Better than on paper. Low-cost “OC” mobo MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4

Methodology: Performance tests

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Although we can never talk about Z690 boards as a completely cheap product, but at least they don’t make models that have undersized power delivery for “K” processors. This minimizes the risk of meeting a power-hungry processor with an inadequate motherboard. And while that manual overclocking capability is already the biggest advantage, it’s always good to maintain reasonable operating characteristics as well – whether it’s high efficiency or “healthy” temperatures. You’ll find out what kind of performance one of the cheapest Z690 boards – the Pro Z690-A DDR4 – will deliver in our 38-chapter analysis.

MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4

The “Pro” series of boards is offered by MSI under the MAG and MEG gaming series. More savings on the design is expected, but on the other hand, the price is lower. The MSRP, MSI’s recommended retail price, for the tested Pro Z690-A DDR4 is 239 EUR.
Realistically, however, the price in stores is even 20–30 euros lower, and of the MSI Z690 boards, only the Pro Z690-P DDR4 is cheaper. The latter, however, has very poor availability.

The Pro Z690-A DDR4’s form factor is ATX (305 × 244 mm). The usual PCB shapes are disturbed at the bottom right only by the cutout for the SATA ports. The intention is that the board does not cover part of the cabling grommet, thus improving handling. But in some cases the opposite effect can also occur. If the cable grommet will not interfere with the space under the connectors (and will be a few millimeters offset, because it counts with a traditional PCB), then it will not be possible to use a cable with a connector bent to a right angle.

The VRM heatsinks are pretty decent. Together they are 275 g (143 + 132 g) and there is an attempt to create some sort of fins in order to achieve a more rugged surface. There is only one SSD heatsink, although three of the four M.2 PCIe slots are four-lane, so they are ready for the most powerful controllers that this cooler would make sense to put on. Something had to be skimped on, though, and we don’t consider this to be a critical spot. Hybrid slots (i.e. in addition to PCIe also with SATA SSD support) are supported by only two slots (the third and fourth), the others are exclusively for PCIe (NVMe) SSDs.

The board has four PCI Express slots, three physical long ×16 (though only four lanes) to one short (×1), typically for a USB controller, network or sound card. And this last option may well be taken advantage of by the audio-savvy user. After all, the integrated sound adapter is just an outdated Realtek ALC897.

   

The first slot supports the PCIe 5.0 interface and it is naturally full-sized and to have a higher load capacity (for typically heavy graphics cards) it is held on the PCB not only by contacts, but also by metal anchors. The distance from its center to the processor socket is 91 mm. This is just enough so that even a wide tower-shaped cooler does not collide with the graphics card, although for more comfortable mounting (or rather demounting of the graphics card) it is usually 5 mm further on some boards (for example on TUF Gaming B660 Plus WiFi D4).

The external connectors do not have a fixed cover as nowadays most boards even in this lower class. It’s nice the old way – separately. However, another thing is noteworthy here. Namely, the USB port standards do not match the specifications. In this case it’s a good thing, because the USB ports that are listed in the specs as 3.2 gen. 1 are faster, with twice the bandwidth. So these are USB 3.2 gen. 2 ports, which officially there is only one (red) on the board, but unofficially there are three. The two blue ones deceive with the colour, and we can believe that it’s also on purpose. The reason for this is to make it more motivating for some users to pay extra for a more expensive board that has 10-gigabit USB 3.2 gen. 2 ports in these positions as well according to MSI’s materials. Higher transfer speeds do mean higher requirements for data wires, but in this case, compared to more expensive but schematically identical boards, it wouldn’t be worth dealing with some additional “cheaper” option in terms of manufacturing costs.

