Board Layout

Like on previous generations, the MSI MPG Z690 Carbon WiFi has the MSI dragon logo over the VRM section, though a slight redesign emphasizes the pattern of squares aligned in a diagonal orientation across the entire motherboard.

The back also has an alteration to the standard design with the inclusion of warning zones showing possible conflicts with cases and where the standoff should be placed.


With this new LGA 1700 socket for the Z690, new and old CPU coolers will need a new retention bracket if the mounting holes do not line up. Some additional care was placed into the layout of the capacitors, with one side clear of potential items of conflict for some mounts.


The MSI MPG Z690 Carbon WiFi offers three PCI Express x16 slots, with the top two reinforced for extra stress support. PCIe slot one and two are PCIe Gen5 with a total of x16 lanes coming from the CPU. Slot one can either operate at x16 or x8. Slot 2 is wired for PCIe Gen5 x8 and will split the available lanes with the first slot if populated. These are backwards compatible, allowing older PCIe devices to work without issues. The third slot is also physically x16, but internally wired for x4 PCIe Gen3.


There are five M.2 sockets on the MSI MPG Z690 Carbon WiFi, four of which are Gen4 x4, and all of them feature full-coverage heatsinks. The upper-most M.2 socket has thermal tape on the motherboard as well. This leaves the rest to rely solely on the accompanying heatsinks. The M.2 socket below the Carbon logo (Z690 chipset heatsink) is where the Gen3 x4 socket is located.

Note that the manual mentions that using M.2 socket (#4) means the seventh SATA port will be disabled. However, the motherboard does not have seven SATA ports. That having been said, correct is that the lowest SATA port seen in the photo with a white sticker on top will be disabled.


Of the five M.2 Sockets, three have MSI EZ M.2 clips, which is a screwless design. It makes swapping M.2 drives without worrying about the loss of screws or needing to dig into the box a reality. I have lost a number of these tiny screws just this year alone and had to buy some. They are easy to misplace when in a hurry. The other two M.2 sockets can have the EZ clip installed, but at the expense of the heatsink. This is because the screws required to hold it down are now blocked by the EZ clips.


It was a surprise to find the battery tucked away near the VRM heatsink. If you need to clear the CMOS, it is best to find the required pins and jump those instead of taking apart the whole motherboard to get to this battery. The pins are on the bottom row, right above the USB 2.0 header.


The board has a total of six SATA 6 Gb/s ports on the side, angled 90 degrees from the board. As explained previously, this motherboard does not have seven SATA ports even though the manual states one will be disabled with the correlating M.2 socket populated. After some investigation, it seems MSI decided to label the four SATA ports coming from the Z690 chipset 5-8 and the other two SATA A/B; the latter two go to a separate ASM 1061 SATA controller. While the Z690 chipset does indeed only support four SATA ports, I am not sure why MSI chooses to rename these in the first place.


The MSI MPG Z690 Carbon WiFi has more or less the standard assortment of ports for a Z690 motherboard. This includes an optical S/PDIF Out port, Wi-Fi 6E, and 2.5 Gb LAN. The four USB 2.0 ports for peripherals like a keyboard, mouse, USB headphones or game controller are nice additions. All of these generally do not consume enough bandwidth to warrant consuming the 10 Gbps ports on these devices.

• Flash BIOS button
• 1x DisplayPort
• 1x HDMI 2.1 port
• 5x USB 3.2 Gen 2 10 Gbps Type-A ports
• 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20 Gbps Type-C port
• 1x Intel 2.5G Ethernet
• 2x Wi-Fi antenna connectors
• 5x audio jacks
• Optical S/PDIF Out port