MSI MEG X570 ACE Gaming Motherboard AMD AM4 SATA 6Gb/s M.2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Wi-Fi 6 ATX

Pros: heat pipe to distribute to the x570 chipset heat (less motherboard fan spin)
3 spaces for m.2 drives
rest/power buttons on motherboard
the best board for memory overclocking
Good VRMs, can be trusted to power the 3900 or 3950X
Full feature board

Cons: Does not come with the M.2 Xpander addon card, would like to see the option of adding it onto the motherboard or purchasing separately.
Would have liked to have seen a finned VRM heatsink

Overall Review: I want to point out that this review is for the MSI Review Rebate Program, however this is my own review of the motherboard and my opinions were not reviewed or altered prior to posting.

I concluded buying this board after having done my own research on motherboards for the x570 series and listening to the reviews of others on YouTube and Reddit. I was influenced by "Tech Deals" YouTube channel and reviewer who had decided to use this board as the test bench for all AMD Zen 2 (Gen 3) related content in the future. I was very impressed that this board was used in his video for running two m.2 NVMe Gen 4 cards in RAID 0. I also listened to the entirety of Buildzoid's (Gamers Nexus) rundown and overview of every x570 board released by every manufacturer. After having listened to an overview of literally every board released, I personally concluded that the Ace is the correct fit for me.

What drew me to this board specifically is being a very feature packed board that has the capacity to handle the 3950x CPU overclocked. I am looking for a board that can handle animation, content creation, gaming, and heavy multitasking without being a bottleneck on my CPU. I do appreciate the very good VRMs that will safely allow for an overclock of the 3900x and the future 16 core 3950x. I also like having BIOS flashback, Clear CMOS, post LEDs, and convenient power/reset buttons for overclocking. I have also heard from others on Reddit that MSI boards are very good for stable memory overclocks which will be useful in hitting the 3733MHz sweet spot of Zen 2.

The gigabit Intel LAN is a must for stability, and the 2.5gigabit LAN may come in handy in the future to get better speeds from a NAS. This motherboard is compatible with corsair RGB standards as well as addressable and standard RGB strips/components. I do really wish that the x570 boards did not require a fan for the chipset, but this board solves that issue by having a heat pipe connected from the chipset to the other two heatsinks allowing for more efficient passive cooling and allowing for that fan to not spin as much as possible. The built in M.2 heatsinks are a nice touch as they allow for a consistent look throughout the PC with some of my M.2 drives having come with different color heat sinks.

I would have like to have seen a finned heatsink for even better cooling. In addition, it would be nice if MSI sold m.2 dual riser cards in order to take advantage of the PCIe bifurcation that can allow for dual m.2's being run at x4 speeds each direct to the CPU on the seconds slot. I feel that regardless this is a good feature that this board has and that can be taken advantage of given the extra hardware.

Overall, I trust this board will be reliable and allow for maximum performance for my components for years to come. I believe the Ace to be a very good value among the premium x570 boards for those who are content creators and overclockers. this board shares a lot with the Godlike at a fraction of that board's price. I will update this review if I am able to upgrade to the 3950x or if I run into issues or developments in the future.

Pros: one of the best X570 Boards we built with in 2020
layout is easy to build with, but not the best
enough M.2 Slots
5V RGB/Corsair connectors
Fan/pump headers
looks great

Cons: VRM cooling could be better
4 SATA?
onboard USB less than competitors in count, feature and type, also its super glitchy (more on this later)
Dragon Software (Mystic Light) hope MSI improves on this

Overall Review: I loved this board, we got two for our showcase and personal builds (we are a small mod shop), got more for client builds, started out initially with 3700x / 2080 super Hydro for our custom builds, later upgraded both builds, while the first build upgraded to 3900x / 2080ti mainly as our editing machine, and for that time these boards did pretty well, about a few months down the line my board started showing signs of the dreaded intermittent USB dropout issue, our editing machine didn't have that problem, my main build is for gaming video edits, recording and VR, decided to live with the USB problem awaiting a BIOS update from MSI, well i updated every AGESA that was released, and nothing did solve the issue (am a seasoned IT and system Builder with over 15 years of Experience) troubleshooting the board till today, recently upgraded to a 5800x and 3080 RTX, VR is unplayable with the USB dropout, BIOS is causing a lot of boot issues
(not using Beta) currently on 1.E0 AGESA 1.2.0.2, which seems to be more stable when disconnecting USB 3.2 devices, to test this, am using my CV1 Oculus on an Intel Z390/9900k/2080ti build that is 100% stable now, not sure if this problem is the same on all x570 boards or isolated to MSI boards, but some of our clients using the Ace, Godlike, and TomaHawk x570s are complaining about USB issues, now testing my setup on a Auros Master to see if we can recreate this issue and confirm if this is an AMD issue and not a board specific issue, really hate to change this board as mentioned it is one of the best boards we have seen for the X570 high end, but the issues that came with it kind of take away the value.