The power delivery for the CPU and iGPU is 14-phase. The voltage regulators used are Alpha & Omega Semiconductor with the designation on the housing AT00 1T15. Finding datasheets for some of this company’s parts is always more complicated and if you manage to find them, we will be glad if you add them to the discussion below the article. The PWM controller is a dual channel Richtek RT3628AE, we have the datasheet for that. The board uses two 8-pin connectors to supply power from the PSU. It is not necessary to have both of them plugged in, but in combination with a cheaper power supply with a smaller cross-section of wires and a powerful processor with a power draw of around 300 W, it is recommended. This will neatly reduce the temperature inside the connector, as it will increase the overall cross section of the active wires.

   

The internal connectors are placed practically at the edges of the board. Most of the connectors for fans or pumps are in the top right corner, so close to both the CPU cooler and the system fans at the intake of the case. Also worthy of praise, talking about internal connectors, is the routing of the two 19-pin connectors to the four USB 3.1 gen. 2 ports. Some boards only have one, which is limiting for a proper case with a premium connector setup.

The board does not have illuminated RGB LED elements, but it does not lack connectors for lighting accessories. It has two 3-pin ARGB LED connectors for 5 V and one analog 4-pin (12 V) for backward compatibility with older devices.

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

What it looks like in the BIOS

Instead of MSI’s typical black-and-red graphical interface, there’s a black-and-silver one. But that’s just cosmetics and functionally “Click BIOS 5” is no different from the one for gaming boards.

EZ Mode contains all the basic information about the processor and memories. There are also some buttons on this tab to (de)activate basic things like EZ LEDs or fTMP 2.0, and this screen is also a signpost to more advanced settings. For example to manage storage, fans or update the BIOS (M-Flash). The “advanced” mode is traditionally accessed via the F7 key.

   

Configuration of ports (USB) or slots (PCIe/M.2) is done in the “Settings” tab, where you can also adjust how the board will behave during POST (should/ should not display the MSI logo, should/ should not beep the speaker) or after it – should/ should not the numeric keypad be turned on after OS boot? It’s nothing special, but these basic settings are not missing on this board.

   

More interesting are naturally the options on the “OC” tab. You can move the multiplier for both P and E cores as you want. The default profiles for automatic CPU clock speed management depend on which model you fit into the board. Primarily though, in most cases, these will be open multiplier processors and once detected, the board has a default profile with no power limits. This means that both PL1 and PL2 values are set to the maximum “4096 W”.

Regardless of the duration of the load, the clock speeds will be constant and the performance will not change. However, you can manually adjust everything, both PL1 for long term loads and PL2 for the first xy seconds.

   

The situation is a bit different with the Core i5-12400, as far as the default profile is concerned. And apparently generally with processors with TDP 65 W and lower. PL1 is already at 65 W and PL2 for short term load is at 117 W.

Among the more advanced settings, it is also possible to modify the negative offset for applications using AVX instructions. With these, power draw is typically higher, and to achieve higher efficiency, the multiplier of more powerful processors with a TDP of 125 W is reduced by 1, with more low-power models it is set to 0. For advanced tuners, even options such as the VRM switching frequency for the CPU are retained.

   

The “Creator Genie” button is still worth stopping by. It’s similar to the “Game Boost” on gaming boards, it works exactly the same, only in the context of a board promoted for work use, a different, more thematic name is used. Creator Genie, unless you manually overclock it, will force a 100 MHz higher clock speed for all CPU cores through a higher multiplier. While it’s always at the expense of efficiency, and the increase in power draw will be more significant than the increase in performance, if it’s worth the price and you want to wring the CPU more intensely, you can try as far as it will let you go. And not just the CPU itself, but its cooler as well.

For memory with XMP up to 3600 MHz, the board automatically sets Gear 1, with which full memory controller bandwidth is achieved. With faster modules, you can already count on Gear 2 and the fact that at half the IMC frequency, lower performance may be achieved in some applications even if you have paid extra for faster memory.

The fan management interface (Hardware Monitor) allows both PWM and DC control, i.e. older fans with 3-pin connectors. You can adjust the supply voltage in small increments manually to a fixed value or create a progress curve that responds to temperatures from different sources. All of this, of course, applies to PWM as well.

