MSI is a brand that needs no introduction in the PC hardware space. From best gaming laptops to best monitors, there’s hardly a category that MSI hasn’t tapped into. MSI also has a lot of products to offer in the desktop PC components space. In this article, we’ll be taking a look at some of the best MSI motherboards you can buy on the market right now. Some MSI motherboards already feature in our collection of the best gaming motherboards.
We’re adding the best MSI motherboards for both Intel as well as AMD CPUs, so you’ll find plenty of options here. For AMD Ryzen 7000 you’ll be needing X670, and if you’re eying up a new 13th Gen Intel build then you can either grab a Z690 and update the bios, or wait it out a little for the Z790 motherboards which we’ll be rounding up as they become available.
Navigate this article:
- Best Z690 motherboard: MSI MPG Z690 Carbon WiFi
- Best X670 motherboard: MSI Pro X670-P Wi-Fi
- Best affordable Z690 motherboard: MSI Pro Z690-A WiFi DDR4
- Best B660 motherboard: MSI MAG B660 Tomahawk WiFi
- Best X570 motherboard: MSI MPG X570 Pro Carbon WiFi
- Best B550 motherboard: MSI MAG B550 Mortar
Best Z690 motherboard: MSI MPG Z690 Carbon WiFi
MSI’s MPG series has a lot of popular motherboard options but we think the MSI MPG Z690 Carbon WiFi is one of the best you can buy. Its black-colored PCB is mostly covered with heatsinks and shrouds to hide all the components. The VRM heatsink cover sports the MSI Dragon logo that lights with RGB LEDs. There’s also Carbon branding towards the bottom of the motherboard. But besides these obvious pieces of branding, MSI has managed to keep the motherboard rather minimal. The rear panel cover over the VRM heatsink also has a carbon fiber texture.
The MSI MPG Z690 Carbon WiFi motherboard features a robust power delivery system with direct 18+1+1 phase power. You get dual 8-pin EPS connectors to deliver CPU power. The overall system is quite reliable and the thermal output is maintained well with a sophisticated heatsink. The heavy-plated MOS heatsink has a heat pipe to transfer the heat. It has also MOSFET thermal pads to establish proper contact with the heatsink and the module itself. You’ll also see that the VRM heatsink extends towards the bottom to cover the chipset and the M.2 modules too.
The MSI MPG Z690 Carbon has four DIMM slots with support for up to 128GB DDR5 memory. This motherboard also comes with three full-sized x16 PCIe slots. and it supports PCIe 5.0. For storage, you get as many as five M.2 slots and six SATA connectors with support for RAID 0,1,5, and 10. The IO shield at the back comes pre-installed out of the box and covers a wide variety of ports including 10 USB ports, a 2.5Gb LAN port, an audio jack stack, and more.
- The MSI MPG Z690 Carbon WiFi is one of the best motherboards you can buy for your Alder Lake PC. It offers a good mix of features and performance at a decent price.
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Best X670 motherboard: MSI Pro X670-P Wi-Fi
If you’re building an AMD Ryzen 7000-powered PC then you will need an AM5 motherboard. Initially quite hard to get hold of, but fortunately MSI is on the case with the Pro X670-P Wi-Fi. This isn’t designed for serious overclockers, instead, it’s just a good all-rounder that packs features and performance at an attractive price.
Making up this motherboard is an eight-layer all-black PCB and a 14+2+1 power layout. There are some fairly substantial, but not overpowering heatsinks covering the essentials, which include the VRM, MOSFETS, and the X670 chipset. There’s also an additional heatsink over the PCIe 5.0 SSD slot and the board is set up for air cooling, AIOs, or custom loops. Other staples include the four DDR5 DIMM slots, built to accommodate up to 128GB of RAM, three PCIe 4.0 x16 slots of which two are reinforced, and a PCIe 3.0 x1 slot for smaller expansion cards.
