MSIMPG Z790 Carbon WiFi Gaming Motherboard (Supports 12th/13th Gen Intel Processors, LGA 1700, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, M.2, 2.5Gbps LAN, USB 3.2 Gen2, Wi-Fi 6E, ATX)

I set off to build my ultimate gaming PC and decided to purchase this motherboard to build it with. I wanted a motherboard that was a little future proof, this seemed to fit the bill, DD5 ram, PCIE 5.0, M.2 gen 5 and not outrageously expensive. So I put together my PC and started to install Windows 11 home. Everything was going great until I got to the Wi-Fi screen. No networks were showing up and Windows had no option to move passed this and I didn't have a ethernet cable to plug into the motherboard. What could be wrong? Bad Wi-Fi hardware on the motherboard, no drivers installed, bad antenna? Two hours on the internet and Youtube, finally I found a way to bypass this stupid screen (that's Windows fault). Come to find out that the motherboard had no Wi-Fi drivers install on it (shame on you MSI). I was able to install them with the USB drive that came with the board (thank God)! After that everything ran fine. My other issue with this board (my fault for not doing more research) is that in the future if I want to use PCIE 5.0 graphics card and a M.2 gen 5 SSD, it cuts the graphics card down to gen 5 X 8 lanes instead of 16 lanes. I don't know if this will really be that big of a deal, but I just expected to be able to use both at full capacity. Other than those two issues, I love the board. It has been very stable and works great. Love the RGB lighting of the dragon in the corner. I am running Corsair 6400mhz DDR5 ram with no problems. I also like the digit display in the top right corner, I haven't had any error codes, but if I did this would make it much easier to diagnose, currently it displays CPU temp which is nice. Overall, I am pretty happy with this motherboard minus the two issues I talked about.

One YouTube reviewer referred to this board as "The 500-pount MSI Carbon," and he wasn't far off. It's the chipset heat sinks; they're as much solid aluminum as cooling fins.Taking advice from the YouTube guy, I turned on RAM overclocking and set the core voltage, but saw app crashes running HandBrake. Changed everything back to default (no RAM overclocking, auto core voltage) and set the CPU overclocking to 253W power limit. That kept the CPU core temp below 80°C and still ran plenty fast. Seems stable as a rock now, after a couple of weeks.Tech was helpful getting me past a sticky spot installing Windows 11, but MSI's website is difficult to navigate. I accidentally picked the wrong support category, and it kicked me out rather than redirecting me to the correct queue. NOT friendly; they lose a star for that one.

I had a lot of problem with my first purchase, at first it booted into bios, but immediately stopped working, not response what so ever. I had to test every component separtely to narrow it down to the motherboard. Called tech support and they quickly suggested replacing the motherborad.The second one was good, booted no problem, but one day it did not turn on at all! I realized the same day they had release a new bios. After flashing the bios, it worked and life back to normal! I'm hoping if there is any other problem I see then before return date has passed.I mainly wanted this monitor for its performance, and support for Gen 5 M.2 drives. I have i9-13900K but have not yet tried OC anything.When it works, the performance is great!

Selected this motherboard for my latest gaming rig build.Pros:LightingGen5/Gen 4 NVMe slotsWiFiCons:Bios/configurationUpdating BIOS is something that most builders are familiar with, however this was by far the worst I've come across. Even after weeks of tweaks, the LAN port is unusable, it would detect for short bursts, but when I say it was slower than AOL dialup, it was. Near impossible to update drives, etc., thankfully I was able to do so from another computer for everything else. WiFi works great however, as does the a wired connection via an ethernet to USB-C adapter.Overall, this board has more positive things going than the few minor inconveniences that it gave, would recommend with the above caveat.

I had an issue with both the MSI z790 carbon wifi and a EVGA Kingpin z790 board where neither would recognize a 4090 or 4080 card. I kept thinking it was the board and second guessing myself thinking it was the GPU. Weird part is that my GPU would work on my z590 on old computer. I have both a 4090 Surpim X and a PNY 4080 and after many weeks of troubleshooting come to find out you will need to make sure you have a PSU that has at least 4 PCIE connections. I got the corsair RM1000x. What you will get with a 4090 or 4080 is a 12VHPWR to a 4 way VGA splitter. Make sure to purchase additionally a Corsair Premium 600W PCIe 5.0 / Gen 5 12VHPWR PSU Cable - Fits Type-4 PSUs via Dual 8-pin PCIe - 12+4pin Connector - Mesh Paracord Sleeving - Black for this board. If you have a 590 motherboard you will be fine with the cable that comes with the GPU. I have not tested on a z690 board. This is not written down anywhere and MSI support was not good or aware of this issue with their products.