MSI MEG Z390 ACE Motherboard Spotted For Intel 9th Gen Core Coffee Lake CPUs
We already knew that MSI was planning on launching more than half a dozen motherboards based on Intel's upcoming Z390 chipset, but we have not seen the full lineup, apparently. Yet another Z390 motherboard has leaked to the web, this latest one being MSI's MEG Z390 ACE, which will sit alongside the company's MEG Z390 Godlike on top of the product stack.
MSI is taking aim at enthusiasts and overclockers with its MEG boards. For those who do not want to go all out on the MEG Z390 Godlike for whatever the asking price ends up being, the MEG Z390 ACE will offer similar features but at a presumably more palatable price. Exactly what it ends up costing remains to be seen, though.
The ACE up MSI's sleeve appears to feature a 13-phase VRM, down from the Godlike's 18-phase power design. This will likely only affect extreme overclockers—anyone chasing a world record with LN2 cooling will probably want to opt for the Godlke SKU.
Both motherboards feature a pair of 8-pin PCI Express power connectors. The MEG Z390 ACE also boasts three reinforced PCIe x16 slot like its pricier sibling, along with a fixed I/O shield, at least six SATA 6Gbps ports, and heavy duty heatsinks.
There are some other differences between the ACE and Godlike than just the power delivery. The ACE does not have an onboard OLED display, and only one of the three M.2 slots has a shield. There's also no indication that MSI will be bundling a streaming add-in card or an M.2 card. And finally, we can see that there's 'only' one GbE LAN port, though it does come with onboard Wi-Fi connectivity.
All of the unreleased Z390 motherboards that have been making appearances on the web in recent weeks will support Intel's upcoming 9th generation Core processor lineup (Coffee Lake Refresh). The new CPUs are rumored to launch on October 8, with Intel debuting its next-gen parts with three SKUs: Core i9-9900K, Core i7-9700K, and Core i5-9600K.