You’re not left wanting for connectivity options, either. The internal ports and those on the rear cover USB 3.2 Gen 1, Gen 2, and Gen 2×2 Type-A and Type-C. Storage is catered for by six SATA connections and four M.2 slots, and as the name implies, it has wireless networking. Specifically, Wi-Fi 6E joins Bluetooth 5.2 and 2.5G Ethernet. Even the audio hardware is pretty solid, with this motherboard housing a high-definition ALC4080 Audio Processor.
It’s not the flashiest or the most feature-packed, but it’s a great motherboard for anyone who just wants to put together a good quality AMD build.
- A good all-rounder for anyone building a new AMD Ryzen 7000 PC powered by MSI.
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Best affordable Z690 motherboard: MSI Pro Z690-A WiFi DDR4
The best thing about this motherboard is that it supports DDR4 memory which means you can also bring your old RAM with you for the new build. So if you’re trying to build a 12th or 13th Gen Intel PC on a budget, it makes total sense. The MSI Pro X690-A WiFi DDR4 motherboard supports memory speeds up to DDR4-5200, which means you can install a lot of high-performance modules on it. Notably, you also get support for PCIe 5.0 with this motherboard, so you’re not necessarily missing out on all the important features.
You get three PCIe x16 slots on the board in addition to a single X1 slot. For storage, you’re looking at four M.2 slots. This is better than a lot of other expensive boards we’ve seen on the market. Additionally, you can also connect six SATA drives with support for RAID 0,1,5, and 10. In terms of the design, it’s fairly simple. It’s an all-black motherboard with very little in the way of unnecessary flair. The VRM heatsink is fairly substantial as is that over the chipset. Even the M.2 slots are exposed on this motherboard. There are exposed M.2 slots though, so you’ll potentially need to supply additional heatsinks.
Also missing on this motherboard is the pre-installed IO shield. Instead of installing it on the board itself, MSI will give you a separate IO shield for you to install while building the PC. This is commonplace for budget options but it doesn’t look as smart. But you do get a solid selection of ports, though with as many as eight USB ports at the back including a USB Type C port. There’s also an HDMI port and a Displayport for booting without a discrete GPU. There’s also a legacy PS/2 port for the keyboard and mouse in addition to a 2.5Gb LAN port and a full stack of audio ports.
- The MSI Pro Z690-A WiFi DDR4 is one of the most affordable Z690 motherboards you can find on the market right for your Alder Lake build.
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Best B660 motherboard: MSI MAG B660 Tomahawk WiFi
If you are in the market to buy a reliable B660 motherboard for your new budget Intel build, then we recommend checking out the MSI MAG B660 Tomahawk WiFi motherboard. Despite being a relatively affordable LGA1700 motherboard, the MAG Tomahawk WiFi motherboard offers plenty of great features.
The MSI MAG B660 Tomahawk WiFi is a fairly simple-looking motherboard with a black-colored PCB. A large portion of the PCB is covered with a heatsink, which is a good thing for thermals. It’s also subtle, with no RGB to be found anywhere. The MSI MAG B660 Tomahawk WiFi features a robust power delivery system which should be enough to handle even some of the high-performance 12th Gen CPUs. The mainboard also packs a solid VRM heatsink to keep the temperatures in check.
The MSI MAG Tomahawk B660 motherboard sports an LGA1700 CPU socket and four DIMM slots. One of the best things is that it’s available in both DDR4 as well as the newer DDR5. That being said, you’ll have to pick the one based on the modules you plan on using because you can’t use both on a particular board. The DDR5 version of this motherboard supports memory speeds of up to 6200MHz (OC+) whereas the DDR4 version supports 4800+ memory speeds. You can install up to 128GB of RAM on either version.
It also comes with two full-sized PCIe x16 slots with support for up to PCIe 4.0. The main PCIe slot for the GPU is also reinforced to make sure it can easily hold even bigger and heavier GPUs. As for the storage, you get three M.2 slots and six SATA connectors with support for RAID 0,1,5, and 10.
