MSI Z890 Gaming Plus WIFI6E Review - Z890 for under $200

TweakTown Rating: 92%

Our Verdict

For under $200, the MSI Z890 Gaming Plus WIFI6E's solid core feature set makes it a highly appealing bang-for-buck option.

Pros

• Z890 for under $200
• 5G LAN
• Good performance and capable VRM
• Fast memory support
• BIOS design and functionality

Cons

• SSD temperatures are a bit high

Should you buy it?

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Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

Being a PC gamer these days is...challenging. There's no end in sight for sky-high memory and storage prices, but the AI apocalypse hasn't made its way to consumer motherboards. The MSI Z890 Gaming Plus WIFI6E is a capable Z890 board that sells for under $200. It's not the only Z890 board under that mark, but it's one of only a handful of ATX boards that aren't low-end models in disguise.

Barring any discounts, the Z890 Gaming Plus WIFI6E appears to be MSI's cheapest gaming-focused motherboard. Unusually, it is not included under any of MSI's usual MEG, MAG and MPG branding, but don't be fooled. This isn't a cheap charlie board. It's got some compelling features and even manages to include some overclocking headroom on top.

The release of the Core Ultra 200 Plus series has brought new attention to the otherwise underwhelming Arrow Lake family. The 270K Plus, in particular, is excellent at highly threaded workloads, and in many cases its gaming performance exceeds that of the more expensive 285K. Compared to AMD's X3D offerings, its gaming performance only becomes a handicap if you have a high-end graphics card or you want hundreds of FPS in competitive shooters. With a 250K Plus, it's possible to build a budget PC, particularly if you don't have to go out and buy a new memory kit to go in it.

The Z890 Gaming Plus WIFI6E includes a set of features that are very good for this price. As the name suggests, you get WiFi 6E, along with four M.2 slots, USB 20Gbps, a well-designed BIOS, and 5G LAN. With PCIe 5.0 GPU and SSD support, the building blocks are there. The board even includes a supplementary 8-pin PCIe power plug, so in theory you could install an RTX 5090 and get the same performance you'd get from a board costing five times as much.

Other key features include a 14-phase VRM with a large heatsink, three PCIe x16 expansion slots, a capable VRM with good cooling, support for DDR5-9200+, and an attractive aesthetic.

The Z890 Gaming Plus WIFI6E is available for $199. For a new board, that is outstanding. Some first-generation boards sneak under that price from time to time, but there's no denying that this MSI offers a lot for its budget price.

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Packaging, Accessories, and Overview

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It's clear there's Intel inside this box.

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As with all motherboard boxes, the rear shows off the key features and provides a detailed specification rundown. 5G LAN is an obvious highlight.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Question #1

What VRM configuration and power delivery does the Z890 Gaming Plus WIFI6E use, and is it sufficient for a Core Ultra 270K Plus?

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Question #2

What networking options are included (wired and wireless) and which controllers are used for 5G LAN and WiFi 6E?

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Question #3

What cooling and thermal behavior did the review find for the VRM and M.2 SSDs, and any recommended case airflow considerations?

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What DIY and accessory features come in the box (antennas, SATA cables, EZ-Conn), and what RGB/fan header options are available on-board?

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The board comes with a regulation set of accessories. There are the usual items, such as M.2 screws, documentation, and a pair of SATA cables. The WiFi antenna is well made, and you get a set of stickers.

Finally, there's what MSI calls the EZ-Conn cable, which combines a system fan header and a 5V ARGB header into a single connector. This is the V1 version. More expensive MSI boards come with a larger header that also includes USB 2.0 support.

Motherboard Overview

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The board features a mostly black color scheme with lots of accents. The board itself lacks RGB lighting, but it has three ARGB headers and one additional 12V RGB header. There are seven fan headers. You'll have to pay more if you want items such as power buttons or a debug LED.

The USB header complement includes a single Type-C 20 Gbps port, four 5 Gbps ports, and four USB 2.0 ports. Note that the 20 Gbps port is the fastest one the board offers.

The board includes only a few DIY-friendly features. The primary heatsink features a quick-release mechanism, and I really like how you can install an M.2 drive by just pushing it down. The primary PCIe slot features a slightly extended release clip, which is really all you need when you think about it.

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There's nothing of note on the rear of the board.

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The Z890 Gaming Plus WIFI6E has four DIMM slots that support up to DDR5-9200+ speeds. You'll likely need CUDIMMs to get anywhere near that. I doubt many users will buy CUDIMMs at their current prices, especially to use with a $200 board.

