INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Intel motherboards based on their Z690 chipset may already count several months in the market (their Z790 chipset is also just around the corner) but thanks to having all of their bugs ironed out by now Z590 motherboards are still quite popular, especially among people who don't want to move to DDR5 just yet. Still there are numerous Z590 motherboards in the market, some aimed towards casual users, others aimed towards gamers and others towards enthusiasts, overclockers and professionals alike. What we don't really see a lot in the market however are motherboards aimed towards people looking for the best possible cooling efficiency and that's exactly what EK Water Blocks brings to the table with their high-performance and quality CPU & VRM monoblocks. The MSI MPG Z590 CARBON EK X Motherboard comes bundled with one such monoblock right from the factory and that's what I’ve been working on for almost 3 weeks now.

   MSI is a world leader in gaming, content creation, business & productivity and AIoT solutions. Bolstered by its cutting-edge R&D capabilities and customer-driven innovation, MSI has a wide-ranging global presence spanning over 120 countries. Its comprehensive lineup of laptops, graphics cards, monitors, motherboards, desktops, peripherals, servers, IPCs, robotic appliances, and vehicle infotainment and telematics systems are globally acclaimed. Committed to advancing user experiences through the finest product quality, intuitive user interface and design aesthetics, MSI is a leading brand that shapes the future of technology.

   The MPG Z590 CARBON EK X motherboard is a collaboration between MSI and EK Water Blocks so clearly its strongest selling point is their bundled EK Quantum Momentum monoblock (ARGB - flow indicator) which when paired with a water cooling kit should provide optimal cooling for not only the CPU but also the surrounding VRMs (voltage regulator modules). The motherboard itself is based on a 16 phase digital VRM (75A) design and sports a total of 4 DDR4 DIMM slots (dual-channel configuration – 128GB total supported with speeds up to 5333MHz), 3 full-length PCIe x16 slots (2xPCIe 4.0/1xPCIe 3.0 - top and middle are EMI shielded and reinforced), 2 PCIe x1 slots, 3 M.2 SSD slots (1xGen4x4/2xGen3x4) complete with FROZR heatsinks, 6 native SATA 6Gb/s ports (with RAID 0/1/5/10 support), onboard ARGB LEDs, Realtek ALC4080 audio codec (with Audio Boost 5), Intel I225-V 2.5GbE LAN, Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 and a Thunderbolt add-in connector (extra TB card required to use this). As for available connections the MPG Z590 CARBON EK X offers a single DisplayPort v1.4 video output, HDMI v2.0b video output, 8 USB 2.0 ports (4 internal header / 4 rear panel), Type-C USB 3.2 Gen2x2 port, 4 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports (3 rear panel / 1 internal header), 4 USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports (2 internal / 2 rear panel), Intel 2.5GbE Ethernet port and the Realtek ALC4080 High Definition Audio onboard audio card outputs (five 3.5mm jacks and one S/PDIF out). So, let's see what MSI and EK Water Blocks have to offer with the MPG Z590 CARBON EK X motherboard.

 

 

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MSI ships the MPG Z590 CARBON EK X motherboard in a black box which as expected has their logo at the front along with a product picture and the EK Water Blocks logo.

 

 

The main product features are printed at the base of the box in 19 languages.

 

 

Another picture located at the rear of the box is used to showcase the product features which are also listed in 8 languages.

 

 

The bundle is safely placed inside several pieces of black foam.

 

 

Along with the MPG Z590 CARBON EK X motherboard inside the box you'll also find 4 SATA cables, two fan extension cables, two RGB extension cables, two piece Antenna, three M.2 thermal pads, VRM thermal pads, two screwdrivers with the MSI logo on them, MSI case badge, USB drive (drivers), cleaning brush, thermal paste tube, EK Quantum Momentum monoblock, water pressure meter, air pump, monoblock mounting screws, several case and motherboard stickers, registration paper, sweepstakes paper, EK Water Blocks discount code paper, MSI product catalog, quick start guide and the user guide.

 

 

THE MPG Z590 CARBON EK X

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The black and grey color combination MSI chose for the MPG Z590 CARBON EK X motherboard is somewhat typical (black and red would look a lot better).

 

 

Since the MPG Z590 CARBON EK X comes bundled with the EK Quantum monoblock by EK Water Blocks the VRMs have no cooling over them.

 

 

Two 8pin motherboard connectors are located on the far left top of the motherboard.

 

 

By having 4 DDR4 DIMM slots the MPG Z590 CARBON EK X can accommodate up to 128GB worth of RAM with speeds all the way up to 5333MHz.

