MSI MPG Z790 Carbon WiFi Review

Accessories and Overview

MSI provide you with a decent selection of accessories with the Carbon. As regular readers will know, their MPG range is below the MEG one so we weren’t expecting to see a box bursting with cables like the Godlike surely will, but it’s nice to get more than a SATA cable.

  

The MSI WiFi antenna is designed much more of a desk accessory than other antenna we’ve seen recently. Thankfully the cable is long enough that even if you own a monster case you’ll still be able to put it where you like. As long as ‘where you like’ isn’t a different room to the case.

  

Remember when the first boards named Carbon appeared and it looked like your local Halfords? Now the newest addition to the Carbon range requires some careful study to see anything that could approximate fake carbon fibre. A single line on the chipset heatsink and another below the Dragon logo appears to be all there is. We don’t mind that.

  

The MSI Dragon is where the RGB happens if you like showing off your choice of motherboard brand. Certainly the Carbon doesn’t scrimp on the VRM heatsinks. It’s a chunky monkey.

  

You can easily see from the heat spreaders how many M.2 slots are squeezed in to modern motherboards and the MSI Carbon in particular. We often wonder whether the gap between the PCI Express slots was designed to fit an M.2 drive, or whether the drives were designed to fit between the slots. Imagine if M.2 drives were a centimeter wider.

  

Speaking of M.2 slots, oh boy have MSI got you covered in that department. One long and four short. One PCIe 5.0 and four PCIe 4.0. Speedy.