MSI MPG X870E Carbon Wi-Fi Review

Introduction

The MPG Carbon Wi-Fi line has been a solid mid-range motherboard offering for a couple of generations now, and usually offers certain features associated with more expensive options such as the Ace or Godlike, but at a much lower price tag. High-end VRM cooling, the latest USB and Wi-Fi standards, Thunderbolt, overclocking and tweaking tools plus cutting edge ease-of-use features are all in the MPG Carbon Wi-Fi’s repertoire. It’s even come in a pre water-cooled guise before now thanks to a makeover from EKWB.

This is 2024, though, and $500 probably isn’t what many would consider to be a mid-range price tag. It’s far from the most expensive X870E option out there, but there are other excellent motherboards such as the ASRock X870E Taichi at $50 less. Then there’s the RGB-free sibling, the Taichi Lite, which would leave $100 in your wallet compared to the board we’re looking at today. We have a pretty straightforward task then when it comes to seeing whether MSI’s MPG X870E Carbon Wi-Fi is worth considering, especially if it means increasing your motherboard budget to do so.

Firstly, the board looks fantastic. Like most of the $400+ X870E motherboards out there, you would not want to drop this thing on your foot thanks to enormous heatsinks covering the power circuitry, chipsets and all M.2 ports. However, there is no backplate here, as we found on both the ASRock X870E Taichi and ASUS Crosshair ROG X870 Hero, which help to protect the rear of the PCB and to cool certain hotspots such as the VRMs. What we do have, though, is a more lavishly-equipped rear I/O panel along with updated tool-free features, some very elaborate RGB lighting components and a slightly larger set of features than the ASRock X870E Taichi. The board is also ATX rather than E-ATX with the ASRock board, which is immediately more appealing in terms of case compatibility, although it doesn’t have the side M.2 port as a result.

In our review a while ago, we found that the ASRock board didn’t have the best EFI or software, so it will be interesting to see what MSI brings to the table here as its EFI is usually excellent, with Windows software less so. We have the cheaper Tomahawk and Ace boards from MSI waiting in the wings too, while we’re waiting for updates from Intel and motherboard manufacturers regarding Z890 options before our reviews drop, given the launch issues we’ve encountered. Thankfully MSI has just released a BIOS to remedy an issue that caused graphics card driver problems with Windows 11, so fixes are definitely coming. Stay tuned for our Z890 content.

Specifications