Finished Looks

The MSI MEG Z690 Unify is black with small gray accents throughout. If you are looking for RGB lighting on the motherboard, you will not find any here.


MSI was also gracious enough to send over the MSI MEG CoreLiquid S360 AIO and 32 GB (2x 16 GB) of Kingston Fury DDR5-5200 (KF552C40BBK2-32) memory to be paired with this MEG Z690 Unify motherboard. A 360 mm AIO should be sufficient for most users, and any modest overclocking adventures with the Alder Lake CPU. TechPowerUp has a review of the MEG S280 AIO for those who want more details about its installation and general performance.


One of the nice features of the CoreLiquid S360 is the programmable screen with different presets or custom scrolling text. Besides installing MSI Center, this didn't not require additional setup. The CoreLiquid S360 settings can be accessed through the "Features" tab. This also allows for a change in orientation if you do not like the default downward direction of the tubes.

Test System

Supporting Hardware

Testing is performed with the newest available version of the BIOS at the time. All BIOS settings related to the CPU are left untouched. XMP is enabled for the memory. However, if the primary, secondary or tertiary memory timings are incorrectly set by the BIOS, it is tested as-is to mimic a standard user. The same goes for the CPU. Unless it is a bug in the current BIOS—i.e., not present in other versions—any and all CPU boost parameters are left alone.