Intel’s new 11th Generation “Rocket Lake” Core processors are here, and that means we get a whole new round of motherboards to help them achieve their full potential: higher clocks, PCI Express 4.0 compliance, and more. Though less than a year has passed since the previous-generation boards (the first with Intel’s LGA1200 socket) appeared, MSI’s MEG Z590 Ace is a considerably different breed from its MEG Z490 Ace predecessor. It feels like an improvement through and through, but it also brings a price hike from $399 to $499 while dropping a few of the older board’s features. This Rocket launch is a success, but it may burn up more of your budget than you planned to spend.
Aesthetics and Heatsinks
On the visual side of the PCB, the MEG Z590 Ace is a bit of a mixed bag. Like its predecessor, the Z590 Ace is predominantly black with shades of gray mixed in. The gray is so dark as to look black in most PC-case environs, whereas the MEG Z490 Ace’s lighter shades of gray showed more contrast with the black parts of that motherboard.
MSI compensates for this more somber tone by adding more RGB LEDs and by moving its signature dragon logo from the chipset heatsink to the rear I/O shroud. Overall, I think the lighting is a step up, but I wish the designers had kept the more noticeable mixture of gray shades on the heatsinks.
The heatsinks are also more squared-off and plain-looking, but they still serve their main function of cooling the board’s circuitry. The VRMs are cooled by two heatsinks joined together by a metal heatpipe. The chipset also has a rather large heatsink over it, and you’ll see heat spreaders covering the whopping four M.2 Key-M slots. The design of these heat spreaders isn’t as well thought out as on the Z490 Ace, as none of the spreaders touches each other or the chipset’s heatsink. When these components make contact with one another, they can pass off heat, which can help better cool the components, but for some reason MSI opted against this here.
A Quick Look at the Networking and Audio
The networking support of the MEG Z590 Ace is a tad lackluster for a $499 board. Some competing solutions in this price range have multiple wired NICs, as well as 5Gbps or 10Gbps Ethernet support. The Z490 Ace has two wired network jacks, and I groused about it not having a 5Gbps or 10Gbps Ethernet jack, as well. The MEG Z590 Ace is a clear step down on this front, as it costs $100 more and has only one Ethernet controller, a 2.5Gbps Intel i225V.
There’s a logical reason that MSI put just one Ethernet controller on this board, and I’ll get to it when I discuss the rear I/O panel below. But to avoid a feature reduction and to keep pace with the competition, I think the company should have opted for a 5Gbps or 10Gbps LAN controller instead.
At least MSI didn’t downgrade the Wi-Fi on this board—not that it really could, as the Wi-Fi controller is integrated into the Z590 chipset. This actually represents a slight upgrade, as it utilizes Intel’s Wi-Fi 6E AX210 controller. Right now, this supports speeds of up to 2.4Gbps, but it’s also compatible with the upcoming Wi-Fi 6E standard utilizing 6GHz radio frequencies.
As for the integrated sound, MSI broke with tradition and opted to use a new audio codec for the MEG Z590 Ace that I’ve never encountered before. This chip is Realtek’s C4082, and it connects to the system using a hard-wired USB interface instead of utilizing the HD Audio connection built into the chipset. It also has three integrated headphone amplifiers. The chip appears to offer better performance on paper compared with the Realtek ALC1220 codec that’s been seen on a huge swath of high-end boards over the last five years.
Both chips have a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 120dB, but the C4082 has support for 32-bit 384KHz audio sampling, while the older ALC1220 peaked at 32-bit 192KHz. How much you’ll actually notice the difference is debatable, especially as you’d also need to have speakers and audio sources that can leverage 32-bit 384KHz audio. Nonetheless, the raw specs suggest this to be an upgrade, and it’s nice to see companies striving to improve things in this area rather than going with the predictable audio silicon.
The front I/O header has its own dedicated audio codec—the ESS Sabre 9018Q2C—separate from the Realtek ALC4082. This chip shares some specs with the C4082, including a 32-bit 384KHz sampling rate, but its rated SNR is slightly higher at 121dB, and it has built-in amps. This feels like mild overkill, but I don’t see any reason to complain, and if you aim to plug audiophile-grade headphones into your desktop’s front panel, this feature should make your ears perk up.
The Rear I/O Panel
The layout of the MEG Z590 Ace’s rear I/O panel helps to explain why MSI removed the second Ethernet controller from this board: Simply put, the panel is quite crowded, with little space to spare.
Compared with the I/O array of the Z490 Ace, in place of the second RJ-45 jack MSI managed to cram in two mini DisplayPort jacks, an HDMI port, one USB Type-A port, and a second USB Type-C port. Both USB-C ports are connected to an Intel JHL8540 Thunderbolt 4 controller with support for data transfer rates up to 40Gbps. On the whole, I think this is a worthy trade, as instead of having an extra RJ-45 jack, you get a pair of superfast Thunderbolt ports and connections for up to three displays (in the event you’re relying on the CPU’s integrated graphics).
In addition to the two Thunderbolt ports, you get two 10Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports and four 5Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports. MSI tacks on a pair of legacy USB 2.0 ports here, as well. At the bottom of the back panel is the usual set of audio jacks that you find on most motherboards, along with two antenna connections. Buttons for clearing the BIOS or flashing a new image to it are set at the top of the I/O panel.