At the upper left of the picture above, you can see the simple yet effective extended PCIe slot release button. Next to the 24-pin power connector is a row of four LEDs that help diagnose any issues.

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The board offers three full-length PCIe x16 slots. The top slot supports PCIe 5.0 x16 via the CPU. The other x16 slots support PCIe 4.0 x4 electrically. A solitary PCIe 4.0 x1 slot joins them. Four expansion slots make the Z890 Gaming Plus WIFI6E a great choice for those looking to install at least two expansion cards along with a GPU.

The board supports up to four M.2 SSDs. The topmost slot supports PCIe 5.0 x4 while the others support PCIe 4.0 x4. Four SATA ports join the four M.2 slots.

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The primary M.2 heatsink is the only one that features a quick-release mechanism. The others are attached with screws. While the Z890 Gaming Plus WIFI6E offers a lot, this SSD heatsink is a letdown. It lacks surface area, and returned the highest SSD temperature in this admittedly small group. However, if we include AM5 results in this group, it is still the equal highest when factoring in a further 16 AM5 boards.

Having said that, as long as you have decent airflow in the case, SSD temperatures should remain under control. Leaving your GPU fans lightly spinning while it's idling can also help lower SSD temperatures.

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For its price, the VRM of the Z890 Gaming Plus WIFI6E is strong. It's a 14+1+1-phase VRM with 55A stages. That's more than enough to power a 270K, even with a bit of overclocking. Obviously, this isn't a board you'd use to push a CPU to its limits, but it's far better than some of the rubbish you'll find on entry-level boards.

If the SSD heatsink is disappointing, then the VRM heatsink is anything but. It is more than capable of keeping the VRM cool, and it keeps up with more expensive boards. Well done, MSI. Thankfully, a 270K Plus is nowhere near as demanding as a CPU like the 14900K is.

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The board's affordable price is evident when you look at the rear I/O. It's important not to expect too much at this price.

The USB complement includes two 10 Gbps ports, two 5 Gbps ports, and four USB 2.0 ports. Do remember there's a 20Gbps header on the board, so at least there's something for a high-speed device.

It's nice to see DP 1.4 and HDMI 2.1 ports. That provides dual-monitor support with the surprisingly capable Xe-LPG graphics of Core Ultra 200 CPUs. To the left is a BIOS flashback button, which is surely going to be underutilized given that LGA1851 is nearing the end of its life, unless Intel springs a surprise.

5G LAN support is one of the board's highlights. It's provided via an Intel Killer E5000 controller. The board's namesake, WiFi 6E, is also provided by Intel.

Next are the audio ports, which consist of 3.5mm line-in and line-out ports. A cost-saving Realtek ALC897 controller drives these. This chip might struggle to deliver a high-quality orchestra experience, but it'll handle explosions just fine.

UEFI and Test System

UEFI

MSI introduced a new BIOS layout with its 800 series boards. It's been tweaked to reflect the board's design. It combines the simplicity of old-school BIOS layouts with a fresh design that's easy on the eye. I'm particularly impressed by the Hardware Monitoring page.

Also, I love green.

The EZ Mode page includes almost every setting a user needs. All set-and-forget features, such as XMP, automatic overclocking, boot priority, and fan controls, can be accessed from this page.

Test System

• CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus - Buy from Amazon
• GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3X - Buy from Amazon
• RAM: G.Skill Trident Z Neo RGB 2x16GB DDR5-6000 CL30 - Buy from Amazon
• Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL360 Flux - Buy from Amazon
• OS Storage: Teamgroup T-Force Z540 2TB - Buy from Amazon
• Power Supply: Super Flower Leadex Titanium 850W - Buy from Amazon
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro - Buy from Amazon

Benchmarks - Rendering and Encoding

Cinebench 2024

Cinebench 2024 is a reliable, widely used benchmark that measures both single- and multi-threaded performance. Note that all our benchmark testing used the latest available Windows updates.

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We've switched over to the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus for ongoing Z890 motherboard reviews. So far, the number of results is limited. But it's a great start for the Z890 Gaming Plus WIFI6E.

Blender

Intel's Core Ultra CPUs perform well in this test thanks to their high core count. We use the Whitelands demo file and record how long it takes to render the image.

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The margins here aren't significant in percentage terms. The CPU has far more influence in this test than the motherboard.

Handbrake

Handbrake is a simple-to-use video encoding and transcoding application. Here, we convert a 4K movie trailer to 1080p. The results below show the average FPS, with higher values indicating the task will take less time to complete.

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This is right on where we expect a 270K Plus to perform.

