MSI MEG X670E ACE

[ir_cow]

How many, and of what PCIE generation, can I add, without taking anything away from the PCIE5 slots - wanting to run x8, x8, x4. I can have one NVME? Of any gen?

Motherboard has four M.2 sockets. Three are Gen4 X4 and one is Gen5 X4 ( which will work as Gen4 as well). These will not take away any PCIe slots.

The MSI xpander card will had two more M.2 sockets that support Gen5. It goes into the second PCIe slots for both to be active. However you can put it in the bottom PCIe X4 slot for just one drive.

You have 4 M.2 that doesn't effect any PCIe slots and another 1/2 that will use A PCIe slots. Leaving you with 5 or 6 depending on configuration. 8x/USED/X4 or 8x/8x/USED.

Make sense?

 

[JimGrongle]

Sweet, thank you so much for clarifying!!

 

[apenland01]

My last build was in 2010 with a GB board and 1090t cpu. I've had to go to school on this new AM5 setup. I just bought the MSI Ace because I've had MSI boards in the past and had good luck with them.

What put me on this board was first and foremost availability. I was looking at the GB extreme, but it's been out of stock for over a month. 10g LAN, NVME 5.0 and good bios were what made me pull the trigger. I've never paid anywhere near what this damn thing cost, but I honestly believe I will easily get 12 years out of it, just like I did my last build that I'm typing on right now.

While I'll be in for about $3,000 total for the entire build, it should be top of the line and last me into retirement....

 

[ir_cow]

I've never paid anywhere near what this damn thing cost, but I honestly believe I will easily get 12 years out of it, just like I did my last build that I'm typing on right now.

While I'll be in for about $3,000 total for the entire build, it should be top of the line and last me into retirement....

Honestly this is where AMD is really ahead. Given the socket will have a long life and PCIe Gen5 isn't even used yet. Say you upgrade the CPU in 5 years. Only thing you have to replace is that. Though, maybe it will be time for a video card upgrade as well. Intel give limited upgrade paths for long term users.

 

[kapone32]

I was reading through the comments on this and would like to comment on the x8 3rd slot. There are scenarios where that would be a great value;

1. You are getting a 7000 series APU and want to maximize your storage. We know that AMD likes to GIMP the APUs lanes so you don't get the full 16 on the main slot anyway. Well you could still have a 4 way RAID 0 or 2 RAID 0 arrays to take advantage of direct storage across the top 2 slots. If down the road you get a current GPU you could easily put it in the 3rd slot (barring size) and not really lose any legible performance as 5.0 x4 is the same as 3.0x16 but importantly the GPU has 8 physical lanes to communicate with.

2. You already have a 7000 series chip and want more storage, that will not be heated by your GPU. You could spend big on Amazon and get a (probably) used Enterprise NVME with a controller. There is however a special product on the market. The WD AN 1500 which is much better than any expansion card. You see it has a Marvell controller on the PCB. That means that Windows sees that controller first and that controller tells Windows how much storage it has. Now you could spend $1100 on the 4 TB or buy the 1 TB for (Currently) $281.47 Canadian. You could then take 2 of the Kingston NV2 2 TB drives and have a over 6 GB/s 4TB NVME for under $600. The WD AN1500 will work in any slot but will reach it's full potential in a slot wired x8.

Realistically the Ace is the only MB lineup that allows you to do this. The X570 Ace, Unify and X570S Ace all are wired as x8 on the 3rd slot. When I make the jump to AM5 it will be this board that I will be using. Besides that fact that to me the board is industrially beautiful. I absolutely love my X570S Ace Max. Even the little things like the post code LED being white. Against that Gun Metal surface, it pops nicely.

 

[apenland01]

I got the build done yesterday and I love this motherboard, it's just amazing. Nothing about it I don't like, I even like the BIOS. If I decide to add 2 M.2 down the road, I can use the expander card on PCI-e 3 and still maintain my x16 on PCI-e for my GPU, gotta love that...

 

[apenland01]

Okay, so I updated to the 15 bios that was released a few weeks ago and within a day I started having BSOD with "power drive state failure" about 3 or 4 times per day. I had also changed video drivers at the same time. I thought maybe my APC battery was having issues, so went straight to the wall and still had the problem. Reinstalled windows and drivers and still had the problem. Rolled back the bios to 13 last night and haven't had any issues yet today. I think there was something in conflict with the new bios and the current drivers...

 

[kapone32]

I got the build done yesterday and I love this motherboard, it's just amazing. Nothing about it I don't like, I even like the BIOS. If I decide to add 2 M.2 down the road, I can use the expander card on PCI-e 3 and still maintain my x16 on PCI-e for my GPU, gotta love that...

I thought it was my PC for a second. Glad to see someone else using the SR36 Pro.

 

[apenland01]

I thought it was my PC for a second. Glad to see someone else using the SR36 Pro.

I absolutely love the SR36 Pro, I couldn't ask for a better AIO. I run the CPUZ stress test and it maxes out at 85c. Supposedly the 7950x wants to run at 95c, but this cooler won't let it get that high lol....