   

There are five heat sources, including a “MOS” sensor that will be located somewhere within the VRM. Compared to some boards (typically Gigabyte), it lacks a PCIE sensor or a spot for a custom thermocouple. But these are details for which we will not criticize a board in this price range.

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Gaming tests…

The vast majority of tests is based on the methodology for processors and graphics cards. The choice of games is slimmer for motherboards, but that’s in order to be able to run all the tests with two different processors as promised. Each board will always be tested with a more powerful processor from the top end, but also with a weaker, average one. The more powerful variant on the LGA 1700 platform is the Core i9-12900K and the mid-range one is the Core i5-12400.

Based on tests with processors from different classes, you’ll be able to easily decide whether a more expensive motherboard for a cheaper processor makes sense for you or, conversely, how good of an idea it is to skimp on a cheaper motherboard while using a more expensive and more powerful processor, which naturally also has higher power draw and places higher demands on the overall quality of the motherboard.

We’ve selected five titles from the games and we’re testing them in two resolutions. There are significantly fewer games than in the CPU or graphics card tests, but there is just enough for the motherboard tests. Few people consider performance in a particular game when choosing a motherboard. But an indicative overview of how a motherboard shapes gaming performance (compared to other motherboards) is a must. To avoid significantly skewing the result over time, we reached for relatively older titles that no longer receive significant updates.

These are Borderlands 3, F1 2020, Metro Exodus, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Total War Saga: Troy. For newer games, there might be some performance changes over time (with updates) and especially in high resolutions with high details. This is one of the test setups (2160p and Ultra, or the highest visual detail but without ray-tracing) that focuses on comparing performance, for which the bottleneck is the graphics card. In other words, it will be clear from these tests which motherboard and to what extent can impact the graphics card’s performance for some reason. In contrast, a setup with Full HD resolution and with graphical details reduced to “High” will also reflect the CPU’s influence on the final gaming performance.

We use OCAT to record fps, or the times of individual frames, which are then used to calculate fps, and FLAT to analyze the CSV. The developer and author of articles (and videos) for the GPUreport.cz website is behind both.
For the highest accuracy, all runs are repeated three times and average values of average and minimum fps are displayed in the graphs. These multiple repetitions also apply to non-game tests.

… Computing tests, SSD tests, USB ports and network tests

We test application performance in a very similar way to the processor tests. Almost all tests are included, from the easier ones (such as those in a web environment) to those that push the CPU or graphics card to the limit. These are typically tests such as 3D rendering, video encoding (x264, x265, SVT-AV1) or other performance-intensive computing tasks. As with processors or graphics cards, we have a wide range of applications – users editing video (Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve Studio), graphic effects creators (Adobe Premiere Pro), graphic designers or photographers (Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, Affinity Photo, AI applications Topaz Labs, …) will find their own in the results, and there are also tests of (de)encryption, (de)compression, numerical calculations, simulations and, of course, tests of memory.

SSD performance tests are also important for motherboards. Therefore we test the maximum sequential read and write speeds on an empty Samsung 980 Pro SSD (1 TB) in the well distributed CrystalDiskMark, in all slots. We approach the USB port tests in the same way. We use a WD Black P50 external SSD to test them. It supports fast USB 3.2 gen. 2×2, so it won’t be a bottleneck for even the fastest USB controllers. We report only one result for each USB standard. This is calculated from the average of all available ports.

We won’t deprive you of network bandwidth tests either. We move large files in both directions within a local network between the motherboard network adapters and the Sonnet Solo10G 10-gigabit PCIe card. This from the aforementioned Samsung 980 Pro SSD to the Patriot Hellfire (480 GB), which is still fast enough to not slow down even the 10 Gb adapter.

   

The results of all performance tests are averaged over three repeated measurements for best accuracy.

