Unlike the last gen Carbon, or this gen’s Asus STRIX-E (or Hero), there is no DP header (not even mini-DP) to be found on the Carbon X870E’ rear I/O. The only A/V outputs are via a lone (full size) HDMI 2.1… and the USB 4 Type-C’s ports. Which admittedly can do DP 1.4 output in “alt mode”. As such, the difference is not that big, rather the options are just… “different”.
We however cannot give the same benefit of the doubt to the speaker in/out options. Options which have been reduced. Greatly, and disappointingly, reduced. To be fair, most high end X870E boards are similarly reducing the sound options, but we hate to see the way the industry is trending. Less is rarely more. It is just less. Period. Dot. As to specifics, MSI has followed the crowd and “slimmed” the output options. To be precise all four of the four boards only have two 3.5mm audio jacks (headphone out and MIC in) as well as a SPDIF port. That is it. Which is a noticeable downgrade for all the boards compared to their previous version’s 5 analog + 1 optical port stack.
Meaning you are not getting surround sound goodness out of that Realtek ALC4080 onboard Codec without going optical. Which is not too big a loss overall. Most gamers will be using a headset (stereo and a mic), or go all in on a 5.1 setup that does use optical out… or be rocking Ye Olde USB based Gaming headset. None of which will really take advantage of the removed headers. Conversely audiophiles will not even be happy with the ALC4082+Fet the Hero rocks and be either installing a ‘true’ audio card in the bottom post PCIe slot or running a USB based DAC. Thus “And Nothing Of Value Was Lost”… but we still dislike it. Not everyone should be forced to upgrade their shiny new ~5bill motherboard just to get what they had on their old motherboard. Even if that is just 1 in a 1000 (or even 1 in a million) that is still one too many.
To help reduce the ire of buyers there are two very good reasons why everyone is doing this. Those reasons are: bandwidth and real-estate. The ALC4080 is a USB based audio controller and well… the X870E generation is PCIe lane constrained to say the least. Mix in the upgrade in total number of USB ports on the back and most will be ‘fine’ with this choice to reduce the audio port count. Those that will not? Will now have to buy (or already be rocking) either a USB DAC or PCIe Sound Card. With that said, we do have to point out that this is one area Asus really…. really dropped the ball as their ProArt Creator is meant for creators and their rear I/O panel has plenty of room for the previous standard 5 analog + 1 optical output options… yet it does not. Why? Because it would have added to the build cost, and possibly vampire’d sales away from the more expensive RoG boards. Something that is verboten to say the least.
Which segues nicely in to the next controversial issue: the WiFi + BT options. With the Carbon X870E they are clearly not a downgrade… but still some will feel that way. The last gen X670E Carbon made us of ‘AMD’ WiFi WiFi 6E + BT 5.3 chipset. Which is to say MediaTek built with AMD drivers. Which is to say that it eventually became “good enough”. Sometimes… if not pushed too hard… and you really love AMD… but it’s replacement was one of the most requested ‘upgrades’ we delt with across all motherboards using the MT792x WiFi module. So instead of performance(… or stability… or lack of being a random frustration generator), its true main claim to fame was drivers were available for Windows 10, Windows 11, and Linux. Basically, if you had an OS it had you covered when it came to (usually buggy) drivers.
This gen? Things are not so cut and dry. First up is the change to WiFi 7 + BT 5.4… that is not MediaTek based. On the surface that is a massive improvement that goes beyond just being a “bonus feature”… even if few will ever fully harness its improved performance. Right now WiFi 7 is barely a standard, wireless routers and AP that are WiFi 7 “compliant” are expensive… and most will not care about its super speed vs 6E as IMHO WiFi is for surfing the web while in the WC or the kitchen. They will however care about it being rock solid stable. So much so that it gives Intel’s ‘gold standard’ X200 and AX210 series a run for their money in this department.
