MSI Z590 Gaming Carbon WiFi Review

Pricing and Conclusion

Of the six motherboards we’ve got for launch, the MSI Z590 Gaming Carbon WiFi is the second most affordable. Whereas the ASUS TUF is clearly a motherboard that has been stripped down to the bare essentials, the Carbon manages to mix enough trimmings of high end features to keep the cost down, with enough retaining of same to keep the desirability up. 

One area that is definitely noticeable, and it’s the first thing that hits you as soon as you take it out of the box, is how MSI have kept the Carbon theme that has proved so popular in the past, and tweaked and refined it. We’ve seen a lot of their Carbon motherboards over the years and many of them had that slight hint of Halfords – Target/Walmart for our US readers – about it rather than the meaning they were hoping for. After all, when you think of Carbon Fibre, or invoke that image, you hope people don’t think of stick on carbon-effect vinyl on their city car, you hope they imagine Formula One, or Class 1 Powerboats. The MSI Z590 Carbon is much more the latter than the former. Just look at that chipset heatsink above. Okay the fadeaway logo isn’t to our taste, but we appreciate the effort.

Available to purchase here: https://geni.us/MSI_Z590_Carbon

 

Performance is very similar across all six of our Z590 motherboards and the MSI Carbon is no exception. As a general rule it falls in the lower half of the graph rather than the upper half as we have seen from the MSI Ace, but given the price point and how close all the results are, it is by no means something that will leave you feeling disappointed. Connectivity is similarly strong with all the bits necessary to make the Z590 Carbon a useful upgrade from the Z490, with PCI Express 4.0 both in slot and M.2 support, and enough high bandwidth USB ports around the back to keep your devices transferring quickly. With ten USB ports in total on the rear, and only four of them being USB 2.0 it’s certainly got enough capability for all your modern peripherals and devices. All the Z590 motherboards come with 2.5G Intel LAN ports, and the MSI Carbon has also got 802.11AX WiFi for those who prefer to be cable free.

Lastly the VRM temperatures, whilst the warmest of the six motherboards we’re testing today, are still well inside what we’d be happy living with, and that is with a Intel Core i9-11900K doing its best to pretend to be a George Foreman Grill. With a Core i5 or Core i7 11th Gen CPU in it those VRM temperatures will be even lower.

The MSI Z590 Gaming Carbon WiFi might not have some of those extra aesthetics that put it into the next class, but if what you want from your motherboard is plenty of connectivity, good performance, inoffensive looks and a nice price then the Carbon ticks every box.

  

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