Power Consumption and Temperatures

The MSI MEG Z690 Unify uses a single, large heatsink that is a little lacking in the heavy overclocking department for thermal dissipation. A back panel is also a part of the cooling solution. Even though it is minor, pads are placed on the rear of the VRM section for additional thermal dissipation through the PCB.



For the MSI MEG Z690 Unify, one probe is placed along each bank of power stages. A probe is left out to log the ambient temperature. For temperature measurement, I use a Reed SD-947 4 channel Data Logging Thermometer paired with four Omega Engineering SA1 Self Adhesive Thermocouple probes. All temperatures are presented as Delta-T normalized to 20°C, which is the measured temperature minus the ambient temperature plus 20°C. The end result accounts for variation in ambient temperature, including changes over the course of a test, while presenting the data as if the ambient were a steady 20°C for easy presentation. Additionally, there is direct airflow over the VRM for the first five minutes, after which the fan is removed. This gives an idea of what to expect with and without moderate case airflow.

Prime95 is used for maximum power consumption over a 30 minute period. For testing, I used an Intel Core i7-12700K set to 5.0 GHz and locked at 1.35 V. Other tests are conducted with an Intel Core i9-12900K set to 5.0 GHz all-core and stock configurations. Temperatures are logged every second, and the two probes are then averaged for a cleaner presentation before subtracting the ambient to calculate the Delta-T. The results are charted below.


These VRM tests are split into multiple charts for a wider understanding of the MSI MEG Z690 Unify cooling solution. Prime95 is in many ways designed to be a brutal torture test. It is a fairly unrealistic daily use case. That being said, without a direct fan placed on the VRM heatsinks, some of these power stages surpass 100°C. The thermal test was cut short to avoid potential damages.


The next step was to take the same CPU and overclock to a 3D rendering application that is more representative of a real world use case. The VRM temperature quickly shot up once the fan was removed, but started to plateau around the 25 minute mark.


The next step was to take the current high-end CPU from Intel, the i9-12900K. It completely ran at stock. While power draw was in the 250-watt range, the VRM became a bit toasty, reaching into the 90s.


The final test was to see how the VRM heatsink may fare in games. The MSI MEG Z690 Unify is a perfectly capable motherboard for gaming. As with many games, the load isn't constant as Cyberpunk 2077 generally had the CPU clock frequency in the 3 GHz range, which moved up or down as the GPU load changed.