MSI Z790 Project Zero Review

Up Close

Up Close

Just looking at the front of the box you’d be forgiven for thinking there is nothing much new here. Perhaps the “Back-Connect Design” might tip you off. So might, if you’re especially keen, the actual picture. Around the back is where it all becomes clear though.

If you’ve seen a lot of motherboards then the extra heatsinks on the edges of the Project Zero might spark interest. All the places that normally have headers now have heatsinks.

Taking it out of the box and the changes are obvious even to those of you who haven’t seen many motherboards. Where we normally see chunky ATX power connectors and fan headers, we’ve instead got… nothing. It’s a very smooth looking thing. Which it would be, as everything is on the other side.

The lower half is perhaps the one that gives us the clearest change from the back-connect design. Yes we still have PCI Express slots, but we also have nothing else. Normally the bottom edge of a PCB is festooned with connectors. Here it’s just a heatsink. A perfect canvas for the artistic one might say.