The MSI MEG Z490 Unify is one of the most compelling motherboards of the Z490 launch. It has great looks with its black on black stealth aesthetic and a robust feature set with an integrated rear I/O shield, full coverage M.2 heatsinks, good storage options, and, of course, a monster VRM design.
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The MSI MEG Z490 UNIFY is easily one of my favorite motherboards, that's also a bit personally and thus subjective as my opinion here is based on looks as well. features wise you get 90% of what the premium 400~500 USD boards offer. The phase design is impressive the looks great. You get one 2.5 Gbps Ethernet jack but do still get AX WIFI6. The rest of the features is close or the same as the premium boards. At a going price of 299 USD we feel this is a reasonably fair sum of money for what you get in return.
If you want a stealth motherboard, that has all the hardware necessary to run hard and fast, the MSI MEG Z490 Unify is both affordable and capable. It's just a shame that we couldn't quite squeeze that last 100 MHz from it.
We managed to nudge all 10-cores on our 10900K up to 5.3GHz with UNIFY without any difficulty. Some BIOS layouts can be complex and tricky to navigate but its great that MSI keep things simple with their design.
I think this is ready to be one of the most popular motherboards in the Z490 market as a whole, not just those from MSI. No RGB certainly has some appeal, it feels like a “new” idea haha. However, for the price, you get all the premium features you’ll want for a high-end gaming PC build, and the board looks and performs great too.
The MSI MEG Z490 Unify is one of the most compelling motherboards of the Z490 launch. It has great looks with its black on black stealth aesthetic and a robust feature set with an integrated rear I/O shield, full coverage M.2 heatsinks, good storage options, and, of course, a monster VRM design.
Todo esto va sumando puntos, pero lo cierto es que la base siempre es la misma. Las capacidades principales las definen el procesador y el chipset y esto no cambia mientras elijamos esta generación de procesadores y el chipset Z490 como base funcional para la placa.