MSI MEG X670E Ace Review: PCIe 5.0 M.2 Aplenty

Firmware

MSI’s Firmware on the new X670E boards are similar to the last gen and its Intel counterparts. It starts out with an EZ Mode that displays high-level system information and allows you to change some settings including EXPO profiles for RAM, boot order, and more. The advanced portion of the BIOS is unique compared to the others. Where normally the headers/sections are across the top they are on the left and right sides with a graphic in the middle. Navigating around the BIOS is easy and the contrast of black, red, and white make for easy reading too. All items are in logical places, and you don’t need to dig deep into the menus for most overclocking functionality. Overall, we like the layout and its ease of use.

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Software

For software, MSI chose to place their applications in one program called MSI Center (formerly Dragon Center). This software allows you to select and download individual applets you want/need. Some of the programs include Mystic Light (RGB control), User Scenario (overclocking, monitoring, and fan control), Super Charger, MSI Companion (help record games), and there are several more.

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Test System / Comparison Products

We’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 64-bit OS with all updates applied. We kept the same Asus TUF RTX 3070 video card from our previous testing platforms but updated the driver. Additionally, we updated to F1 22 for our games and kept Far Cry 6. We use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public unless otherwise noted. The hardware we used is as follows:

Test System Components

EVGA supplied our Supernova 850W P6 power supply (appropriately sized and more efficient than the 1.2KW monster we used previously) for our test systems, and G.Skill sent us a DDR5-5600 (F5-5600U3636C16GX2-TZ5RK) memory kit for testing.

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Benchmark Settings

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