Benchmarks - File Compression and Memory Latency

7Zip

7Zip is a commonly used free file compression and decompression app. It's very sensitive to changes in memory speed and latency, and scales with the number of CPU threads.

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My guess is the GIGABYTE AORUS Elite WiFi 7 Plus sets aggressive memory subtimings, which is helping it beat the MSI in some of these tests. The following memory latency result bears that out.

AIDA64 Memory Latency

Memory latency has been an area where Intel has traditionally held an advantage. Chiplet architectures inevitably add some latency compared to monolithic chips. The real-world benefits aren't that important, though.

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Look at how the MSI, paired with a 270K Plus, has far lower latency than the 285K.

Benchmarks - 3DMark

3DMark Storage

UL's newest 3DMark SSD Gaming Test is the most comprehensive SSD gaming test ever devised. It is superior to testing against games themselves because, as a trace, it is much more consistent than variations that will occur between runs of the actual game.

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This is a good result, given the MSI's slightly higher SSD temperature readings. It looks like they are not high enough to induce any throttling, as it's leading the pack.

3DMark Time Spy Extreme

Time Spy Extreme has lost favor as a graphics benchmark to Speed Way and Steel Nomad, but its CPU test is still a good measure of multi-core performance.

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These margins are small, with only a couple of hundred points separating the boards when measured by CPU score.

Benchmarks - Gaming

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is brutal on graphics cards, but when features like ray tracing are disabled, it becomes more sensitive to differences in CPU and memory performance.

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It's impressive to see the uplift the 270K Plus achieves over the supposedly faster 285K, particularly the minimum FPS results. Also, it's no surprise that the motherboard makes little difference in graphically limited scenarios.

Horizon Zero Dawn

When using the 'favor performance' preset, Horizon Zero Dawn can achieve high frame rates with powerful graphics cards.

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The differences here are negligible. If you're lucky enough to own an RTX 5090, the margins would be a little larger. Again, these results show the boards with the 270K Plus easily outperform the more expensive 285K.

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition

Metro Exodus received an update that added improved DLSS support, enhanced ray tracing features, and variable rate shading, among other things. Still, with a powerful graphics card, it is affected by CPU and memory performance at 1080p, though less so with a card like the RTX 4070 Ti Super.

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Only a few frames cover the 270K-equipped boards in this test.

VRM and SSD Temperatures

These tests are performed to highlight the differences among each motherboard's cooling assemblies. Each board is subjected to a 20-minute Cinebench loop, while the SSD test records the peak temperature during the lengthy 3DMark Storage test.

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A peak temperature reading of 57 degrees is very impressive for a sub-$200 board. The ASRock Z890 Aqua is ahead by a few degrees, but that's a flagship-tier board.

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This is where the MSI is a bit of a letdown. Anyway, it's not terrible. Just be sure your case has adequate airflow if you plan to thrash your SSD with heavy reads and writes.

Final Thoughts

It's nice to see a PC component priced reasonably without being brutalized by the AI market's roar. The MSI Z890 Gaming Plus WIFI6E comes with Intel's best consumer chipset for $199. That's some darn good value. It's got a decent-quality VRM, 5G LAN, and support for high-speed memory. It'll happily house a 270K Plus CPU, any graphics card you care to name, and a fast SSD or two. That will get you a PC that performs just as well as any Intel desktop PC.

It's a board that focuses on a core feature set without expensive bells and whistles. The aforementioned 5G LAN is great to see at this price, and the inclusion of four expansion slots makes it one of the few boards at any price to include that many. It's too bad Intel is dropping support for LGA 1851 after just one generation. The upgrade path of a B850 or X870 motherboard is a major selling point.

I've long been a fan of MSI's UEFI. It is easy to navigate, and it's easy on the eye. MSI's software has also come a long way. You can choose the modules you want to install without unnecessary bloat.

The competition is strong around this price point. MSI's own Z890 Tomahawk WiFi II is worth considering. It includes WiFi 7 and Thunderbolt 4, but it's $30 more than the Z890 Gaming Plus WIFI6E. In a market where every dollar matters, $30 goes some way towards offsetting the price of a memory kit. The GIGABYTE Z890M AORUS Elite ICE also includes WiFi 7 and Thunderbolt 4 for $200, but it's only got 2.5G LAN. It's mATX, loses an M.2 slot, and it's white.

As long as you have adequate airflow to keep M.2 temperatures under control, the MSI Z890 Gaming Plus WIFI6E is a motherboard with strong expansion potential. It'll happily host high-end components - and even support a bit of overclocking. If you're after an updated Z890 motherboard with a strong focus on value, it's absolutely worth considering the Z890 Gaming Plus WIFI6E.