With the new AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUs fully in their launch, motherboards are being announced left and right to be home to these chips. One of MSI’s latest boards appears to be a pretty sweet unit: the MEG X570 Unify.
So what makes this board so sweet? For starters, it’s got an all-black design and none of that RGB lighting that you pay for but don’t use. Abundance of hardware not considered; we’d almost dare call this board minimalist.
That’s indeed where the minimalism stops, though. MSI’s new X570 board comes with a plethora of heatsinks and even includes a fan in chipset heatsink for cooling the heart of the board, which MSI calls the Frozr Heatsink Design. The board also comes with three M.2 slots, each of which comes with its own ‘M.2 Shield Frozr’ heatsink. If cooling the NVMe SSDs isn’t something you care for, then perhaps you’ll be happy that these heatsinks will hide some of the non-black PCB’s some SSDs are made on.
(Image credit: MSI)
The VRM circuitry on the board (which yes, also has two massive heatsinks connected with a heatpipe), comes in the form of a 12 + 2 + 1 circuitry design, and is fed by two 8-pin EPS power connectors. So, if you buy this board, do make sure you’ve got a power supply with two of these connectors. This circuitry helped TSAIK push a Ryzen 9 3900X to an impressive 5857 MHz, which is currently the top record for this chip registered on HWBot.
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Internal connectors:
· 1x 24-pin ATX main power connector
· 1x TPM module connector
· 2x 8-pin ATX 12V power connectors
· 1x Clear CMOS jumper
· 4x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
· 1x Chassis Intrusion connector
· 2x USB 2.0 connectors (support additional 4 USB 2.0 ports)
· 1x Power button
· 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 connectors (support additional 4 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports)
· 1x Reset button
· 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C Port
· 1x 4-pin RGB LED connector
· 1x 4-pin CPU fan connector
· 2x 3-pin RAINBOW LED connectors
· 5x 4-pin system fan connectors
· 1x 3-pin CORSAIR connector
· 1x 4-pin water-pump connector
· 1x 2-pin LED power input
· 1x 4-pin water-pump connector
· 1x Debug Code LED
· 2x System panel connectors
· 4x EZ Debug LEDs
Back Panel Ports
· Clear CMOS Button
· Wi-Fi /Bluetooth Antenna Connectors
· PS/2 GAMING Device Port
· Realtek 2.5G LAN
· HD Audio Connectors
· Flash BIOS Button
· USB 2.0 Ports
· USB 3.2 Gen1 Ports
· USB 3.2 Gen2 Ports Type A+C
· USB 3.2 Gen2 Ports
The motherboard is wrapped up with 2.5Gbe LAN and 801.11ax WiFi. Connectivity is also more than ample with 8 USB ports (two USB 2.0 Type-A, five USB 3.2 Type-A, and one USB 3.2 Type-C), multi-channel audio driven by a Realtek ALC1220 codec, and a PS/2 port. There are also connectors on the rear for the WiFi antennae as well as switches to clear and flash the BIOS.
(Image credit: MSI)
So far, MSI has not revealed anything about pricing, only saying that it ‘offers the true value of the motherboard.’ Ignore that, regardless of cutting out RGB, the MSI MEG X570 Unify will still be a board for enthusiast users with an enthusiast price tag.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
NEVER buy a mobo with a proprietary fan in it! Never! If that fan breaks, and I have had two fans on mobos do exactly that, you have to either kludge a fan to cool the board or throw the board away. MSI even brags that the fan embedded in the heatsink is "patented" so good luck buying a replacement fan somewhere. If you DO buy this mobo, immediately order two replacement fans for it from MSI as insurance (if that is even possible). Better yet, skip this board.
Hardware unboxed was very impressed by this motherboard. Very good vrm. It did runs very cool. Good features, reasonable good heatsink without any stupid plastic covering it!
NEVER buy a mobo with a proprietary fan in it! Never! If that fan breaks, and I have had two fans on mobos do exactly that, you have to either kludge a fan to cool the board or throw the board away. MSI even brags that the fan embedded in the heatsink is "patented" so good luck buying a replacement fan somewhere. If you DO buy this mobo, immediately order two replacement fans for it from MSI as insurance (if that is even possible). Better yet, skip this board.
That goes for the whole x570 lineup then... and possibly all motherboards in the future with a PCI-E 4.0 support. Just got the Asrock Taichi with high chipset temps and a fan running at constant high rpm.
What is the estimated lifetime of a motherboard fan running at ~3000-6000 RPM constantly btw..?