CPU settings…

We primarily test processors without power limits, the way most motherboards have it in factory settings. For tests that have overlap with power, temperature and CPU frequency measurements, we also observe the behavior of boards with power limits set according to CPU manufacturers’ recommendations. We set PL1 to the TDP level, respecting also the tau timeout (56 s) for Intel CPUs. The upper power limit (PL2/PPT) is also set according to the official CPU specifications. Technologies for aggressive overclocking, such as PBO2 (AMD) or ABT (Intel), MCE (Asus) and the like, are not dealt with in our standard motherboard tests.

… and application updates

Tests should also take into account that over time, individual updates may skew performance comparisons. Some applications we use in portable versions that do not update or can be kept on a stable version, but for some this is not the case. Typically games get updated over time, which is natural, and keeping them on old versions out of reality would also be questionable.

In short, just count on the fact that the accuracy of the results you are comparing with each other decreases a bit as time goes on. To make this analysis easier, we’ve listed when each board was tested. You can find this out in the dialog box, where you can find information about the date of testing. This dialog is displayed in the interactive graphs, next to any result bar. Just hover over it.

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Methodology: How we measure power draw

Motherboard “power draw” analysis is an extremely attractive topic if approached methodically. What does it mean? Measuring the electric current and voltage directly on the wiring that powers the motherboard. Naturally, the processor, or the processor power supply, has the most significant draw, which we measure separately – just as in processor tests.

In addition to the EPS cable, there is also a 24-pin ATX cable with multiple voltages, which is good to keep track of. The key ones are +3.3 V (from which the chipset is typically powered), +5 V (memory) and +12 V, from which the PCI Express slots are powered, and the biggest draw will be in the case of our test configuration on the graphics card. All of these wires are closely monitored. But then within the ATX connector there are also a few relatively unimportant branches that are no longer even used in modern computers (that is, -12 V and -5 V) or are relatively unimportant in terms of power draw. For example +5 VSB (power supply for USB or ARGB lighting even when the computer is switched off; this can usually be switched off in the BIOS) or PG (Power Good), which is only informative and during operation it is only “an also-run”. These branches (-12 V, -5 V, +5 VSB and PG) always have only one wire and often with a smaller cross section, which is also a sign of always very low power draw.

The 24-pin wires on which we measure the power draw are always connected in parallel and are at least in pairs (+12 V) or greater in number. For example, the +3.3 V branch uses four conductors to increase the cross section and the +5 V branch has up to five. However, this branch is quite oversized from today’s point of view, as historically it was intended to power more HDDs or their logical part (+12 V is used for the mechanical part).

We use a shunt of our own making to measure the draw from the 24-pin. This is built on a very simple principle and consists of very low-value resistors. The value is set so low that the voltage drop is not higher than the ATX standard. Based on the known resistance in the circuit and the voltage drop across it, we can calculate the electric current, and once the output is substituted into the known formula to calculate the power, the mathematics is easy. Samples during the course of the tests are recorded using the Keysight U1231A multimeter array via a service application that allows the recorded data to be exported in CSV. And that’s the final destination for creating line graphs or counting averages (into bar interactive graphs). That’s how simple it is.

For completeness it is good to add that the current clamps for measuring the current draw from the EPS cables (power supply to the processor) are Prova 15. These will soon be replaced by a more practical solution for desktop use, namely a similar shunt we use for the ATX connector. The only reason it is not yet in circulation is its more complex design (as it has to account for very high currents) and the need for thorough testing, which we are yet to get to. Since we place a high emphasis on accuracy in our tests, all measuring devices are properly calibrated.

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Methodology: Temperature and frequency measurements

By far the most critical part in terms of temperatures on the motherboard is the power delivery (VRM) for the CPU. This is where we return to the Fluke Ti125 thermal imager, which produces temperature maps that can be used to locate the average temperature, as well as the hottest point. We record both these values (average and maximum temperature on the Vcore) in graphs, and we will later evaluate the efficiency of the VRM heatsinks based on the maximum one. However, we lack a suitable thermometer for that yet. Of course, the thermovision is implemented without a heatsink, and a thermocouple needs to be installed on the hottest MOSFET to detect the reduction of temperature with a heatsink. This will be added soon.

