MSI B650I Edge Wi-Fi Review: Affordable ITX for AM5

MSI’s B650I Edge Wi-Fi is a Mini-ITX board designed for AM5 processors. Priced at $271.86 at the time of this writing, it’s one of the least expensive Mini-ITX boards using the B650 chipset. For the money, you get plenty of connectivity and, with the latest BIOS, support for the new 9000-series processors like the 9600X and 9700X. It includes Wi-Fi 6E and 2.5 GbE, two M.2 sockets (both PCIe 4.0), capable power delivery, a quality audio codec, and power delivery capable of handling our flagship-class Ryzen 9 7950X processor. For a Mini-ITX board, it also looks good with the contrasting grey heatsink against the black PCB. Overall, it’s a well-rounded, well-priced solution in the Mini-ITX space. The B650I Edge Wi-Fi is MSI’s only Mini-ITX board for AM5 processors, but there’s plenty of competition from each major board partner.

On the performance front, the B650I Edge was all over the place. In some tests (Procyon Video/Photo editing), it was one of the fastest boards to date. But was slower in other, generally more heavily multi-threaded tests (Cinebench, Blender, POV-Ray, etc.). Gaming performance was average, so we don’t have to worry about that. But if your use case involves heavily threaded and longer-running activities, there are faster boards out there.

Below, we’ll examine the board and determine whether it deserves a spot on our Best Motherboards list. Before we proceed with testing and board specifics, though, we’ll you’ll find specifications from MSI’s website below.

Specifications: MSI B650I Edge Wi-Fi

Inside the Box of the MSI B650I Edge Wi-Fi

Inside the retail packaging and under the motherboard are just a couple of accessories to get you started. You get two SATA cables, a Wi-Fi antenna, an RGB extension cable, screws for M.2 sockets, some stickers/labels, and a quick installation guide. This is ypical for the class and form factor.

Design of the Edge Wi-Fi

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Our Mini-ITX that could is built on a 10-layer server-grade PCB with a matte finish. Large silver heatsinks cool the VRMs on the left, while a smaller but actively cooled heatsink keeps the chipset and M.2 socket cool. You’ll see the familiar MSI Dragon branding on top and MSI and Edge branding further down. Outside that, there aren’t any other design features. If you’d like to add RGB lighting, you can do so via a single 3-pin ARGB header. Overall, I like the look of Edge Wi-Fi, though some may prefer an all-black appearance. It just depends on your build’s theme.

Starting in our usual location, the left corner, we spy the 8-pin EPS connector to power the processor. The VRM heatsinks are large enough and do a great job keeping the power bits below running within specification. The tiny fan is active even when idle, but it isn’t louder than the single case fan used to move air across our test bench. Even when we ran our stress test, we could barely hear it. I’d imagine you wouldn’t hear it inside a case over even more fans.

Moving right, just above the socket, are the EZ Debug LEDs. The set of four LEDs (CPU—red, DRAM—yellow, VGA—white, and BOOT—green) light up during POST. If there is an issue, the offending part’s LED remains lit, giving you a general idea of why the system isn’t booting.

Next, we run into the two DRAM slots with a single locking mechanism at the top (where it should be). MSI lists support of up to 128GB of RAM with speeds listed to DDR5-7200+(OC). Our DDR5-6000 sticks worked as expected. However, our DD5-7200 kit did not want to play nice on this board (it wasn’t on the memory QVL list for 7000 series, but was for 8000 series APUs). I don’t imagine many people going that fast on this platform, but with any board, your best chance of reaching high speeds is using a kit found on their memory QVL.

Looking down the right edge, we run into the first two (of three) 4-pin fan headers. Each header supports PWM- and DC-controlled devices through the BIOS or the MSI Center application. Although there are ‘only’ three headers (normal for this size board), they can output a lot of power, allowing you to piggyback multiple fans on each. The CPU and PUMP fan headers each output 3A/36W, while the system fan header is 2A/24W. This should be plenty for a small chassis, even using a high-powered AIO or custom loop. Just make sure not to overload them.

Below the header is the 24-pin ATX connector to power the board, four vertically oriented SATA ports (supporting RAID0/1/10 modes), a front-panel USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) Type-C, and a 19-pin USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) connection.

Power delivery on our little B650I Edge totals 11 phases, with eight dedicated to Vcore. Power moves from the 8-pin EPS connector onto a Monolithic Power Systems (MPS) MPS2247 controller. From there, it goes on to the eight MPS2318 MOSFETs. We’re not sure of their output, as Google doesn’t seem to have a datasheet, but it handled our high-power processor without issue.

On the bottom of the board, you’ll see the mid-range Realtek ALC4080 7.1 channel codec and a couple of dedicated audio capacitors hidden below the VRM heatsink. Above that are headers for audio, front panel support, and USB 2.0. Next to that, hiding below the heatsink and fan, is the first of two M.2 sockets, with the other on the back of the board. Both sockets support PCIe 4.0 x4 (64 Gbps) speeds and hold up to 80mm modules. MSI also offers RAID0/1 for NVMe storage, while the four SATA ports support RAID0/1/10 modes. Next, a single full-length PCIe 5.0 x16 slot dominates the bottom edge of the board. And finally, next to it, is the last 3-pin fan header.

The rear IO plate comes preinstalled on the motherboard, which we expect at this price point.  It has a gray background and black labels on the ports, making things easy to read. On the left, we see two tiny buttons, one to clear the CMOS and the other a BIOS Flashback feature that doesn’t require a processor to function (great if you’re planning on a 9000-series processor!). Next is the HDMI video output for use with integrated graphics on AMD APUs. There are five color-coded USB ports, with three 10 Gbps ports (red), two 5 Gbps Type-A ports, and a fast USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) Type-C port. Along with the Realtek 2.5 GbE port and AMD Wi-Fi 6E antenna connections is a simple audio stack consisting of three analog plugs.

There’s nothing out of place, but I would like to see a couple more USB ports back here. Five Type-A could be limiting for some users, and since there isn’t any expansion possible outside of the front ports, you need to know if five (plus the front) works for you.

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