Counteracting this is the fact that MSI has opted for the Qualcomm NCM865 which due to Qualcomm changing to Windows 11 only low level I/O standard means windows 10 drivers are not available… and never will be. On the positive side there are Linux driers for it, and for many… Team Penguin is better than dealing with the spyware abomination that is called “Windows 11”. Furthermore, the Carbon X870E’s WiFi is a ‘true’ WiFi 7 offering that boasts 320MHz+4096QAM support… and actually good drivers compared to the dumpster fire that is MediatTek + AMD. That is a combination that most of the Asus options cannot offer. Even if ASUS can (technically) offer Windows 10 drivers (if you do not care about said drive stability).
Basically, MSI were extremely limited in what they could do if they wanted to actually include a good WiFi + BT module. Sure, Intel is technically a possible option… but Intel offers two interface options for their WiFi + BT cards. One uses the Intel only CNVIO/CNVIO2 standard and thus is a non-starter for non-Intel CPUs. The other now uses a non-standard M.2 layout on anything newer than the AX210. Yes. The excellent BE200-series will almost assuredly not work when connected to an AMD board as it is “missing” a few pins on its M.2 key. Missing connectors that pretty much act like hardware encryption and Intel motherboard’s BIOS know about them and easily ‘work around’ it… but AMD has not taken the time to reverse engineer it. Instead they paired up with MediaTek. To the loud acclaim of no one… not even hardcore AMD fans.
Thus for MSI it was either (Linux or) Windows 11 only via Qualcomm, and getting nuked by Windows 10 users; go back to using the known bad, known to be unreliable MediaTek “AMD WiFi Drivers” and getting nuked by your board owners; or admitting that Intel is simply in a different league than AMD in the WiFi department and using the older (but rock solid) Intel AX210 option… and getting smoked by ASUS/Asrock/GB/etc’s marketing department(s) and AMD reps. That is a lose-lose-lose proposition that AMD has put all motherboard manufactures in. So overall, MSI probably made the best of a bad situation… and arguably better than ASUS who is once again rocking “AMD WiFi Drivers” on their MT7925 based WiFi 7 M.2 card. Ooof. Good luck with that. For those that do care about the loss of Windows 10… it is not a hard nor costly procedure to fix. In fact, since some will also be yanking the card from its M.2 slot to replace the (sub optimal) EZ antenna headers it is only an extra moments work to do both the ~$20 (USD) card and ($2) cables at the same time.
Which segues nicely into the next feature of the Rear I/O. The Ethernet networking options. To be blunt this dual NIC option is excellent (for its price class). It out and out smokes the last gen X670E Carbon and most of this X870E gen competition. So much so this combination of a 2.5GbE and 5Gbe options (both of which are “multi-gig” and thus reverse/downwards compatible) is so good it actually reaches parity with the much, much more expensive ROG CROSSHAIR X870E HERO. In fact, the Carbon makes the ROG CROSSHAIR X870E HERO look overpriced as it not only reaches parity on paper…but actual hardware parity as both are using the same RealTel RTL8125 (2.5GbE) with RealTek RTL8126 (5GbE) controllers. Noice. So yes, while we do wish that this board offered “multi-gig” via a 5GBASE-T and 10GBase-T (aka .1 to 5GbE and 1-10GbE) NICS we can understand why the Marvel QC113 multi-Gig 10GbE big boi is only for the MEG ACE series(and even then we would rather see it be Intel than faux Marvell that really is AQtion based).
