Given the fact that this board boasts a feature list that is darn near “Godlike” in its commitment to overkill the back of this board is surprisingly clean and clutter free. Sure, there are components to be found. More than we would like to see… but just like the last generation MSI has done a very admirable job.
They even took the time, effort, and expense to silk-screen the ‘no go zones’ around each standoff’s cutout in the board. Many a novice have learned the hard way to gently lay a board in place lest they accidentally cut a tracing / pathway. With these nicely sized and extremely easy to see warnings such worries should be minimized for all but the most ham fisted of system builders (and / or Mr. Murphy party goers). We just wish MSI would include a backplate so that such silkscreened no-go zones were not needed in the first place. Put another way, in this portion of the build quality equation MSI are above average for its price range and arguably better than all but the top end of ASUS’ lineup… but there is still room for improvement as even thinnest and cheapest of Chinesium backplates would net the Carbon a massive improvement in its perceived robustness and durability.
Moving on. After flipping the board back over and taking a closer look at the star of the show (the socket area) a few things do pop out. The first and foremost of these is the fact that this mid-ranged motherboard is sporting a LOTES socket. Prized for their stability and all-round no-nonsense no-gremlin reputation it may not seem like a big deal… but “those who know, know” and we are glad to see it is not a (still very decent) Foxconn socket. Yes, it is indeed true Foxconn has improved over the years but we are still very salty over their X399 dumpster fire (full of used baby diapers) of a socket that they took way long to correct.
Also on the positive side, the CPU socket area in general and the ‘keep away’ zone in specific is very clean. Yes, as expected from a ridiculously over-powered VRM, there are Japanese capacitors encroaching in the socket area; however they are only on two sides of said socket… and they are (slightly) further away from the socket than on the ASUS motherboards options.
Put another way this is a clean socket (by modern standards) with enough room around it that most air cooling solutions mounting hardware will not be a royal nuisance to install. Something that can not be said about all the ‘other guys’ options… even if the differences are not ‘massive’.
One area where the MSI X870E Carbon punches way, way… way above its weight class is in both the VRM design and VRM cooling departments. Compared to the piddly little heatsinks Asus gives their ProArt Creator motherboard these monster blocks of machined alloy are not just in a different league… they are playing an entirely different game. Make no mistake Asus’ Creator board is decent in its cooling, but when comparing it to a pair of heat sinks (connected by a heatpipe) that tips the scales in excess of 480grams (aka well over a “pound” in freedom units) it is not even close. For that level of overkill cooling ASUS expects you step up to their RoG models and RoG pricing.
Which does make a bit of sense… if you are a form over function type ‘creator’. ASUS purposely made their VRM heatsinks small and reduced the CNC machining (and thus fins cut into the blocks of said alloy) so as to allow their X870E ProArt Creator to be ‘elegant’ looking. Which it is. There is no denying that the ProArt Creator’s heatsinks look like works of art compared to the more workman like approach MSI has taken. After all, these heatsinks X870E Carbon’s are “classic Carbon”. That is to say there were built around cooling down a VRM being stressed by a heavily overclocked Intel “-KS” CPU. So if such hunks can handle an Intel 14900KS, or a Core Ultra 285 K that is highly overlocked, they can easily handle a 9950X. Mix in classic 16+ million RGB led ‘dragon’ logo that adds a dash of ‘wow’ to a custom build and you got a cooling system that both laughs at the heat output of Ryzen 9000-series and yet only encloses the AM5 socket area on two sides. Which is a nice bonus when dealing with modern PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 SSDs and their necessary heatsinks, tall DDR5 sticks of RAM… or even just Nocuta D15 sized air cooling solutions!
Now with all that said, we do not want to even infer that these heatsinks are not purdy in their own way. They are… it is just when compared to the ProArt Creator it is more “pretty like a bull mastiff’ rather than “pretty like a pampered poodle” type deal. Which is fine. Asus can get away with that because they also cut down the VRM that the ProArt boasts compared to the Carbon X870E. However… before we go over how damn good, how overkill, the Carbon X870E’s power delivery sub-system is, and how better it is compared to ProArt Creator (and that only the Hero can out and out be considered superior)… we feel the need to make a few things crystal clear. These days worrying over minutia of the VRM and if it can handle Ryzen 9 9950X are pretty much a thing of the past. Darn near any X870E board will be able to handle it. So rather than worrying about “if” it can handle it, what is important is the level of ‘overkill’ your money buys you. While overly simplistic, the more overkill the lower the temperatures of the VRM. The lower the temps, the easier said Power Delivery heat sinks can handle the load.