Thermovision always relates to operating with the more powerful of the pair of test processors. With it, the differences and possible limitations or impending risks (for example, even from thermal throttling) become more apparent. In order to have a good view of the VRM, we use an Alphacool Eisbaer 360 liquid cooler with the fans fixed at full power (12 V) instead of a tower cooler (from the CPU tests). The temperature tests also include CPU temperatures for completeness, and we also test the efficiency of the supplied SSD heatsinks as part of the motherboard tests. These are already included with virtually all better motherboards, and so the question naturally arises whether to use them or replace them with other, more finned ones. We will test these heatsinks on a Samsung 980 Pro SSD during ten minutes of intense load in CrystalDiskMark. Finally, the temperature of the chipset’s southbridge and the cooling efficiency in this direction is noteworthy as well.

All tests are conducted in a wind tunnel, so full system cooling is provided. This consists of three Noctua NF-S12A PWMs@5V (~550 rpm) . Two of which are intake, one is exhaust. But the three fast AIO fans also function as exhaust fans, so there is a vacuum in the case.

The temperature at the entrance to the tunnel is properly controlled and ranges between 21-21.3 °C. Maintaining a constant temperature at all times during testing is important not only for the accuracy of the temperature measurements, but also because a higher or lower ambient temperature also affects the eventual behaviour of the processors’ boost. And we also properly monitor and compare the frequencies, whether under all-core load or even single-threaded tasks. We use the HWiNFO application to record the frequencies and temperatures of the cores (sampling is set to two seconds).

Maintaining a constant temperature at the intake is necessary not only for a proper comparison of processor temperatures, but especially for objective performance comparisons. The frequency development, and specially the single core boost, is precisely based on the temperature. Typically in summer, at higher temperatures than is normal in living quarters in winter, processors can be slower.

Temperatures are always read as maximum (both from the VRM thermovision and average, but still from the local maximum values at the end of Cinebench R23). For Intel processors, for each test we read the maximum temperature of the cores, usually all of them. These maxima are then averaged and the result represents the final value in the graph. From the single-threaded workload outputs, we extract only the recorded values from the active cores (there are usually two of these, and they alternate between each other during the test). For AMD processors it is a bit different. They don’t have temperature sensors for each core. In order to make the procedure methodically as similar as possible to the one we apply on Intel processors, we define the average temperature of all cores by the highest value reported by the CPU Tdie (average) sensor. However, for single-core workloads we already use the CPU sensor (Tctl/Tdie), which usually reports a slightly higher value that better corresponds to hotspots of one or two cores. However, these values as well as the values from all internal sensors should be taken with a grain of salt, the accuracy of sensors across CPUs varies.

Frequency evaluation is more accurate, each core has its own sensor even on AMD processors. However, unlike the temperatures, we write the average values of the frequencies during the tests in the graphs. We monitor the temperatures and frequencies of the CPU cores in the same tests in which we also measure power draw. Thus, sequentially from the lowest desktop idle load in Windows 10, through audio encoding (single-threaded load), gaming load in Shadow of the Tomb Raider to Cinebench R23.

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Test setup

Note: Graphics drivers used at the time of testing: Nvidia GeForce 466.77 and OS Windows 10 build 19043

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

3DMark

We use 3DMark Professional for our tests and from the tests, Night Raid (DirectX 12), Fire Strike (DirectX 11) and Time Spy (DirectX 12). In the graphs you will find the CPU sub-scores, the combined scores, as well as the graphics scores. From this you can see to what extent a given CPU is limiting the graphics card.

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MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Borderlands 3

Test environment: resolution 1920 × 1080 px; graphics settings preset High; API DirectX 12; extra settings Anti-Aliasing: None; test scene: built-in benchmark.

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Test environment: resolution 3840 × 2160 px; graphics settings preset Ultra; API DirectX 12; no extra settings; test scene: built-in benchmark.

