Review: MSI MEG Z490 Godlike

Discussion in 'Frontpage news' started by Hilbert Hagedoorn, Jun 24, 2020.

  1. Hilbert Hagedoorn

    Hilbert Hagedoorn Don Vito Corleone Staff Member

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    In this review, we look at the MSI MEG Z490 Godlike. Priced at $749 MSI delivers where most premium Z490 motherboard that has been loaded with features and then some. Animated OLED screen, 10 Gbit LAN...

    Review: MSI MEG Z490 Godlike
     
  2. kakiharaFRS

    kakiharaFRS Master Guru

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    ah ! funny that you review this today as if I had to buy a Z490 board (not going too I can't even buy a cpu for it here and delays say 3 months)
    I just got an email saying an item in my wishlist was in stock : msi goldike..they have.....1...at the major computer hw seller in the country...
    that said, here's why you should consider it despite being super expensive, way too expensive for a pcie 3.0 board

    Features :
    1x m.2_1 shared with sata2 (top)
    1x m.2_2 shared with sata 5,6 (in the middle you'd be dumb to use it it'll be cooked by your gpu)
    1x m.2_3 (PCH lanes) below the gpu and shared with the last bottom pcie x4 (that's unusable for anything else than a NIC,USB extension or soundcard anyway because you've got wires to connect under it)
    6 sata ports
    1x pcie x1 above the last bottom pcie x4 (PCH lanes) (perfect for a soundcard or a low bandwith addon card)

    this is a better placement than most other boards, the coolest emplacement for an M.2 is as much down as you can, not under or above the "grill" gpu ><
    and a unique in that price range placement for a pcie x1 slot that doesn't share bandwith with the gpu (PCH)
    you also do not want anything above your gpu as the heat generated by the backplate while gaming is worse than a cpu would produce temps of 60-80°C are easily achieved..just try borderlands 3 in badass for 3 hours you'll see (it's the same as running a gpu stress test like furmark or kombustor a 1080ti oc or 2080ti will be in the 300watts nonstop so much more than your cpu)

    in short : you can boot on a best/coolest placement bottom M.2 nvme while keeping your 6 sata ports and your x16 gpu lanes, and all you lose is the near useless bottom pcie slot, all the other high-end board will cost you either sata ports or your gpu going 8x

    Other than that :
    8x rear usbs
    2x thunderbolt 3
    1x 10 + 1x 2.5gbit ethernet
    2x usb2.0 internal (needed if you have a complex rgb, custom loop build)

    I bought an MSI AMD board for the same reason, M.2 placement and bandwith sharing is better than all the other brands, one example of bad design
    ASUS Rog Maximus XII Extreme
    - 2x m.2 DIMM2 problem is they take cpu lanes (8x gpu + 4x m.2 + 4x m.2) so this feature is just taking space on the board for no reason it could have been a pcie addon card like MSI or other brands give they would have better cooling like that too
    - thunderbolt 3 requires pcie card..which also take cpu lanes, plus their card need an internal power cord, so this motherboard doesn't really have TB3..not when you compare it to other boards who have integrated TB3 ports requiring nothing and taking no cpu lanes, it's a non-feature

    as usual read the motherboard manuals especially everything I described above (bandwith sharing and how the advertised features are implemented) or you will have bad surprises, even on some TRX40 boards they managed to screw it up and have shared bandwith (on a 70+ lanes plateform wth...on the MSI creator every port and slot can be used with no downsides)
     
    Last edited: Jun 24, 2020
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  3. gerardfraser

    gerardfraser Guest

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    Great review, great motherboard , bad platform, well at least in my opinion.
     
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  4. tunejunky

    tunejunky Ancient Guru

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    Jeez, you read my mind
     
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  5. Witcher29

    Witcher29 Ancient Guru

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    Maybe if u go from z390 to z490 then yes.

    But going from a x99 to a z490 is a massive upgrade for me.
    Also u better of with the ACE then the GODLIKE they almost practical the same but the ACE got cooler vrm,s under load.
     
  6. gerardfraser

    gerardfraser Guest

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    Yes I can not argue with you on your upgrade but my opinion still stands for me.
    I also am not going to start listing why I think it is a bad platform in the review thread.
     
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  7. waltc3

    waltc3 Maha Guru

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    Not impressed...Sorry...I know you love this mboard, HH, in both the x570 and Z490 incarnations...But I'll take an x570 Master at half the price any day.. The new 1.1 revision x570 Masters include a Thunderbolt 3 connector, btw. The thing about 10GBe is that 99% of the market won't need it or want to pay for it--but you can always add additional cards to the x570 Master for the same thing--if you want. X570 Masters and current Zen 2 CPUs support PCIe4.0 right now--no waiting (and waiting...and waiting) involved. Sure, most people may not "need" PCIe 4 atm--but that applies triply for 10GBe, as well. Actually, I like the x570 Master more now than I did when I bought it last July. (The new F20a bios has added a raft of newly exposed bios features under AMD CBS.) Anyway--I think the x570 Master gives you more of the kinds of features you want in a motherboard. And I'm not pickin' on MSI, either. I wouldn't buy the Aorus x570 Xtreme, either, for many of the same reasons--too expensive for what you get when most of it comes stock on the Master for half the price (unless they've dropped the price of the Xtreme since I last looked.) Anyway, it was interesting to see what the $749 MSI Z490 mboard is lacking...;)
     
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  8. kakiharaFRS

    kakiharaFRS Master Guru

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    just a heads up ands maybe an alternative to this product ?
    I ended up buying a......9900k with a 2nd hand z390 taichi ultimate (impossible to buy anymore but even new it was around 300$ not 900 ><) for half the price of a 10700k+z490 10gbe motherboard
    currently z490 high-end all have stupidly high prices, more than X570 or TRX40 who are superior in every way

    10900k have never been in stock
    z490 boards way too expensive for their features
    that's how Intel hopes to beat AMD ? :rolleyes:
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2020
  9. nizzen

    nizzen Ancient Guru

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    Strange many does have 10900k now ;)

    I'm running 10900k on Asus Apex xii.

    5300mhz 1.28v and 4700c17 memory.

    I want to see any Amd cpu beating this in any game ;)

    Start with Fc 5:
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2020
  10. Tom Sunday

    Tom Sunday Member Guru

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    Even today many still are longing to at least once owning a Z490 Godlike. It has a nice ring to it! Dispite that two new generation boards including a newly mandated socket are on the short horizon. I guess the original cost for the Z490 Godlike was around $700? The new Z590 Godlike is now running a cool $1000 and clearly aimed for enthusiasts with very deep pockets and not relegated to WFH. With that I wonder if the Z490 Godlike will be heavily discounted after a while for the poorer side of the town? But then if one can readily afford any type of the Godlike series, why not go for the latest and the greatest? Thoughts?
     

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