MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk MAX WiFi Gaming Motherboard (Supports 12th/13th/14th Gen Intel Processors, LGA 1700, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, M.2, SATA 6G, 2.5Gbps LAN, USB 3.2 Gen2, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, ATX)

To preface this, my original motherboard was an MSI Z690 -A Wi-Fi Pro. I replaced it with this current product. My build has the following: Z790 Tomahawk, MSI RTX 3080 Ventus OC 10G 3X, Kingston Fury 64GB DDR5 RAM (2x32), i7-14700KF, two W_D SN850X SSD, and the Thermaltake Toughpower Grand RGB 750W 80 Plus Gold for the PSU.Originally, I bought this motherboard as a gaming and performance upgrade. Needless to say, it was money well spent. I'll start off with the good, then the bad.The good:1. The packaging was superb. When opening the box, I was greeted with the motherboard, a USB with drivers and BIOS updates, a Wi-Fi screw in, and the various cords and manuals. When registering for the warranty, the serial number was on the side of the box, saving me time from having to look for it.2. Installation was a breeze. I put this mobo in the Lian Li Lancool 216 case with no issues whatsoever. Installation took roughly 45 minutes at most.3. When first turned on, it took about a minute to initialize. Afterward, it recognized my drive, and I was up and running quite quickly. With that mentioned, the performance of the board is exceptionally well, when configured properly. Gaming is flawless, with no issues whatsoever.4. While the WI-FI has issues (more on that in "The bad"), the speeds I typically find with Fiber go up to 1 gig+ with an Ethernet connection. With the current drivers, my speeds stay consistent.The bad:1. As previously mentioned, I needed to configure certain settings in order for the board to run properly. Without XMP, the board had issues running certain performance heavy tasks. Aside from that, Resizable Bar needed to be turned on, alongside secure boot (not sure why that was off in the first place?).2. As others have mentioned, there are some WI-FI stability issues. My solution for fast speeds and proper stability required me to uninstall the drivers, then install the newest via the MSI website. Also, an Ethernet connection will improve your speeds greatly, regardless of the board. While the box did come with a LAN setup, I used my old Z690 LAN screw-ins, which seemed to work better.3. My only major nitpick, which was REALLY infuriating, was the M.2 shield addition installation when installing the drives. They only fit specific drives, it seems. I'm using two different W_D SN850X drives (One with a heat-sink, so obviously one doesn't have the included heat-sink, and one without.). The one without the included heat-sink, will not fit with the included screws, regardless of what I do. The only way to ensure it stays in the M.2 slot, is by utilizing the sticky part of the M.2 shield. While it isn't what I want, it works fine regardless.In conclusion, if you want a board that allows you to bend the very limits of what AAA gaming offers, this is your board. While it does take some configuration to work properly, it's worth it completely in the end. I plan on sticking with this board until the next DDR generation comes out, so, I'm extremely happy, even with some problems.

A solid performer, I have paired it up with an MSI case and MSI fans. I use it mostly for video and photo editing. It has more then enough ports and hard drive connection. It has been very stable, knock on wood.

I've been a fan of MSI for more than a decade. Never have had any problems with their products. They do what they are designed to do. No difference in this MoBo. It is very good. It handles gen 14 Intel CPUs right out of the box. It has a good number of rear USB ports. Good ethernet at 2.5G. I won't be using the optional wireless.Layout is good. Connector locations are all good. Heat sinks are plentiful. Rear ports are good. RAM limits are good. I am overall quite happy with this board. My wishlist below is fairly trivial. I understand the trade-offs in engineering anything for a particular price point.The BIOS is very slick. I have DDR5 7200 RAM but it initially seems like 4800. The BIOS automatically recognizes that it could run at 7200 and with one click and a save, it is. I haven't played with voltages or clock speeds yet, but between the BIOS and other MSI tools available, it should be very easy.What I wished it had is:1) a second front USB 3 header. My case has 2 of the blue 19pin connectors, for 2 type A ports each, but the MoBo only has one. I believe MSI only makes one board with 2 such connectors but it costs 3 times as much as this board. Not worth it just for that.2) I also wish I could fill the M.2 slots without penalties. Only slots 2 and 4 don't have detrimental effects. Using slot 1 drops the main PCI-E slot from 16x down to 8x. And using slot 3 makes something else inoperable. I don't recall if it was a couple of SATA ports, or a USB2 connector. Something like that. It would be more desirable if everything could work all the time and you didn't have to read the manual to work around limitations. I think that one board I mentioned, that costs over $1100, is like that, but all the rest have trade-offs.That said, their competitors do the same things. So this is industry normal. And if I really want that additional pair of USB ports up front, I can add a PCI-E card for less than $30.Overall, this board is great and has competitive features.