Even excluding the competitions’ lack of added networking features on their much more expensive options, and as we have said multiple times in the past, 5GbE is about as fast as the joe schmo home consumer can get over LAN without investing big bucks in to 10GbE infrastructure… and sometimes even then they need to go down the Jumbo Frame rabbit hole. Yes. 2.5GbE is (technically)rated for 100m over Cat5E (aka the vast majority of installed Ethernet cable in the home and office environment)… and yes while it is (technically) true that Cat5E is (theoretically) rated for 55Meters of 10GbE goodness… and yes. 5GbE over Cat5E is not even covered by the standards but obviously would fall somewhere between those two distances. The reality is most homes (and office) Cat5E runs (aka distance from computer to the port on a switch/hub/router/gateway/etc.) are short enough to handle 5GbE but only 5GbE. 10GbE is just not realistically in the cards and would be a “non-feature, feature” for most Carbon owners. Arguably even anti-feature… as each step up basically doubles the ‘tray cost’ for MSI. For example, (good) 1GbE NICs are about a dollar when purchased in the 1K tray and larger orders. RealTek 2.5GbE is about 2 bucks. Realtek’s 5GbE doubles that. Non-Intel 10GbE doubles that again. As for Intel 10G… they really don’t ‘do’ home environment 10GbE as such. Instead Intel only offer 10GbE for the Enterprise market. Which means that the cost of their X710 series is… ooof. Some of Intel’s motherboard “PCH” chipsets are cheaper even at the full tray levels. So yeah, MSI is just not big enough to get it cheap enough to justify it on anything but maybe a Godlike.
Furthermore, while it is indeed true that the 5GbE uses more power than 2.5GbE… the RealTek 8126 is not exactly a “high power, high heat output” controller. One that demands an actual heatsink… and thus an entire board layout and heatsink redesign. Here let’s break it down. A 1GbE Nic is a rounding error in heat watts. Typically under 1W. The 2.5GbE options (both Intel 225 and the RealTek RT8125 used on the X870E Carbon) put out about 1 to maybe 2’ish watts of heat when stressed. The RealTek RT8126, when in 5GbE mode, dumps out about 2 to maybe 2.5’ish watts of waste heat. A “Marvell” AQC113C 10GbE NIC is about 4ish watts of waste heat… and an actually good Intel X710 (when in 10GbE mode) dumps about 4.5 to 5 watts of heat…and older Intel’s and other ‘enterprise’ 10GbE (and above) NICs? Might as well double that. At the very least.
Put another way, 1GbE and 2.5GbE can easily be handled via passive cooling. Passive cooling without even a heat spreader. 5.0GbE can also be passively cooled without a heatsink without (too) much worry. 10GbE? Yeah… that needs a heatsink and good airflow. Thus a redesign would be needed so as to handle the added 5watts to 10 watts of heat. That may not sound like much, but that is more waste heat than the heatsink on a last gen PCIe 4.0 ‘flagship’ M.2 SSD had to handle. Thus, by not going for a wired Ethernet solution that would noticeably increase the MSRP, and yet provide little to no real world improvement for the average joes, MSI is able to keep the Carbon in the (modern definition of) “sane” price range. Something not all Asus X870E’s can boast about being.
Before moving on. We have to point out one thing. There is nearly zero reason for the 5GbE NIC to be passively cooled here. MSI includes that big hunk of metal for the Audio area… and yet it does very little. To be blunt, it is not as good as actually EMI covering over the RealTek codec, and it is not being used as a heatsink for anything. It is basically there for protection against blunt force, provide some EMI noise reduction… but mostly to look ‘cool’. All MSI had to do was extend part of it slightly forward so as to fully cover the RTL8126 IC, and then used one of their very good heat pads to connect it to said chunk of alloy. As it stands you can do that… but it will not be optimally cooled. Instead you are actually better off with a low-profile copper 8x8mm (or larger) heatsink (as the RTL8126 IC uses the QFN56 8x8mm standard). Which is a shame. Standalone tiny sinks are never as good as big honking hunk of alloy. Hopefully future gens fix this issue either by a tweak to said “heatsink” or to the layout… which MSI had to do when going for the ASM4242 USB 40G controller (and gave that hot runner IC its own head spreader that is attached to the VRM heatsink).