   

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

F1 2020

Test environment: resolution 1920 × 1080 px; graphics settings preset High; API DirectX 12; extra settings Anti-Aliasing: off, Skidmarks Blending: off; test scene: built-in benchmark (Australia, Clear/Dry, Cycle).

   

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Test environment: resolution 3840 × 2160 px; graphics settings preset Ultra High; API DirectX 12; extra settings Anti-Aliasing: TAA, Skidmarks Blending: off; test scene: built-in benchmark (Australia, Clear/Dry, Cycle).

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Metro Exodus

Test environment: resolution 1920 × 1080 px; graphics settings preset High; API DirectX 12; no extra settings; test scene: built-in benchmark.

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Test environment: resolution 3840 × 2160 px; graphics settings preset Extreme; API DirectX 12; no extra settings; test scene: built-in benchmark.

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Test environment: resolution 1920 × 1080 px; graphics settings preset High; API DirectX 12; extra settings Anti-Aliasing: off; test scene: built-in benchmark.

   

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Test environment: resolution 3840 × 2160 px; graphics settings preset Highest; API DirectX 12; extra settings Anti-Aliasing: TAA; test scene: built-in benchmark.

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Total War Saga: Troy

Test environment: resolution 1920 × 1080 px; graphics settings preset High; API DirectX 11; no extra settings; test scene: built-in benchmark.

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Test environment: resolution 3840 × 2160 px; graphics settings preset Ultra; API DirectX 11; no extra settings; test scene: built-in benchmark.

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

PCMark

Geekbench

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Speedometer (2.0) and Octane (2.0)

Test environment: To ensure that results are not affected by web browser updates over time, we use a portable version of Google Chrome (91.0.472.101), a 64-bit build. Hardware GPU acceleration is enabled as well, as it is by default for every user.

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Note: The values in the graphs represent the average of the scores obtained in the subtasks, which are grouped according to their nature into seven categories (Core language features, Memory and GC, Strings and arrays, Virtual machine and GC, Loading and Parsing, Bit and Math operations, and Compiler and GC latency).

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MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Cinebench R20

Cinebench R23

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Blender@Cycles

Test environment: We use well distributed projects BMW (510 tiles) and Classroom (2040 tiles) and the renderer Cycles. Render settings are set to None, with which all the work falls on the CPU.

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LuxRender (SPECworkstation 3.1)

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Adobe Premiere Pro (PugetBench)

Test environment: set of PugetBench tests. App version of Adobe Premiere Pro is 15.2.

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MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

DaVinci Resolve Studio (PugetBench)

Test environment: set of PugetBench tests, test type: standard. App version of DaVinci Resolve Studio is 17.2.1 (build 12).

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MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Graphics effects: Adobe After Effects

Test environment: set of PugetBench tests. App version of Adobe After Effects is 18.2.1.

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MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

HandBrake

Test environment: For video conversion we’re using a 4K video LG Demo Snowboard with a 43,9 Mb/s bitrate. AVC (x264) and HEVC (x265) profiles are set for high quality and encoder profiles are “slow”. HandBrake version is 1.3.3 (2020061300).

x264 and x265 benchmarks

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Naposledy sme sa zaoberali základnou doskou, ktorá, ktorá je aj vďaka nižšej cene vhodná najmä na použitie s lacnejšími procesormi. Teraz tu máme o zhruba 50 eur drahšiu Gigabyte B660 Aorus Master DDR4. Príplatok tu má jasné opodstatnenie a odzkadľuje sa na lepších vlastnostiach. Napájacia kaskáda je výrazne efektívnejšia, chladiče sú účinnejšie a výbava je celkovo bohatšia, vrátane svetielok.

Audio encoding

Test environment: Audio encoding is done using command line encoders, we measure the time it takes for the conversion to finish. The same 42-minute long 16-bit WAV file (stereo) with 44.1 kHz is always used (Love Over Gold by Dire Straits album rip in a single audio file).

Encoder settings are selected to achieve maximum or near maximum compression. The bitrate is relatively high, with the exception of lossless FLAC of about 200 kb/s.

