MSI MEG X570 ACE Preview

MSI MEG X570 ACE Preview

Introduction

If you’ve been following along with our X570 previews then our intro will be familiar to you, so skip on to the technical specifications below to discover what is unique to this particular model. Otherwise, read on to find out what the X570 AM4 is bringing to the party.

When AMD released the first generation of Ryzen processors and the attendant chipset we spoke a lot here at OC3D about how pleased we were to find AMD back with a product range that was a genuine return to form. Instead of attempting to keep updating the ageing AM3 platform they made wholesale changes with the introduction of the AM4 socket and a much more modern chipset with all the features that you could demand.

We clearly weren’t the only people impressed by this massive upgrade to the AMD range as the Ryzen CPUs and Zen architecture sold in droves. Such was the rampant popularity of it that we quickly saw the release of the updated Ryzen processors, the 2nd generation, along with the X470 motherboards that introduced yet more features that hadn’t quite been squeezed onto the X370 release schedule.

The hardware world never stands still for long though, and since the launch of the Ryzen 2nd Generation there have been a few new technologies given the green light to hit the market, and with the release of the 3rd Generation of Ryzen processors comes a new chipset, the X570, which is so up-to date that it comes with a lot of elements yet to find their way onto Intel platforms.

As you would expect all the major manufacturers are gearing up with their X570 product launches, and whilst we can’t go into too much detail before the full launch in early July, we knew that we just had to bring you a glimpse at what you could expect.

Technical Specifications

With all the X570 chipsets the main attraction, besides support for the latest generation of Ryzen CPUs, is the implementation of the newest PCI Express 4.0 technology. This greatly increases the available bandwidth for your graphics card and M.2 drives. “What of it?” you might say. Well modern graphics cards at the very top end are able to chew through every single bit of bandwidth you can provide to bring the best visual fidelity. But they require the storage drive to chuck them huge, often 4K or above, textures for them to process as fast as possible. The fastest drives are M.2, but they take up PCI Express lanes. PCI Express lanes which are also being utilised by your GPU. Eventually one or the other will have to sit around and twiddle its thumbs. Enter PCI Express 4.0, which doubles the potential bandwidth from 32Gb/s to 64Gb/s. That’s progress in the gaming industry you might think, but the current limit of M.2 drives is around 3.2 GB/s of data. Soon they’ll be 6.4 GB/s, give or take a little for the overheads. If you deal with high definition files on a regular basis the ability of this to speed up your workflow is insane. So, as we say, the big attraction for this latest X570 chipset is unquestionably the inclusion of PCI Express 4.0. That isn’t all it has to offer though, which means it’s time to look at the MSI X570 MEG ACE in more detail. 

MSI MEG X570 ACE Specifications  

A lot of the X570 motherboards we’ve looked at so far have tied the two power heatsinks together to help spread out the heat generated from the new powerful Ryzen 3rd Gen processors across the widest area. With the MEG ACE MSI have taken another step by tying the two MOSFET heatsinks to the chipset heatsink too thanks to a long heat pipe that runs down the side of the DDR4 memory slots. It’s certainly a unique solution. We can’t recall any motherboard adopting the same solution. The proof will be in the pudding as the old adage goes.

MSI MEG X570 ACE Cooling Â