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MSI MEG X670E ACE

ir_cow

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How many, and of what PCIE generation, can I add, without taking anything away from the PCIE5 slots - wanting to run x8, x8, x4. I can have one NVME? Of any gen?
Motherboard has four M.2 sockets. Three are Gen4 X4 and one is Gen5 X4 ( which will work as Gen4 as well). These will not take away any PCIe slots.

The MSI xpander card will had two more M.2 sockets that support Gen5. It goes into the second PCIe slots for both to be active. However you can put it in the bottom PCIe X4 slot for just one drive.

You have 4 M.2 that doesn't effect any PCIe slots and another 1/2 that will use A PCIe slots. Leaving you with 5 or 6 depending on configuration. 8x/USED/X4 or 8x/8x/USED.

Make sense?
 

apenland01

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My last build was in 2010 with a GB board and 1090t cpu. I've had to go to school on this new AM5 setup. I just bought the MSI Ace because I've had MSI boards in the past and had good luck with them.

What put me on this board was first and foremost availability. I was looking at the GB extreme, but it's been out of stock for over a month. 10g LAN, NVME 5.0 and good bios were what made me pull the trigger. I've never paid anywhere near what this damn thing cost, but I honestly believe I will easily get 12 years out of it, just like I did my last build that I'm typing on right now.

While I'll be in for about $3,000 total for the entire build, it should be top of the line and last me into retirement....
 

ir_cow

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I've never paid anywhere near what this damn thing cost, but I honestly believe I will easily get 12 years out of it, just like I did my last build that I'm typing on right now.

While I'll be in for about $3,000 total for the entire build, it should be top of the line and last me into retirement....
Honestly this is where AMD is really ahead. Given the socket will have a long life and PCIe Gen5 isn't even used yet. Say you upgrade the CPU in 5 years. Only thing you have to replace is that. Though, maybe it will be time for a video card upgrade as well. Intel give limited upgrade paths for long term users.
 
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I was reading through the comments on this and would like to comment on the x8 3rd slot. There are scenarios where that would be a great value;

1. You are getting a 7000 series APU and want to maximize your storage. We know that AMD likes to GIMP the APUs lanes so you don't get the full 16 on the main slot anyway. Well you could still have a 4 way RAID 0 or 2 RAID 0 arrays to take advantage of direct storage across the top 2 slots. If down the road you get a current GPU you could easily put it in the 3rd slot (barring size) and not really lose any legible performance as 5.0 x4 is the same as 3.0x16 but importantly the GPU has 8 physical lanes to communicate with.

2. You already have a 7000 series chip and want more storage, that will not be heated by your GPU. You could spend big on Amazon and get a (probably) used Enterprise NVME with a controller. There is however a special product on the market. The WD AN 1500 which is much better than any expansion card. You see it has a Marvell controller on the PCB. That means that Windows sees that controller first and that controller tells Windows how much storage it has. Now you could spend $1100 on the 4 TB or buy the 1 TB for (Currently) $281.47 Canadian. You could then take 2 of the Kingston NV2 2 TB drives and have a over 6 GB/s 4TB NVME for under $600. The WD AN1500 will work in any slot but will reach it's full potential in a slot wired x8.

Realistically the Ace is the only MB lineup that allows you to do this. The X570 Ace, Unify and X570S Ace all are wired as x8 on the 3rd slot. When I make the jump to AM5 it will be this board that I will be using. Besides that fact that to me the board is industrially beautiful. I absolutely love my X570S Ace Max. Even the little things like the post code LED being white. Against that Gun Metal surface, it pops nicely.
 

apenland01

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I got the build done yesterday and I love this motherboard, it's just amazing. Nothing about it I don't like, I even like the BIOS. If I decide to add 2 M.2 down the road, I can use the expander card on PCI-e 3 and still maintain my x16 on PCI-e for my GPU, gotta love that...






 

apenland01

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Okay, so I updated to the 15 bios that was released a few weeks ago and within a day I started having BSOD with "power drive state failure" about 3 or 4 times per day. I had also changed video drivers at the same time. I thought maybe my APC battery was having issues, so went straight to the wall and still had the problem. Reinstalled windows and drivers and still had the problem. Rolled back the bios to 13 last night and haven't had any issues yet today. I think there was something in conflict with the new bios and the current drivers...
 
