The MSI MEG Z490 Godlike is a worthy successor to the Godlike series. The Godlike is a beautiful board with an excellent RGB LED implementation, while keeping neutral color tones that are easy to match. For features, you would be hard pressed to find one the MSI MEG Z490 Godlike doesn't have: Thunderbolt 3, 10G and 2.5G LAN, WiFi 6, top-tier VRM, top-tier storage support, MSI stuffed just about everything except the kitchen sink into the MSI MEG Z490 Godlike. Of course, none of that matters if the performance isn't there to match.

Out of the box, performance for the MSI MEG Z490 Godlike was good. Memory overclocking was excellent, as I reached 4000 MHz CL16 stable with my Trident Z Neo quad-channel kit. For CPU overclocking, I was able to achieve 5.3 GHz on all cores. The largest limitation to overclocking with Z490 is going to come down to dealing with the heat produced by the incredibly dense Intel Core i9-10900K. The MSI MEG Z490 Godlike easily matched the best results I have had with this hardware.

When it comes to VRM thermals, the MSI MEG Z490 Godlike did as well as you might expect, which is to say absolutely excellent. The fact of the matter is that there is no substitute for top-shelf power stages. Having a beefy heatsink doesn't hurt, either. The VRM fan remained quiet throughout testing, and thermals remained stellar even with the fan disabled.

Some might take exception with the higher overall temperatures vs. MSI's own MEG Z490 Unify, but that comes down to the finned heatsink which gives the Godlike much greater flexibility at the cost of a small increase in overall temperature at stock settings.

So, the final factor to talk about is price. At around US$750, the MSI MEG Z490 Godlike sits among a category often referred to as Halo products. These products are not intended to give good value, but instead showcase the best technology a brand can bring to market. The MSI MEG Z490 Godlike performs this role flawlessly. I would not recommend the MSI MEG Z490 Godlike for most buyers. However, the Godlike is an excellent, well-executed board and would be a perfect fit for the highest-end builds where money is no object.