MSI MPOWER Motherboard Series Resurrected After Long Absence

[T0@st]

An exclusive report provides an initial tease of MSI's relaunch of MPOWER—a beloved product line of high performance yet wallet friendly motherboards. Wccftech published their Z790MPOWER model coverage only a few hours ago. MSI's final batch of MPOWER-branded boards landed back in 2017, with Z170 and Z270 chipsets (on Intel Socket 1151). Here is Wccftech's statement on the matter: "MSI is marking the return of the MPOWER series with a new and cost-effective Z790 product, the Z790MPOWER. This motherboard may look like a very mainstream design but it has something that only a few high-end motherboards can do and that is support for the best DDR5 memory out there."

They moved onto showcasing the board's feature set: "Starting with the details, the MSI Z790MPOWER motherboard features the LGA 1700/1800 socket & supports 12th, 13th, and 14th Gen CPUs from Intel. It is powered by a 15-Phase VRM design which is provided power through dual 8-pin connectors. There are large heatsinks over the VRMs and the Mini-ATX with a silver and black finish looks great." The usual bits of overclocking terminology adorn Z790MPOWER's various heatsinks—including "Overclock, Frequency, MHz, Voltages and Clock."




The Z790MPOWER's DIMM configuration is restricted to only two slots, which is ideal for overclocking enthusiasts. A list of RAM partners reveals support for a wide selection of the latest 64 GB capacity high-speed DDR5 modules, naturally adding up to a total of 128 GB—well-heeled memory enthusiasts step forward! Wccftech believes that MPOWER-branded memory kits are in the pipeline, thanks to MSI collaborating with favored manufacturers. Additional features include: "two M.2 slots placed under an M.2 heatsink, four SATA III Ports, a single PCIe 5.0 x16, & two PCIe 4.0 (X1 / X4) slots. Rear I/O includes four USB 2.0, three USB 3.2 Gen 1, and a single USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port. There's also WIFI 6E + BT5.2, 2.5GbE Ethernet LAN, and a 7.1 channel audio jack."



Chinese and nearby hardware markets seem to be the first ports of call—launch pricing could be 1599 RMB ($225). North Americans will be pleased to hear about MSI's (alleged) MSRP of "$199 USD for the Z790MPOWER motherboard making it one of the most affordable memory-overclocking boards on the market. The price is $229 US with taxes in certain regions, but it is an impressive pricing for a motherboard with such high-end capabilities."

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[dj-electric]

Dear MSI, please don't pull a "TUF" on us.
If you are going to revive MPOWER, please give it the appropriate hardware.

 

[bonehead123]

I seem to recall the previous "MPOWER" series boards as being near or at the highest of high end products back in the day.....

And with most Z790 boards also following this trend, then why no TB/USB-4 ports and Gen 5 m.2 slots, not to mention the new back-side connectors....

 

[tabascosauz]

2DIMM is great and all, but where's the rest of the kit?? No POST code and buttons?

It looks like they just removed 2 DIMM slots from their usual lower midrange mATX fare and called it a day. Like literally so, it's just completely empty space in the top right where the 2 other slots were supposed to be. Guess that's their idea of a budget Gene.......this thing should cost no more than any of their existing mATX boards.

And no BIOS flashback?

 

[laychi]

Looks like an MSI B660 Mortar Max Wifi with Z790 chipset and 2x DDR5 Memory Dimms.
OC Engine chip near the 1st nvme slot. 390121_obadul1pvmdcutup_mpower_new.jpg (1202×1200) (rios.hu)

 

[wNotyarD]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but if overclocking is the objective for this motherboard, shouldn't it have PS/2 ports?

 

[MachineLearning]

2DIMM is great and all, but where's the rest of the kit?? No POST code and buttons?

It looks like they just removed 2 DIMM slots from their usual lower midrange mATX fare and called it a day. Like literally so, it's just completely empty space in the top right where the 2 other slots were supposed to be. Guess that's their idea of a budget Gene.......this thing should cost no more than any of their existing mATX boards.

And no BIOS flashback?

VRM also does not appear to be strong. I think it could power a 14900KS within acceptable limits, especially with a fan on the VRM, but I expect more from a board marketed for overclocking.