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I got the build done yesterday and I love this motherboard, it's just amazing. Nothing about it I don't like, I even like the BIOS. If I decide to add 2 M.2 down the road, I can use the expander card on PCI-e 3 and still maintain my x16 on PCI-e for my GPU, gotta love that...






I thought it was my PC for a second. Glad to see someone else using the SR36 Pro.
 

apenland01

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I thought it was my PC for a second. Glad to see someone else using the SR36 Pro.

I absolutely love the SR36 Pro, I couldn't ask for a better AIO. I run the CPUZ stress test and it maxes out at 85c. Supposedly the 7950x wants to run at 95c, but this cooler won't let it get that high lol....
 

apenland01

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Okay, I updated the BIOS to v17 yesterday and within 20 minutes got the blue screen of death with "power drive state failure" again, even after I updated all the drivers to the newest listed on the MSI site. I'm not sure what is happening, but the only BIOS stable for me is v13. Rolled it back to 13 and no issues at all. It's the damnedest thing....
 
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Okay, I updated the BIOS to v17 yesterday and within 20 minutes got the blue screen of death with "power drive state failure" again, even after I updated all the drivers to the newest listed on the MSI site. I'm not sure what is happening, but the only BIOS stable for me is v13. Rolled it back to 13 and no issues at all. It's the damnedest thing....
MSI released BIOS v18 a day after v17.

I'm running the latest BIOS on my ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Hero and TUF X670E Plus Wifi.
 
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I got the build done yesterday and I love this motherboard, it's just amazing. Nothing about it I don't like, I even like the BIOS. If I decide to add 2 M.2 down the road, I can use the expander card on PCI-e 3 and still maintain my x16 on PCI-e for my GPU, gotta love that...






I thought I was the only one who uses a Inwin AIO well done!!!
 

apenland01

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MSI released BIOS v18 a day after v17.

I'm running the latest BIOS on my ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Hero and TUF X670E Plus Wifi.

Yeah, v182 was listed as a beta updated late April. I figure I'll try it again once it's out of beta...
 

ir_cow

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Yeah, v182 was listed as a beta updated late April. I figure I'll try it again once it's out of beta...
That's the one I'm using. Updated over the weekend. Besides longer boot times, and broken fan controls, everything else is fine.

Fans stay at full speed even after adjusting in the BIOS (which is "applied"). Installed MSI Center for fan control. It's not a fix, but a workaround. I was on 1.2v before and tempted to go back.
 

apenland01

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That's the one I'm using. Updated over the weekend. Besides longer boot times, and broken fan controls, everything else is fine.

Fans stay at full speed even after adjusting in the BIOS (which is "applied"). Installed MSI Center for fan control. It's not a fix, but a workaround. I was on 1.2v before and tempted to go back.

Well I'm not tolerant of unstable BIOS. I realize I'm a guinea pig buying the AM5 in it's infancy, but I'll stick with the stable v13 until there is a proven newer BIOS that performs as well. It's a great BIOS, so I honestly don't see any reason to upgrade from v13 any time soon....
 

ir_cow

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@apenland01 just make sure to keep the SoC voltage below 1.3V. That is really what this BIOS update is about, so you don't kill the CPU.
 

apenland01

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Hmm, I'll have to check that in the BIOS. If the voltage is reduced in the newer BIOS, that could be why I'm getting a power state fault and BSOD. I may try a new BIOS and set the voltage manually. Thanks for the idea...
 
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Hmm, I'll have to check that in the BIOS. If the voltage is reduced in the newer BIOS, that could be why I'm getting a power state fault and BSOD. I may try a new BIOS and set the voltage manually. Thanks for the idea...
What's your SoC voltage?

My ASUS TUF X670E Plus WiFi before and after BIOS updates

My old BIOS 821.
TUF670E BIOS 821.jpg



Latest BIOS 1414
TUF x670 BIOS 1414.png

Based on EXPO II, I tightened the memory timings with BIOS 821 and 1414.

I skipped all the BIOS releases between 0821 and 1414.

