MSI MPG Z790 Edge WIFI DDR4 (Intel 1700)

While Intel does have more than one 700 Series chipset, the flagship Z790 chipset has a surprisingly wide range of motherboard options. They range from $190 to $1399 and adding DDR4 and DDR5 into the mix each company has a LOT of options and MSI is no different. In fact, they have 14 different Z790 options which is down from the 18 that they did for Z690. In Z790 they have three different models in the Edge lineup alone, one ITX board and then the DDR4 and DDR5 options in the Edge WiFi. These are also the only boards that have a white or light grey focus with the other options all being mainly black. Given the popularity of white builds, having boards that match is a given and the MPG Z790 Edge WiFi DDR4 fills that for MSI with its silver heatsinks and white accents on the heatsinks. The black, silver, and white combo is unique in that it isn’t completely white so it will fit in a black case just as well as it would an all-white build but I do wish that the PCB and plastic on this were silver or white like MSI has done in the past with their Arctic lineup.

We are not discontented with DDR4's performance on what is designed to be a DDR5 platform. Raptor Lake's success is likely due to the ability to reuse your B660/Z690 motherboard (firmware upgrade required) and DDR4 memory. This will save you a lot of money. If you require a new motherboard, the MSI Z790 EDGE comes in DDR4 and DDR5 configurations. As previously indicated, the performance differences will be very acceptable; nonetheless, if you intend to purchase hyper-expensive premium graphics cards (anything higher than RTX 3090 upwards to RTX 4090), we recommend going the DDR5 route. However, DDR4 will be sufficient overall. MSI has a very interesting motherboard; however, it costs $369, which is a lot of money for a motherboard. Please be aware that the DDR5 version will cost even more. The motherboard works well and is stable; we plugged in a random 3600 MHz kit DDR4 memory, enabled the XMP profile, and booted into Windows with no problems. In addition, with five M2 NVMe SSDs that can be housed behind heatsinks, you will have proper WIFI6E, a 2.5 Gbps ethernet connector, and some fine power phase. Overall, it is a beautiful motherboard with a sleek, modern silver appearance that does not resort to RGB bling too much, just the dragon logo. However, if you want to build an entirely new PC, you'll still face a relatively high total cost of ownership.