Also, writing "Clock," "Frequency," "Timings," and "Overclocking" doesn't instantly make it good. I suppose MSI has a magical thinking department, with poor fashion taste.

 

[Toothless]

Man if MSI brought back that z97 MPower kind of quality and features, I'd buy one instantly.

Instead all we see is a starved mATX with some pretty words on it. Pretty sure my dead Gigabyte boards run better than whatever they just pumped out.

 

[Nostras]

There's many more lines that MSI phased out that I'd lik to see again.
I still fondly remember the Big Bang Fuzion (and what a useless pos the Lucid Hybrid Engine was).
Damn, now I miss the striker series from ASUS as well...

 

[Assimilator]

What is an "absense"?

 

[ir_cow]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but if overclocking is the objective for this motherboard, shouldn't it have PS/2 ports?

Only if your doing LN2 stuff. Which I highly doubt anyone will on this motherboard. You will be surprised to find a lot of those LN2 people still use USB ports anyways. Watch some streams and you'll see they just have to warm the MB up for the ports to work again. IDK the full details myself though.

 

[wNotyarD]

Only if your doing LN2 stuff. Which I highly doubt anyone will on this motherboard. You will be surprised to find a lot of those LN2 people still use USB ports anyways. Watch some streams and you'll see they just have to warm the MB up for the ports to work again. IDK the full details myself though.

Alright. I just said it out of comparison against the Apex or Tachyon, those do carry PS/2 connectors.

 

[Wirko]

What is an "absense"?

There exist eight or more countries where English is the first or official language, I'm certain this is the correct spelling of "absence" somewhere.

 

[P4-630]

Rather have my Aorus Master board....

 

[Dr. Dro]

I like this. But I dislike the lack of a debug code reader. That's a deal-breaker for me, especially if they're claiming any sort of overclockability from it. Oh well, looks like I will be keeping my Z690 Ace until the super enthusiasts begin buying Arrow Lake at a minimum.

 

[Onasi]

It’s a cool board for a fairly specific niche of “I want really good memory OC potential, but I don’t want to pay much for the MB”. Frankly, for the price you can do much worse and the focus on memory is fine. OCing modern CPUs is mostly pointless in practical terms anyway. Would it be cool if this was a successor to old-school MPower boards, a no-compromise overbuilt beast for the top of the top LN2 records? Sure. But that would probably be not the best product in terms of actually making money, so I understand why MSI went down this route.

 

[Redwoodz]

It’s a cool board for a fairly specific niche of “I want really good memory OC potential, but I don’t want to pay much for the MB”. Frankly, for the price you can do much worse and the focus on memory is fine. OCing modern CPUs is mostly pointless in practical terms anyway. Would it be cool if this was a successor to old-school MPower boards, a no-compromise overbuilt beast for the top of the top LN2 records? Sure. But that would probably be not the best product in terms of actually making money, so I understand why MSI went down this route.

This. You don't need to overclock the cpu anymore beyond what you do in bios and cooling. CPU overclocking is kind of dead with modern factory boost features. Memory is the only thing left to tune.

 

[Frozoken]

2DIMM is great and all, but where's the rest of the kit?? No POST code and buttons?

It looks like they just removed 2 DIMM slots from their usual lower midrange mATX fare and called it a day. Like literally so, it's just completely empty space in the top right where the 2 other slots were supposed to be. Guess that's their idea of a budget Gene.......this thing should cost no more than any of their existing mATX boards.

And no BIOS flashback?

There's a connector on the board for plugging a separate qcode/post code into that it comes with for free iirc. My main complaint with the board is that it's matx, should've been atx with at least 3, ideally 4 m.2 slots. Z790 has 8 gen 4 chipset lanes yet we only have one sssd ue 4 lanes avaliable to run through the chipset but ig u could use a gen 4 pcie to m.2 adapter at least. It's also a good board if you want the cheapest board to run dual rank ddr5 without plummeting both ur ddr5 speed and stability like with 4 dimmers. At xmp dual rank ddr5 runs like 800MT/s higher stable on 2 dikm boards compared to 4.