There’s one minor design problem with the rear I/O panel, or more accurately with the rear I/O shroud. It extends down and partially covers part of the nearest PCI Express card bracket, which would prevent you from installing anything here…
It’s not a serious issue, though, as this board doesn’t have a PCIe slot that lines up with the top mounting bracket. The worst consequence is that I had to remove the slot bracket’s cover to mount the board properly, which means slightly more dust will be able to get into the case if you were to leave it off. (I was able to wedge the slot cover back in, in the end, once the board was mounted.) But, realistically, as fitment problems go this is a minor one. That said, it was also avoidable, as this is the first motherboard I’ve seen with this problem.
Accessories and Onboard Headers and Ports
MSI packed a few goodies in the box along with the MEG Z590 Ace, including a 16GB USB flash drive for drivers and software, a cleaning brush, and a pair of little screwdrivers on a key ring. There’s also an adapter cable with a female DisplayPort connector on one end and a male mini DisplayPort connection on the other. None of these is worth much weighed against half a grand for the motherboard, but it’s nonetheless nice to find little extras like this, so I like to point them out when I can. That said, unless you’re on the fence choosing between two motherboards that have good reviews and identical prices, I wouldn’t let these extras affect your decision.
Getting the MSI MEG Z590 Ace built into a case is a relatively straightforward experience that doesn’t stand out as either problematic or particularly easy. The CPU power connectors are set just far enough from the VRM heatsinks that accessing them shouldn’t be a problem.
The CPU fan headers, though, are a different story. These can be difficult to access, especially if you have a liquid cooler. They’re set on the edge of the board above the top VRM heatsink. This isn’t a great place for them, but this is a common practice among board makers, so it’s hard to criticize MSI for something that essentially every motherboard manufacturer does. It would have been better, though, if MSI had placed these somewhere near the RAM slots instead.
Down the right side of the board is a USB 3.0 connector set at a right angle beside six SATA 3.0 ports that also use right-angle connectors. Just above these is a USB Type-C header. Strangely for a high-end board, the Z590 Ace has only one USB 3.0 header connector; most high-end motherboards I review have two. This strikes me as problematic, seeing as many PC cases I review have two USB 3.0 ports on their front panels. Without a second header connector or an adapter, you wouldn’t be able to use both of these ports. Match up your case’s header cables to this board’s connector loadout.
In the bottom-right corner of the board, you’ll find a power button and a reset button. Close beside these is a switch that can change between the board’s two BIOS chips. A switch here can turn off the board’s LEDs, too, if you desire.
A Brief Look at the BIOS
Before going over the layout of the MSI MEG Z590 Ace’s BIOS, I thought it worthwhile to compare it with its predecessor’s. When I reviewed the MEG Z490 Ace, the BIOS suffered from a number of issues—it arrived in a shaky stability state, and it was a struggle to get the board to accept updated firmware. Once it did, it was functional but continued to display some slipshod behavior.
You can read more detail about that in my review, if you like, but suffice it to say that the Z590 Ace is an instant improvement. I spotted no troublesome issues. It booted up without a fuss, accepted an updated BIOS, and has worked without any major stumbles so far. The one questionable thing it’s doing is running the CPU fan at full blast 24/7, which is something I’ve noticed with a few other MSI LGA1200 motherboards.
Welcome stability aside, the MEG Z590 Ace’s BIOS doesn’t change much from its predecessor. It continues to use a nearly identical version of MSI’s Click BIOS 5. When the board first boots, it takes you into MSI’s EZ BIOS, which has all the basics that inexperienced users are likely to need. This includes options for flashing the BIOS, setting a memory profile, and adjusting the drive boot order.
A few other controls on this page can show hardware information and allow you to make adjustments to how fast fans rev up. Also here is an option to enable MSI’s auto-overclocking Game Boost feature. I feel these are getting a little outside of what should be on an EZ BIOS menu, as it could create confusion for some novice users, but they don’t seem overly harmful. It’s still difficult to tell when Game Boost and the XMP memory profile are enabled, as it was with the Z490 Ace, but at least the board is stable.
The Advanced mode menu has many more options, far too numerous to list here. If you’re looking to overclock, you’re not likely to be dissatisfied with the wealth of options available.
Software and Drivers
MSI bundles a handful of programs with this board, but most are just basic third-party utilities that anyone can download, such as CPU-Z and Intel’s Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU). The only notable piece of first-party software included with the MEG Z590 Ace is MSI’s Dragon Center, but I’ve had trouble installing the suite in my initial tries, though I’ve downloaded multiple copies of the Dragon Center installer in case the first file got corrupted. It actually shows that it installs just fine, but afterward Dragon Center is nowhere to be found—it’s not on the desktop, in the Start menu, or in either of the Program Files folders on the C: drive.
I’ve used this software before on other MSI motherboards, and it does have a few features that can be useful. It can show hardware operating conditions, check for driver updates, and adjust the pattern of any connected RGB LED lights. You may need to try and hunt down a third-party program to control the LEDs if you don’t have any better luck with installation than I did.
Verdict: This Z590 Version Is a Step Up
Having built with and tested both MSI’s MEG Z490 Ace and MEG Z590 Ace motherboards, I can say with certainty that the newer board is an improvement over its predecessor. It still has a few bugs to work out, however, and the increased price feels a bit hard to swallow. But this board is a definite improvement.
The addition of a Thunderbolt 4 controller helps justify the spend, and most builders of cutting-edge PCs would probably prefer that to a second Ethernet controller. But a 25% price hike is nothing to sneeze at, so while the MEG Z590 Ace is a better LGA1200 option, and a solid board, it’s not necessarily a great value.
