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Firmware, Software and Test System

Software

For Z590, MSI has changed up its software offerings. We used to have several individual programs to adjust the system, but MSI moved to an all-in-one application called MSI Center with thisboard. The new Software is a central repository for many of the utilities (12) MSI offers. These include Mystic Light (RGB control), AI Cooling (adjust fan speeds), LAN Manager (control the NIC), Speed Up (for storage), Gaming Mode (auto-tune games), among several others (see the screenshots below for details). The User Scenario application has a couple of presets for system performance and is where you manually adjust settings, including CPU clock speeds and voltage, RAM timings, and more.

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MSI MEG Z590 Ace — (Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

To give you a taste of the Firmware, we’ve gathered screenshots showing most BIOS screens. MSI’s BIOS is unique from the other board partners in that the headings aren’t at the top but split out to the sides. In each section, all the frequently used options are easy to find and not buried deep within menus. Overall, MSI didn’t change much here when moving from Z490 to Z590 and their BIOS continues to be easy to use.

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As of March 2021, we’ve updated our test system to Windows 10 64-bit OS (20H2) with all threat mitigations applied. On the hardware front, we’ve switched to all PCIe 4.0 components. We upgraded our video card to an Asus RTX 3070 TUF Gaming and the storage device to a 2TB Phison PS5-18-E18 M.2. Along with the hardware changes, we’ve also updated the games to F1 2020 and Far Cry: New Dawn. We use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public unless otherwise noted (typically during new releases). The hardware used is as follows:

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TEST SYSTEM COMPONENTS
CPU	Intel i9-11900K
RAM	GSkill Trident Z Neo 2x8GB DDR4 3600 (F4-3600C16Q-32GTZN)
Row 2 - Cell 0	GSkill Trident Z Royale 2x8GB DDR4 4000 (F4-4000C18Q-32GTRS)
Motherboard	Asus TUF Gaming RTX 3070
CPU Cooler	Corsair H150i
PSU	Corsair AX1200i
Operating System	Windows 10 64-bit 20H2
Graphics Driver	NVIDIA Driver 461.40
Sound	Integrated HD audio
Network	Integrated Networking (GbE or 2.5 GbE)

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Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings	Row 0 - Cell 1
PCMark 10	Version 2.1.2508 64
Row 2 - Cell 0	Essentials, Productivity, Digital Content Creation, MS Office
3DMark	Version 2.17.7137 64
Row 4 - Cell 0	Firestrike Extreme and Time Spy Default Presets
Cinebench R20	Version RBBENCHMARK271150
Row 6 - Cell 0	Open GL Benchmark - Single and Multi-threaded
Application Tests and Settings	Row 7 - Cell 1
LAME MP3	Version SSE2_2019
Row 9 - Cell 0	Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s)
HandBrake CLI	Version: 1.2.2
Row 11 - Cell 0	Sintel Open Movie Project: 4.19GB 4K mkv to x264 (light AVX) and x265 (heavy AVX)
Corona 1.4	Version 1.4
Row 13 - Cell 0	Custom benchmark
7-Zip	Version 19.00
Row 15 - Cell 0	Integrated benchmark
Game Tests and Settings	Row 16 - Cell 1
F1 2020	Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080, TAA, 16xAF (Australia, Clear, Dry)
Far Cry: New Dawn	Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080