MEG Z690 UNIFY

MSI are undisputably one of the best manufacturers out there for gaming/high performance motherboards, the MEG Z690 Unify does not fail to meet these expectations, if anything exceeding them slightly, for me personally.With its 12-layer PCB, it packs quite the heft, and feels very sturdy in hand, plenty of options for expansion with its 5 m.2 slots and indeed SLi/Crossfire compatible those die-hard gamers.The specification is very impressive for the price, it's definitely well suited to gamers or those who want a clutter-free experience in the case.Personally paired mine with an i9 12900ks and 32GB ddr5-6000 Corsair Vengeance CL36 ram, I'm Incredibly impressed, despite the steep learning curve with DDR5 vs previous generations, it's worth the time and efforts to get right.I won't deny it initially took a fair bit of tweaking settings to get XMP to run stable 24/7, but I'm inclined to put this down to the choice of memory rather than the motherboard itself.Overall, well worth the price paid (on offer at 30% off at time of purchase), very good build quality with heatsinks galore, including for all 5 m.2 slots. Subtle but industrious looking styling, it's a winner in my book.It should be noted the motherboard has no provision for integrated graphics and thus a dedicated GPU will be required, but then, given the target audience, this shouldn't be a problem for anyone looking to buy this particular board.Thunderbolt (USB4) support out the box, WiFi6 & BT with plenty of expansion for more than the already generous supply of USB3 ports upon the rear I/O. The 'Pros' are near endless.Multiple vendor ARGB support and headers for a total of 8 fans make cooling and lighting a breeze.Lack of paper manual included in the box was slightly frustrating and perhaps the only 'Con' i could make, given the caliber of the hardware, but then, it wasn't difficult to download the PDF and in fairness the paper saved is arguably quite environmentally conscious given I will likely never need to use the manual again throughout the lifetime of the product.

This is very solid choice when it comes to Z690 motherboards.Stability is spot on - no problems with my 5600MHz Corsair DDR5 and Intel 12700KF. The three M.2 PCIe4 drives I have installed run very fast and cool.There is a wide variety of I/O, with 20Gbps USB available both front and back as well as many 10Gbps ports.The all black aesthetic with no RGB whatsoever looks great as I often find that RGB on a motherboard can clash with RGB on other devices in the case.

I got this for just over £200 and even though its a Z690 I think that is a bargain.All black no RGB. Lots of cooling and heatsinks for M2s etc.Has twin 2.5GB ether net ports, not many other boards have this, great for a NAS.One thing to watch is that it does not support CPU graphics and does require a GPU. There are no video outputs on the motherboard. I got a very light x4 GPU as I'll mostly run this headless.I like MSI motherboards as they are reliable and usually well made and this one is no different.

Recently completed a full new build using the the Z690 MAG Tomahawk motherboard (DDR5). At the time of purchase, it was one of the best priced DDR5 motherboards that had also performed well in thermal testing.All positive impressions so far. Motherboard was sturdy and I didn't have any issues with damaging MB pins. The reference manual provided all the information I needed and I found it pretty easy to navigate, easy to find the MB connection locations (and then the pins themselves had good reference labelling). BIOS was also clean and easy to navigate. All in all so far so good, no issues :)The only note I would make is that the size of the heatsinks at the top, which are a reason for that good thermal performance, did mean I had trouble fitting 2x140mm fans in the top of my case. I did get both 140 fans in, however it was tight.But that isn't a major issues and for the rest of the positives, I am still happy with the product.

I shopped around for a motherboard that had the features I was looking for at a reasonable price. I came across this motherboard which had everything, WiFi 6e, 2.5G ethernet ports and 3 PCIe Gen 4.0 M2 slots for high speeds NVMe drives and a 4th PCIe Gen 3.0 slot !Using this with my intel i91200K, 32GB DDR5 Ram and a MSI Mech X2 6600 GPU and haven't had any issues at all. Using the MSI Center app on Windows 11 and the Frozr AI cooling system, my PC has been running smooth without issue since I built it in April !Would highly recommend this Motherboard to anyone looking to build a 12gen intel system ! For the price you can't fault it !

Great board, solid performance and features for the money. Nice to see MSI using Intel networking chipsets for both wired and wireless connections rather than problematic Realtek stuff.Well laid out board with plenty of connections for fans, RGB and front mounted USB-C. The BIOS while not as fine tuned as some is perfectly serviceable and easy to use.After using the board for a short while I'm pleased with my purchase.

First of all, I'm a big, big MSI fan so it hurts to write this review. I bought the motherboard as part of my regular upgrade plan and was particularly looking forward to upgrading to DDR5.sadly, after switching to the new motherboard, it wasn't receiving any power. Doublechecked the new PSU and connector cables. Switched back to the old mother board - no problems. Switched again and the new MB still wasn't getting power. A quick search online and I found that this issue was fairly commonplace - if it's a known problem then MSI should really remove it from sale.I've now RTA'd the motherboard and will go for the more expensive "Carbon" once I get the refund