 

 

One of the RGB headers is located on the far upper right corner right next to a post display.

 

 

The 6 SATA III native connectors are all angled.

 

 

Here you can see all 3 M.2 ports exposed along with the PCIe slots and two more RGB headers on the lower end right next to an LED on/off switch.

 

 

The I/O has a quick BIOS flash button (just place the BIOS in a FAT32 formatted USB flash drive and place that drive in the tagged USB port) right next to 4 USB 2.0 ports, v1.4 DisplayPort output, V2.0b HDMI output, 2 USB 3.2 ports, 2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C Port, 2.5G RJ45 port, two Antenna ports, S/PDIF output and five 3.5mm jacks.

 

 

Unfortunately, there's no backplate underneath the motherboard.

 

 

The EK Quantum Momentum monoblock by EK Water Blocks features their velocity cooling engine with low restriction and high performance (the top is made by CNC machined glass-like cast acrylic).

 

 

This monoblock not only features a flow indicator (useful to see if your water cooling system is working properly) but it's also equipped with a 3-pin D-RGB (addressable) LED strip.

 

 

Turning the monoblock over we find a total of 4 nickel-plated copper pieces (remember, the VRM pieces need to be paired with the bundled thermal pads).

 

 

BUILDING THE SYSTEM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As with other Z590 reviews I’ll be using the Intel Core i9-11900K CPU along with the NT-H2 thermal paste by Noctua, the NFP425 1TB SSD by Neo Forza and the Acer Predator Apollo 32GB 4GHz RAM.

 

 

Now since the plan is to test more motherboards with monoblocks like the EK Quantum Momentum i decided to build a dedicated test rig so to that end i reached out to my friends over at be quiet! who made an nice bundle (Dark Base 700 Mid-Tower, Dark Power 12 850W and 3xLight Wings 140mm fans) available for me.

 

 

Of course, i paired that with the EK Quantum Power Kit D-RGB P360 complete CPU liquid cooling kit by EK Water Blocks.

 

 

For optimal results i decided to place the D-RGB fans facing inwards (intake).

 

 

Not many places to mount the pump reservoir combo unit with the front being the best.

 

 

After that i mounted the motherboard and the EK Quantum Momentum monoblock with its fittings.

 

 

The Dark Power 12 850W power supply unit came next.

 

 

Replacing the stock silent wings fans with the light wings, mounting the tubings and filling the reservoir with the yellow EK liquid was the finishing touch.

 

 

Most parts in this build are ARGB illuminated so it does look nice (especially for a simple setup like this).

 

 

MPG Z590 CARBON EK X BIOS V.7D06V191

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The CLICK BIOS 5 is separated into two sections, EZ Mode (for beginners) and Advanced (for more advanced users). The EZ Mode is clearly aimed towards gamers and allows you to check the current system status, change the drive boot priority, set the fan plan, access the hardware monitor and launch the M-flash area to perform a BIOS update (while i was doing tests MSI released a new BIOS version so i decided to showcase it and run my tests using this one).

 

 

A nice MSI feature is the ability to choose what type of cooler you have installed so water cooler it is in this scenario.

 

 

The advanced screen has 6 different tabs which you can access.

 

 

Via the settings tab you get access to the time and date, quick system status screen, everything related to PCIe/LAN/SATA/HD Audio/integrated Graphics/USB and of course the boot settings and sequence.

 

 

Inside the OC tab you can find everything related to the CPU and RAM including the CPU/Ring/GT ratios, BCLK clocks, XMP profiles, voltages (although for most people i do recommend leaving almost everything at auto), memory timings, information about the CPU and the system and various CPU features.

 

 

From the hardware monitor tab, you can adjust the fan and pump speeds (for my motherboard tests i always use full speed).

 

 

MSI has placed a Beta Runner tab inside which they obviously place features still in beta phase.

 

 

Finally, from the OC profile tab you can save and load BIOS setup profiles.

 

 

MSI CENTER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can download the MSI Center app either from their website or the Microsoft store.

I was surprised to see that the default installation only includes a hardware monitor tab (since I wasn’t doing tests while taking screenshots ambient temperature was around 34-35 degrees Celsius).

 

 

If you’d like access to MSI’s Mystic Light feature you’ll need to download and install it from the features tab (I decided to showcase Mystic Light and System Diagnosis).

 

 

As you can see the Mystic Light tab detects the motherboard and the installed RAM, only difference is the available effects which are 29 for the former and 7 for the latter.

 

 

Of course, Mystic Light is also supported by a number of gaming peripherals but since I don’t own any that page is empty.

