MSI Drops A Bling Bling Motherboard: the MEG Z590 Ace Gold Edition
by Gavin Bonshor on April 14, 2021 8:00 AM EST_678x452.jpg)
On 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
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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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nandnandnand - Thursday, April 15, 2021 - link
You're going against leakers, Intel, all those stories about DDR5 modules being readied and tested with Alder Lake, etc.https://www.tomshardware.com/news/galax-hof-readie...
johnnycanadian - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
Why did they even bother screen printing the I/O shield? It's unreadable.TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
$500 for a board with no 10G ethernet, the same VRM design as $400 motherboards, and a hideous color palette.This is the perfect board for 11900k owners.
Silver5urfer - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
10G LAN is not present in many boards, only very expensive boards get 10G LAN. ASRock X570 Creator is the only $500 board I know, MSI X570 Prestige Creation and GB X570 Aorus Extreme from cheapest to expensive. Sadly the mobos cost is increasing more and more, with DDR5 and Gen 5 they even raise the prices even more.And I think getting a Mellanox or Supermicro PCIe NICs is better and they have better cabling support too for those boards which do not have these 10G ports, at-least the option for used market exists and these would be pulled form an Office server system.
I wish many boards have PLX, but that's not even there now. Last board I saw was Supermicro Z490 which had them.
oRAirwolf - Thursday, April 15, 2021 - link
I would rather see AMD and Intel add more PCIe lanes to their desktop processors than useless PLX chips. I doubt it would significantly increase the price of the boards and then adding a 10gbe card would not be a concern.For the record, I was able to add an Asus XG-C1000C (AQC107 10gbe chipset) to my system while keeping my RTX 3080 at PCIe 4.0 x16 by using one of the PCIe slots that was attached to the PCH instead of the CPU. This was with a 5900x and Asus ROG Crosshair Hero VIII WiFi. I don't use NVMe SSD's, though, so that may be a factor.
jrbales@outlook.com - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
Well,my taste doesn't run to gold trim. I would have been ok with the brushed aluminum with the MSI dragon and a few other details in red or another accent color (black, anthracite grey, etc). But I guess with the drought going on with current generations of GPUs, a person could detract from an old card with all the bling!eastcoast_pete - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
I usually don't make such comments, but this should be called the "Sorry Ace Hole" edition"; this is clearly targeted at customers whose wallets are a lot larger than their cranium. I mean, really.Koenig168 - Thursday, April 15, 2021 - link
The gold accent looks more yellow than gold to me.Oxford Guy - Thursday, April 15, 2021 - link
The most important aesthetic is the value per dollar.Hxx - Thursday, April 15, 2021 - link
this in a silver chasis with gold/silver fittings yelow coolant and clear tubing would like fantastic. Too bad im not into gold color lol but i would appreciate the aesthetics.