I was reading through the comments on this and would like to comment on the x8 3rd slot. There are scenarios where that would be a great value;

1. You are getting a 7000 series APU and want to maximize your storage. We know that AMD likes to GIMP the APUs lanes so you don't get the full 16 on the main slot anyway. Well you could still have a 4 way RAID 0 or 2 RAID 0 arrays to take advantage of direct storage across the top 2 slots. If down the road you get a current GPU you could easily put it in the 3rd slot (barring size) and not really lose any legible performance as 5.0 x4 is the same as 3.0x16 but importantly the GPU has 8 physical lanes to communicate with.

2. You already have a 7000 series chip and want more storage, that will not be heated by your GPU. You could spend big on Amazon and get a (probably) used Enterprise NVME with a controller. There is however a special product on the market. The WD AN 1500 which is much better than any expansion card. You see it has a Marvell controller on the PCB. That means that Windows sees that controller first and that controller tells Windows how much storage it has. Now you could spend $1100 on the 4 TB or buy the 1 TB for (Currently) $281.47 Canadian. You could then take 2 of the Kingston NV2 2 TB drives and have a over 6 GB/s 4TB NVME for under $600. The WD AN1500 will work in any slot but will reach it's full potential in a slot wired x8.

Realistically the Ace is the only MB lineup that allows you to do this. The X570 Ace, Unify and X570S Ace all are wired as x8 on the 3rd slot. When I make the jump to AM5 it will be this board that I will be using. Besides that fact that to me the board is industrially beautiful. I absolutely love my X570S Ace Max. Even the little things like the post code LED being white. Against that Gun Metal surface, it pops nicely.
All desktop Zen 4 SKUs are APUs i.e. they include IGP 2 CU RDNA 2 @ >~2.5 Ghz with 128-bit DRR5-6000 beats any old Ryzen APU with Vega 3 IGP and 128-bit DDR4.

From https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MEG-X670E-ACE/Specification
MEG X670E ACE has the following slot specs

3x PCI-E x16 slot
Supports x16/x0/x4, x8/x8/x4
PCI_E1 Gen PCIe 5.0 supports up to x16 (From CPU)
PCI_E2 Gen PCIe 5.0 supports up to x8 (From CPU)
PCI_E3 Gen PCIe 5.0 supports up to x4 (From CPU)


X570S Ace's 3rd PCIe 4.0 X16 slot with active 8X will be bottlenecked by PCIe 4.0 4X lanes link to the CPU unless MSI grabbed PCIe 4.0 4X lanes from the CPU and combine it with X570's southbridge's PCIe 4.0 4X lanes. The X570 SouthBridge link to the CPU is only 4X lanes PCIE 4.0.
 
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apenland01

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Just switched back to v13 from v17 again. Continued BSOD. Voltages below.

v17 CPU Core Voltage: 1.378 / v13 is 1.362
v17 NB/SoC Voltage: 1.358
 

ir_cow

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@ValenOne your looking at the wrong voltages. The ones under MB tab are what you should be focused on.
 
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@ValenOne your looking at the wrong voltages. The ones under MB tab are what you should be focused on.

TUFX670E SOC Voltages.png


I only have "CPU SoC" voltage data on the motherboard group. "CPU SoC" has increased from BIOS 825's 1.280V to BIOS 1414's 1.320V.

On my other ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Hero motherboard, I manually set 1.25V in the BIOS settings, hence it's not an "out-of-the-box" settings from ASUS, but my TUF X670E Plus WiFi motherboard is just ASUS AUTOs with EXPO II DDR5-6000 and tightened memory timings.

TUF X670E's BIOS 1414 version has a "1.30V" limit i.e. "SoC voltage for Ryzen 7000 series limited to a maximum of 1.30V to protect the CPU and motherboard."

My main reason for my ASUS TUF purchase is the workstation potential's "unbuffered ECC" memory support. ROG X670E Hero is missing "unbuffered ECC" memory support.
 
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apenland01

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I tried v184 which is still listed as a beta and I blue screened death twice in the first hour, so back to v130 and stable as a rock. I'll keep trying when they release a new version. In my opinion, the BIOS should be stable right out of the box. This is my first build since 2010, so I need to learn all the new BIOS settings, clocks, voltages and how they all play nice together. I'm also not discounting the fact drivers may be creating a conflicts with the new BIOS, although I'm not sure why that would be...
 

ir_cow

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Bought my ACE and I'm loving it. Great stability and great overall quality.
Glad your enjoying it. I use it as my daily driver. Besides the general AMD long boot times with dual rank memory, I have no complaints.
 
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