Either tweak would be a Good Thing(tm), and the fact that they have not most likely boils down to this being the first generation post 10GbE patent (troll) expiration (and ‘Multi-Gig’ is just a logical extension of said patent). Which means in the coming years 5GbE is probably going to become the new normal (and replace 2.5GbE)… and 10GbE will start popping up on more and more “mainstream” / sub-500 USD boards. Which unfortunately for MSI (and ASUS’s RoG division) ASUS does include on their ProArt Creator (it offers 2.5GbE and 10GbE). Thus is you actually need 10GbE but don’t want to sell a kidney, nor use a ~$75 USD Add in Card (nor go the used market route for a beefy Enterprise card), the ProArt is the obviously superior choice compared to the rest. Hopefully the next gen of Carbon’s doesn’t just bring parity with the ProArt but superiority via 5 and a 10 (or better 10+10) GbE’er NICs options.
Moving on, and counteracting the 10GbE vs 5GbE issues, buyers get a massive boost in rear I/O USB options compared to not only this gens Carbon competition but also MSI’s last gen Carbon X670E. Last gen the Carbon X670E rocked 6 USB 10G Type-A Ports, 2 USB 2.0 Type-A Ports, and a pair of USB 10G Type-C ports. For a grand total of 10 USB ports of various form-factors and capabilities. None of which are what we would call ‘super high speed’ even by last gen standards. For 2024, the X870E Carbon is rocking nine USB 10G Type-A ports, a pair of USB 10-G Type-C ports, and a pair of not USB 20G but full blown USB 4 / 40Gbps Type-C ports…for a grand total of THIRTEEN USB ports. None of which are “slow”.
To put that change into perspective, the last gen technically could allow for ~91Gbps of (theoretical) USB bandwidth. This gen? The Type-A ports nearly has that covered at (a theoretical) 90Gbps. When you add in the Type-C (another 20Gbps if one ignores the USB overhead) and the pair of big boi ports (80G!)… well… it is not even close at (a theoretical) ~190GBps vs ~91Gbps. How does that compare to the competition? Well… the Hero looks massively overpriced if you are a Content Creator / Editor (or just need a ton of USB ports). The ProArt Creator comes close, but the closest is the STRIX-E which sacrifices the 2.5GbE NIC in order to offer its 9+4 USB options.
To temper our enthusiasm a smidgen, MSI is not the only one to boost the USB options into the stratosphere. In fact, any of the three ASUS comparison boards would be considered a nice upgrade over their predecessors too. Furthermore, the dual USB 4.0 / 40Gbps on basically all X870Es are being mandated by AMD (it is ‘the’ main claim to fame for the X800-seires chipset) and are pretty much all being powered not by the AMD chipset but by ASMedia’s ASM4242 IC. Which is an excellent choice and a massive upgrade over previous gens option(s). Namely, this hidden under multiple sinks discrete IC is PCIe 4.0 x 4 enabled. Since it is being fully feed with all that 64Gbps of bandwidth goodness it not only can easily handle 40Gbps demands USB 4 theoretically places on it… it can provide (theoretically) 32Gbps to both ports when both are actively being used. Something the previous gen could not. Color us impressed.
Equally impressive is MSI has done all that and still found room for their 3 EZ buttons: Flash BIOS, Clear CMOS, and Smart (the last of which is configurable via the BIOS). In fact, in many ways they have been improved… as they are now clearly labeled. Counteracting this two steps forward advancement in clarity is the fact that all three buttons are still closely spaced and smaller than the last gen. Thus accidentally pushing the CLEAR CMOS button when you wanted the BIOS flash back option is a real possibility. Especially if you are reaching around the back of case and doing it blind. As such we do recommend being careful… or… you know… covering the clear CMOS with a small piece of plastic and tape so that it cannot accidentally be depressed (or gluing a button over the other two buttons to raise them up and off the I/O panel).
Overall, this is one impressive rear I/O area. One that is damn near Bespoke in its options and attention to detail that MSI has displayed here. So while still room for improvement, it is bloody good to say the least.