As to the VRM breakdown, MSI has unsurprisingly (as they do love them some Renesas controller goodness) opted for a 12 “real” phase capable Renesas RAA229620 controller for the VCore (in a virtual 18 phase / 9×2 configuration) and SoC (in two phase config). This all-digital controller is then connected to 20 Renesas RAA229620GNP Smart Power Stages (SPS) mosfets capable of 110A. Each. Meaning, thanks to the doubling up of fets to make ’20’ virtual phases, there is a whopping 220A per channel… and this beast has nine for the VCore and two for the SoC. There is overkill… and then there is nuke it from orbit levels of overkill. Especially when the ProArt is only rocking a 16+2 VRM that ‘merely’ makes use of 80A ‘fets.
Put another way, just one of the X870E Carbon’s phases is (technically) more than up to the task of handling a Ryzen 9 9900X, and arguably (if kept to mild PBO levels) a Ryzen 9 9950X… and this board has nine phases just for the Vcore. So yeah. This VRM can comfortably handle anything a 9950X can throw at it. Even if you push beyond insanity and decide to go full EZ Bake Oven on your CPU. Now that is impressive.
With that said, ASUS does offer just as good and arguably even better VRM configurations. You just have to be willing to pay the RoG Tax. For example both the STRIX-E and Hero use an Infineon ASP2205 for the controller in a 18+2 configuration backstop by Vishay 110A SPS’ers. Which might be a smidgen better… but is it really enough “better” to even be noticed in the real world? We think not. Honestly at the Carbon X870E level things are already into the realm of theory and not reality when it comes to ‘improvements’ so we would not buy anyone of these boards just because it has a ‘better’ power delivery subsystem.
With that said. There is a major difference between how MSI and ASUS do things. Specifically MSI has once again opted to not double up the memory (and other things on what AMD calls a “miscellaneous’ voltage) phase and instead has gone for a single phase controlled by a RichTek RT3672EE all-digital voltage controller. Again. This is a pet peeve of ours with all MSI Carbon motherboards. Be they Intel of AMD flavor the memory gets a single phases. Yes, a 55 AMP DrMOS is more than enough. However, it is nowhere close to what Asus offers. They not only double up the misc. phases to two (virtual / one real) but then give that selfsame RT3672EE access to two 110Amp SPS fets in the Hero. Even the Creator gets a pair of 80A DrMOS for their memory/misc. phase(s). Ouch.
Moving on. As you can see MSI has once again made the wise decision to use dual 8-pin (4+4) EPS headers for power delivery. We have zero issue with this… but we do with their location. On the Intel Z890 Carbon these 8-pin headers are moved forward. Forward like on the ACE series. Forward enough that they are not tucked in behind that beefy boi VRM heatsink. Why did MSI decide to not show their X870E buyers the same love? No idea, but we honestly do not like it. This motherboard will be harder to work with in the final installation stages than not only its Z890 sibling, but also the Asus ProArt… which may not move the 8pin’ers either but with smaller heatsink there is tons of room to easily plug these power cables in. What a shame as this is a unforced, self-inflicted, error.
Also firmly in the ‘pet peeve’ category is we wish that the GODLIKE’s 90 degree 24-pin power connector would trickle down to mere mortal motherboards… but considering their ACE still does not include that nifty (cable clutter reducing) feature, it should come as no surprise that the MPG X870E Carbon doesn’t get the royal treatment either. It’s not a massive deal, as ASUS STRIX line-up also does not include it, it just is a feature that should have become the ‘gold standard’ generations ago – and thus is a pet peeve of ours.
Counteracting some of this peevishness is the fact that MSI does include some rather nifty features. Features you will not find on the ProArt and have to step up the STRIX-E to get. For example, (and unlike the 670E it replaces) MSI now does include both a Power and Reset ‘button’… a feature that even the Z890 Carbon does not get. Yes, 99.999 percent of owners will never even seek it out let alone use them – but it is a nice “Quality of Life” bonus feature to include… and certainly worth the couple bucks over the ProArt’s MSRP to get it.
Also firmly in the ‘you have to pay the RoG Tax to get it on an ASUS features list’ MSI includes not only their 2-digit “Debug Code LED” panel, they also include their (ironically named) “EZ Debug LED” cluster. For minor issues the latter makes troubleshooting a breeze. Look in and with just a quick glance at the 4 led cluster you can tell if the gremlin is related to the CPU, the memory, the GPU, or boot drive. Then if you need to you can look at the 2-digit LED panel, read the code… look up the code and know what to do to evict said gremlin from your system. This one-two punch is quick, easy, and powerful. It is how all motherboards should do things. Bravo MSI for not demanding an arm and a leg for such critical troubleshooting features.