- The MSI MAG B660 Tomahawk WiFi is a solid option to consider for those who are looking to build a mid-range PC using Alder Lake chips.
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Best X570 motherboard: MSI MPG X570 Pro Carbon WiFi
If you’re building with Ryzen 5000 still then we recommend checking out the MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard. This is, without a doubt, one of the best AMD motherboards for the previous gen CPUs. It’s a sophisticated board with tons of RGB lighting, heatsinks, cooling, and features.
You can install up to 128GB of DDR4 memory on this motherboard up to DDR4-4200 memory speeds. You get two PCIe 4.0 and two PCIe 1.0 slots on the board. For storage, you get M.2 and the use of up to six SATA ports with support for RAID 0,1, and 10.
The MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard comes with a pre-installed I/O shield. The IO shield covers a wide variety of ports including seven USB ports, an HDMI output for using integrated GPU, an ethernet port, and more. You also get a full stack of audio ports at the back. In addition to this, this motherboard also has plenty of headers for USB, fans, RGB, and more.
The MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon WiFi motherboard offers reliable performance. It’s proven to handle even the most demanding CPUs out there on the market. We recommend pairing this board with, say, a Ryzen 9 5900X and a potent CPU cooler. This board can also handle overclocking and the VRM heatsink should be able to keep the thermal output in check to prevent any sort of throttling. The chipset heatsink is also equipped with a fan at the bottom, so that’s going to be enough to keep things cool even under heavy load.
- The MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon is one of the best AMD motherboards you can buy on the market right now. It offers a good set of features and reliable performance at a decent price.
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Best B550 motherboard: MSI MAG B550 Mortar
The MSI MAG B550 Mortar is yet another solid motherboard in the company’s MAG lineup. This one comes with the B550 chipset and an AM4 CPU socket to support AMD’s Ryzen CPUs from the 3000 and 5000 series. This gaming motherboard is a solid option for those looking to build a gaming rig without burning a huge hole in their pockets. You get an all-black PCB with a matching VRM heatsink cover and a couple of shrouds.
The MSI MAG B550 comes with an 8+2+1 power delivery system for reliable performance. This board can support even the most demanding Ryzen CPUs out there, but this is a mid-range motherboard, so you might not be able to get the performance overclocking performance out of it. Overclocking is possible though and it should be fine as long as you’re using a reliable cooling solution overall. You can install up to 128GB DDR4 memory on this board with memory speeds of up to 4400MHz.
This motherboard has two PCIe x16 slots and two PCIe x1 slots. For storage, you only get two M.2 slots, but you can add more SATA drives to your rig. There are six SATA connectors with support for RAID 0,1, and 10. The MSI MAG B550 Mortar comes with a pre-installed IO shield covering the back ports. As for the ports themselves, we’re looking at a total of six USB ports including a Type-C option. There’s also HDMI and a DisplayPort output for booting without a discrete GPU. Lastly, you also get an ethernet jack along with a full stack of audio ports.
- The MSI MAG B550 Mortar is a solid gaming motherboard for those looking to build a reliable PC on a budget.
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Best MSI motherboards to buy: Final Thoughts
MSI has a really good selection of motherboards, that too across different price ranges. We think the MSI MSI MPG Z690 Carbon WiFi is the one to buy if you’re planning to build a 12th Gen Intel CPU-based build. Those leaning towards an AMD build can check out the MPG X570 Pro Carbon WiFi or the MAG B550 Mortar. We’ve also added a high-performance motherboard with a CPU monoblock for custom-cooled builds.
You can also check out our collection of the best motherboards if you want to explore other options. Alternatively, we also recommend checking out our best LGA 1700 motherboards collection to see all the boards that are suitable for an Alder Lake build. As always, you can also join our XDA Computing Forums to discuss and get more product recommendations from our community of experts.
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