The answer to that is a resounding YES, absolutely! If you’re in the market for a new high-end X570S motherboard that is feature laden and silent, this board should check all your boxes.

MSI es una de las mejores marcas en juegos, creación de contenido, negocio y productividad y soluciones AIoT. Su completa línea de portátiles, tarjetas gráficas, monitores, placas base, computadoras de escritorio, periféricos, servidores, IPC, dispositivos robóticos y sistemas de información y telemática de vehículos son aclamados a nivel mundial.