Here are some of the first pictures of the MAG Z490 Tomahawk and MEG Z490 ACE motherboards by MSI. The Tomahawk brand of motherboards by MSI strike a chord with value-conscious gaming PC builders, and the MAG Z490 Tomahawk appears to live up to that. The board offers an impressive 14-phase CPU VRM that pulls power from a 8+4 pin EPS power input. The CPU socket is wired to one PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot. Other expansion slots include an x16 (gen 3.0 x4 electrical) slot, and a couple of x1 slots. You get two M.2 slots, both with heatsinks. The enlarged PCH heatsink on the MAG Z490 Tomahawk is studded with RGB LEDs, while it also includes a few upscale features such as a rear I/O shroud and an integrated I/O shield. On the connectivity front, we spy two wired networking interfaces, from which one is 2.5 GbE and the other 1 GbE, and an ALC1200-class CODEC based audio solution.

The MEG Z490 ACE is positioned at least two segments above the Tomahawk (it's positioned higher than the entire MPG family, including the Gaming Pro Carbon), and only a notch below the MEG Z490 GODLIKE. An elaborate 17-phase VRM powers the CPU, pulling power from a pair of 8-pin EPS connectors. Unless we're horribly mistaken, the board appears to feature PCI-Express gen 4.0 preparation (switches, re-drivers). It won't give you gen 4.0 with 10th generation "Comet Lake" processors, but perhaps you'll have better luck with its 11th gen successor. There are at least three M.2 slots, reinforced DIMM and PCIe x16 slots, and metal shrouds that span not just the front, but also the back of the PCB. Connectivity includes 802.11ax WLAN, two wired interfaces that include a 2.5 GbE, USB 3.2x2, etc.