 

 

Mystic light is also compatible with several games and ambient link.

 

 

The voice command feature is probably the most interesting one under the settings page.

 

 

As for the system Diagnosis tab well, it just monitors your drive and memory size.

 

 

TESTING METHODOLOGY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Exactly like used to do in the past each mainboard to arrive in the lab will get mounted on an open-air test bench and will be used for no less than two full weeks (daily tasks and gaming) with a fresh Windows 10 Pro installation. All motherboards arriving here will be tested with the top CPU of that line available to me at the time of each review (I9-9900K for Z390/I9-10900K for Z490/I9-11900K for Z590/Ryzen 9 5900X for X570 and B550) together with 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 4GHz RAM for the Z390/Z490 motherboards and 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 4GHz RAM for the Z590 and X570S/B550 motherboards. Now I don’t know if I will need to change this anytime soon but for now the Intel CPU in each review will be set at 5000MHZ (CPU ratio set to 50 - of course voltages may vary slightly from motherboard to motherboard - RING/Cache frequency at 4700MHZ) and the AMD CPU at 4500MHz.

   I did think about pushing each motherboard to the max to see which is the better overclocker but 5/4.5GHZ 24/7 is more than plenty today, not only in terms of performance but also temperatures (not to mention there are colleagues of mine who have been focusing on maximum overclock potential so that’s also out there). Instead i decided that it'd be far more interesting (not to mention accurate) to see which motherboard is the fastest when using the same exact hardware components/configuration (CPU/RAM/COOLER) with the same exact overclocking frequencies */**. To figure that out I’ll be using several benchmarking programs (6 repeats after which the average numbers will get recorded in the charts) like AIDA64, CINEBENCH R20, CPUZ, Passmark Performance Test, RealBench and the Sisoftware Sandra Titanium 2020 version. Needless to say, that between different system configurations these charts also do a great job pointing out the difference in CPU performance.

* Charts will contain other system configurations as well in order to better showcase the performance of each reviewed system.
** Surpassing 4.7GHz with the Ryzen 9 5900X on all cores proved impossible so I chose 4.5GHz as the most balanced choice for all my tests (besides, the latest Intel CPUs in the charts could also climb higher than 5GHz on all cores).

 

 

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / CINEBENCH R20

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEST RESULTS - CPUZ / PASSMARK PERFORMANCE TEST

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEST RESULTS - REALBENCH / SISOFTWARE SANDRA TITANIUM 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   After spending almost 3 weeks with the MPG Z590 CARBON EK X motherboard by MSI I have mostly positive things to say about it. Build quality is good (excellent for the EKWB parts), performance is more or less on par with what you’d expect from a high-end model (lands in the middle of the pack however) and both CPU and VRM temperatures are great really. Still not all is perfect and so the most significant drawback the MSI MPG Z590 CARBON EK X motherboard has is total cost since on top of the extra you end up paying for the EK Quantum Momentum monoblock by EK Water Blocks (even though there was a significant price cut recently which somewhat offsets this) you obviously also need to have a custom water cooler like the one i used for my tests (and regardless of model that will not come cheap). The end result is certainly worth it (just for the record with ambient room temperature at 23 degrees the CPU running at 5GHz never surpassed 65 degrees Celsius during all my tests) but this is still a somewhat niche product. Another issue I found was the lack of motherboard buttons and having gotten used to power on/off and reset buttons this didn’t sit well with me, not when even lower end models have them.

   With a current price tag set at USD649 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 390.67Euros inside the EU (EK Water Blocks) the MSI MPG Z590 CARBON EK X motherboard is certainly overpriced, at least on the other side of the Atlantic (I did find it for less but only via 3^rd party sellers with not so good ratings). Granted, due to inflation everything is more expensive today but I really do think MSI needs to balance that price tag to reflect the one we have over here. Long story short if you already own a custom water cooling kit or if you’ve always wanted one the MPG Z590 CARBON EK X motherboard by MSI should be on your radar and since it does deliver as advertised it gets the Golden Award.

PROS

- Overall Build Quality
- CPU & VRM Cooling (EK Quantum Momentum Monoblock)
- 2xPCIe X16 4.0 Slots
- M.2 PCIe 4.0 Slot
- DisplayPort v1.4 & HDMI v2.0b Video Outputs
- 2.5GbE Ethernet Port
- MSI Center Software
- Price (EU)

CONS

- Price (USA)
- Extra Cost (Liquid Cooling Kit Required)
- No Onboard On/Off/Reset Buttons