Moving on to the 4-pin fan headers.
Sigh.
MSI has once again opted for an… unusual 4-pin fan header arrangement. Yes. There are eight 4-pin fan headers located on this board (1x CPU 2A + 1x 3A water pump + 2x 1A near the DIMMS, 3x 1a at the bottom, and one via the JAF2 header). Its just the most obvious. The most blatant. The most important 4-pin header that even the most hoopty of builds will use… is missing. We are of course referring to the 4-pin header near the rear IO that powers 99.9999 percent of cases’ rear fan.
This is an ongoing issue with MSI’s design team and someone needs to have a long chat with them… in a dark ally… at night. We could easily forgive it for the first gen Carbon rocking the EZ M.2 heatsink as that ‘sink is a chunky boi that covers the 4-pin header location. But now? ASUS figured it out… ASROCK figured it out (which has to hurt), so MSI should have too. All MSI need do is swap the two ends of the EZ M.2 heatsink (and the PCIe 5.0M.2 header) from the ‘front to back’ to ‘back to front’ orientation. That’s it. That ‘one little trick’ not only makes it easier to be manipulated when this board is in a case… it “gasp” no longer blocks the 4-pin header zone! Since they still have not done so, expect to add a 4-pin extension cable to the builds budget so as allow the rear 120/140 fan’s short cable to (neatly) reach the front of the motherboard. As if cable tidying wasn’t tough enough. Yes. We are salty over this ongoing comedy of errors, and it needs to stop. Fix it MSI. @#$%ing. FIX. IT.
Thankfully, quickly dropping our blood pressure back to normal range, MSI has done an outstanding job on the internal USB header options. So good even the so called ASUS ‘Creator’ motherboard cannot match it. Not only does MSI include the typical USB 3.2 Gen2x2 (aka USB 20Gbps) with a 27w power envelope, and doubled the front USB 5Gbps front headers from one to two (allowing for four USB 3.0 headers)… they also mounted all three in a 90degree offset / “horizontal with the motherboard” axis! They did not even stop there, as then they enlarged the X870E’s heatsink so that it covers these (and the 4 SATA ports)! Can you say clean looking final build?! We know we can… especially when even the RoG Hero does not offer all that. Noice.
Moving on. The four DIMMS themselves have not changed much and rather this generation simply allows for technically even higher overclocking. In a very, very nice move (that is sure to be appreciated by system builders around the world) MSI does not just include the frequencies the X870E Carbon supports… it breaks them down by configuration. In 1 DIMM per channel populated with single rank DDR5 (“1DPC 1R”) RAM you can push all the way past 7800Mhz (X670E Carbon’s limit) to DDR5-8400. With two sticks of dual rank installed (“1DPC 2R”) it goes to DDR5-6400. With two DIMMS per channel populated with 1R memory it also supports up to DDR5-6400; and with four sticks of dual rank (2DPC 2R… aka 256GB of RAM) installed the board will let you go to DDR5-4800.
More importantly than any improvements (or lack thereof as it is a comes down the IMC AMD Ryzen 9000-series is rocking) these numbers do show that MSI has done their very best to optimize the memory pathways to/from the CPU as well as ensuring as little ripple as possible is introduced into the DIMMS themselves. This includes using SMT(Surface Mount Technology) welding to improve the solder joints of the DIMMS and reduce their resistance.
In this vein we are glad to see that MSI has once again used an 8-layer PCB design with upgraded 2oz copper. While MSI does not give it a fancy name like ‘TuF’, or call it ‘milspec’, they do proudly state this is server grade… as it is server grade. When you peel back the marketing speak, one quickly realizes how big a deal that feature really is. Higher grade PCBs, with upsized heat dissipation baked right into the board’s DNA started life out as a server / enterprise feature. One designed to help 24/7 stressed systems handle the heat loads a heavily worked server are routinely placed under. To be perfectly candid… we have worked with a lot of “military grade” devices over the years, and we have worked with a veritable ton of server / enterprise gear over the years. Of the two we will take server standards over military standards… as the military is always lowest bidder “good enough” specification; whereas in the enterprise arena “good enough” is rarely good enough. So to us, it is a higher standard and one that should comfort you a lot more than “military standard” claims. Thus the only comment on this side of things is… we wish they had gone to 10 layers like some boards are. It would make little to no difference in the real-world… but the perception would be that 10-layers is ‘obviously’ better than 8.