Note: These tests measure single-thread performance.

FLAC: reference encoder 1.3.2, 64-bit build. Launch options: flac.exe -s -8 -m -e -p -f

MP3: encoder lame3.100.1, 64-bit build (Intel 19 Compiler) from RareWares. Launch options: lame.exe -S -V 0 -q 0

AAC: uses Apple QuickTime libraries, invoked through the application from the command line, QAAC 2.72, 64-bit build, Intel 19 Compiler (does not require installation of the whole Apple package). Launch options: qaac64.exe -V 100 -s -q 2

Opus:reference encoder 1.3.1, Launch options: opusenc.exe –comp 10 –quiet –vbr –bitrate 192

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Adobe Photoshop (PugetBench)

Test environment: set of PugetBench tests. App version of Adobe Photoshop is 22.4.2.

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Affinity Photo (benchmark)

Test environment: built-in benchmark.

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Topaz Labs AI apps

Topaz DeNoise AI, Gigapixel AI and Sharpen AI. These single-purpose applications are used for restoration of low-quality photos. Whether it is high noise (caused by higher ISO), raster level (typically after cropping) or when something needs extra focus. The AI performance is always used.

Test environment: As part of batch editing, 42 photos with a lower resolution of 1920 × 1280 px are processed, with the settings from the images above. DeNoise AI is in version 3.1.2, Gigapixel in 5.5.2 and Sharpen AI in 3.1.2.

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

WinRAR 6.01

7-Zip 19.00

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MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

TrueCrypt 7.1a

Aida64 (AES, SHA3)

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Aida64, FPU tests

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FSI (SPECworkstation 3.1)

Kirchhoff migration (SPECworkstation 3.1)

Python36 (SPECworkstation 3.1)

SRMP (SPECworkstation 3.1)

Octave (SPECworkstation 3.1)

FFTW (SPECworkstation 3.1)

Convolution (SPECworkstation 3.1)

CalculiX (SPECworkstation 3.1)

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

RodiniaLifeSci (SPECworkstation 3.1)

WPCcfd (SPECworkstation 3.1)

Poisson (SPECworkstation 3.1)

LAMMPS (SPECworkstation 3.1)

NAMD (SPECworkstation 3.1)

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Memory tests…

… and cache (L1, L2, L3)

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MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

M.2 (SSD) slots speed

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MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

USB ports speed

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MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Ethernet speed

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Analysis of power draw (EPS + ATX connector) w/o power limits

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MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Analysis of power draw (EPS + ATX connector) with Intel’s power limits

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MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Total power draw w/o power limits…

… and with Intel’s power limits

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Achieved CPU clock speed w/o power limits…

… and with Intel’s power limits

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

CPU temperatures w/o power limits…

… and with Intel’s power limits

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

VRM temperatures w/o power limits…

… and with Intel’s power limits

MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

SSD temperatures

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MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Chipset temperatures (south bridge)

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MSI’s second cheapest motherboard with the Intel Z690 chipset costs significantly less compared to the higher-end Tomahawk DDR4. The difference in features is small. And perhaps too small, as the specifications artificially downgrade some components. The power delivery is less efficient and the heatsinks are more modest, but the roughly 80 EUR saved is almost as much as the cost of upgrading from a Core i5-12600K to a Core i7-12700K(F).

Conclusion

The MSI Pro Z690-A motherboard didn’t get into trouble even with the Core i9-12900K processor across hundreds of tests. We didn’t notice any anomalies in any application, be it work or gaming use. The differences are usually at the 1 % level and therefore there is no point in dissecting the topic around performance at all. Just because this is a low-end board doesn’t mean that it will underperform in anything with powerful processors from the Core i7 and Core i9 classes. It won’t. CPU clock speeds are always stable, even under very high load, when the CPU generates 290 W.

