MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon WiFi Review

  

Conclusion

Please note this review was written prior to the AGESA 7B93v13 BIOS update. Our graphs have been updated to reflect the new results, but the text remains the same as the fast single threaded stock performance affects so few of our results and none of our overall opinion.

One area that the X570 has seen big changes is outside of the hardware improvements we’ll get to in a moment. With the introduction of PCI Express 4.0, unquestionably the headline feature, the raw cost in parts of the X570 is significantly more than the preceding models. This has meant that the we’ve all had to adjust our mental positioning of the AMD motherboards in our heads and learn that even the cheapest X570 model is now significantly more expensive than budget AMD motherboards of old. Where the MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon WiFi comes in, besides being one of the lengthier full model titles we’ve seen, is right in the sweet spot of pricing, fitting into the juicy mid-range of the new X570 motherboards and a long way below the all-singing and dancing Premium options now available. So yes, it’s currently £250, but with the AMD X570 chipset being more expensive you need to remember that this now counts as an economical option.

Once you get your head around that then the Carbon is much easier to summarise.

Like we’ve seen in our X570 reviews so far, the latest AMD Chipset is extremely consistent in its performance. With so much of the technology now being implemented at a chipset level the variables that used to cause large swings in the abilities of a particular AMD motherboard are eliminated. Indeed if you only ever plan on running at stock then the MSI Carbon makes a serious case for being the right choice. It has good cooling, looks fine, plenty of connectivity options and, naturally, all the MSI extras that we’ve come to know and love. One of the big improvements on the X570 platform is the inclusion of the Intel WiFi 6 802.11ax which can support incredible wireless transfer speeds if you have the necessary hardware to take advantage of it. Further the RGB Mystic Light has 29 possible effect types and supports Rainbow LED strips too so you’ve no excuse not to have a system that shows off your creative talents.

Keeping everything cool is important to maximise both the performance and longevity of your components and the MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon keeps everything well under control. There is an actively cooled chipset cooler so that even when you’re fully taxing the 64 Gb/s potential of the PCI Express 4.0 bandwidth the temperatures don’t soar. Additionally there are lots of fan headers letting you make full use of an AIO to keep even the Ryzen 9 3900X under control and running smoothly. We’d like to have seen a few more headers either on the front edge rather than their placement at the bottom edge, but it’s a small thing. Equally whilst the M.2 Shield Frozr helps spread any heat generated from your M.2 drives, we would have liked the ridges to line up just for aesthetic considerations. Once everything is installed you’ll hardly notice, but it’s these small areas where the slightly reduced price point of the Carbon when compared to its contemporaries is noticeable.

One area that the Carbon doesn’t suffer is performance. With any motherboard the extra flash and flair or aesthetic glories are very much secondary to providing a good foundation for your system, and the Carbon definitely has a big tick in that box. It managed to overclock our Ryzen 9 3900X to 4.375 MHz and might be able to push a more receptive CPU even further. The results across the board are good too and whilst it never broke any records it wasn’t disgraced either.

The MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon WiFi is a very solid motherboard with a good feature set and reliable performance at a very affordable (for X570) £250 price point and wins our OC3D Gamers Choice Award.

  

Discuss the MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon WiFi in our OC3D Forums.