So the limitation will always be the CPU cooler rather than the motherboard’s capabilities. However, it’s important to note here that with the Pro Z690-A, we measured the highest CPU power draw yet. The increase over the Z690 Tomahawk DDR4 is up to 70 W, indicating lower power management effectiveness. Partly also due to the VRM having lower efficiency. The latter is roughly at the level of the Asus TUF B660 Plus WiFi D4 motherboard. However, the temperature of the Pro Z690-A DDR4 voltage regulators is lower. With the 300-watt Core i9-12900K, the MSI motherboard’s maximum voltage regulator temperature is 14 °C lower, the average is 5 °C lower.
As the load/power draw decreases, the differences gradually disappear.

Importantly, even after overclocking powerful processors, there is significant headroom even under long-term high load. The power cascade is robust enough that hotspots even during thermal imaging with heatsinks removed end up just above 80 °C. With heatsinks, the temperature will be even lower, so you don’t have to feel bad about reaching for the Creator Boost button to increase the clock speed of all cores by 100 MHz. The limiting elements here will be the cooler or the processor itself, which may no longer be stable after such overclocking.

In addition to the impact of the board on CPU (and possibly graphics card) performance, we also monitor, for example, network bandwidth. The latter is bidirectionally at the limit of connectivity (2.5 Gb/s), which is not exactly commonplace. In terms of connectivity, however, the most remarkable thing is definitely that higher speeds are achieved on some USB ports than they should be. Even the USB ports, which MSI says support the 5 Gb gen. 1 3.2 standard, reach twice the speed in practice. Thus, the board has not only one 10 Gb USB port, but up to three. It’s unlikely that MSI didn’t know about this, and we discussed the possible reason why those ports are degraded like that in the first chapter of the article.

Fairly crappy, but better than none, is the SSD cooler. Compared to competing solutions, it cools significantly worse. Based on the physical proportions, we expected a similar placement in the chipset’s south bridge cooling. Here, however, the results are already about average, which may also be due to a better TIM than is used under larger and more structured heatsinks. Manufacturers often take advantage of the fact that the chipset power draw is very low, so the thermal interface commonly used is not exactly awesome. The overall off-load power draw is also average, and in the context of this board, mediocrity is always praise. This is in fact one of the cheapest boards from which no performance records are expected. The key is that it doesn’t hold anything back. It really doesn’t, and because this is true even with the most powerful processors, we have to highlight the attractive price/value ratio. Operating costs will admittedly be higher than with more expensive boards due to the lower efficiency of the VRM, but again not by so much that this, in practice, outweighs the bargain purchase price, which in some stores only just exceeds the two hundred euro mark.

English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš

Games for testing are from Jama levova

Special thanks to Blackmagic Design (for licenses for DeNoise AI, Gigapixel AI and Sharpen AI) and Topaz Labs (for licenses for DeNoise AI, Gigapixel AI and Sharpen AI)

• Contents
• MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4 in detail
• What it looks like in the BIOS
• Methodology: Performance tests
• Methodology: How we measure power draw
• Methodology: Temperature and frequency measurements
• Test setup
• 3DMark
• Borderlands 3
• F1 2020
• Metro Exodus
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Total War Saga: Troy
• PCMark and Geekbench
• Web performance
• 3D rendering: Cinebench, Blender, ...
• Video 1/2: Adobe Premiere Pro
• Video 2/2: DaVinci Resolve Studio
• Graphics effects: Adobe After Effects
• Video encoding
• Audio encoding
• Photos: Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Photo, ...
• (De)compression
• (De)cryption
• Numerical computing
• Simulations
• Memory and cache tests
• M.2 (SSD) slots speed
• USB ports speed
• Ethernet speed
• Power draw curve (EPS + ATX connector) w/o power limits
• Power draw curve (EPS + ATX connector) with Intel’s power limits
• Total power draw (EPS + ATX connector)
• Achieved CPU clock speed
• CPU temperatures
• VRM temperatures – thermovision of Vcore and SOC
• SSD temperatures
• Chipset temperatures (south bridge)
• Conclusion