MSI Z390-A PRO LGA1151 (Intel 8th and 9th Gen) M.2 USB 3.1 Gen 2 DDR4 HDMI DP CFX Dual Gigabit LAN ATX Z390 Gaming Motherboard

If you want a great budget board for your new 10th gen Intel core cpu, this is the one for you! MSI has a great BIOS layout, quick BIOS flash options (so easy even I can update the BIOS), and rock solid build quality. All connections went well, two available M2 slots (once way down on the board away from heat sources), and plenty of system fan connectors (all can be smart controlled) make this board a nice and simple platform for any build. Sure, its not flashy, but it has all the features that the falshy-er MSI boards have at a lower cost (who really needs RGB on a mobo?). Zero problems on first boot, easily OCed my 10600k to 5GHz dynamic clock, 45 ring ratio, 1.29v w/ adjustable voltage and enabled XMP without issue. Running Valorant at 400+ fps average, no drops below 250 in-game. Core System: MSI z490 A-Pro i5-10600k Noctua NH-U12S cooler MSI 5700xt

It was sipped fast, it was nicely packaged and everything was right there, it’s a good motherboard and it’s great if you need something that fits a case

Upgraded from an early model Z370 series motherboard that didn't support series 9000 processors or ram faster than 2666 MHz. I was a little leery since I am running Windows 11 developer's preview version and didn't want to do a full clean install. But as it turned out, I had no reason to be concerned. The first boot into Windows went smooth as silk. My M.2 Intel SSD boot drive and the existing install were immediately recognized. Windows 11 found and installed all drivers without a hitch. I did have to update a couple of them but otherwise no issues. The next step was to see how easy it is to overclock. The documentation that comes in the box is limited to a graphic Quick Start sheet that is pretty much useless. But I located the manual on the website and gained enough info to get the job done. Novice builders beware. If you are new to building systems I would recommend a different board with better documentation. Also don't waste your time with Dragon Center, the manufacturer's Windows utility. That is about the most worthless piece of junk software I have ever seen. But I have turbo boost set to 4.8 GHz on my i5-8600K CPU. And I am only running 16 GB of 2666 MHz DDR4. But the benchmark scores are fantastic. And I haven't touched the CPU base clock yet. Price was great. Install smooth. Performance excellent. Next step, upgrade to 3200 MHz ram and eventually an i7-9700K. Update 3-7-2022 - Well, the prices on an i7-9700K are totally ridiculous but I found a sweet deal on a 9700KF so I grabbed it up. The only difference between the two CPUs is the KF doesn't have integrated graphics. I have a discrete card so that wasn't an issue. I am currently running OC'd at 5.0 GHz and my Passmark benchmarked over 35% higher than with the 8600K. Also have my memory running at 3060 Mhz instead of 2667. Temps don't exceed the mid 60s C running CPU-Z stress test. Not bad on an air cooler. Final note - I did switch back to Windows 10 Pro 64 bit. Still the way to go with Windows period.

Great Motherboard for the price. It has a solid build and good features / functionality. It is by no means cheap, but it is affordable. Let's get the obvious out of the road... I had the same issue with the M2 screw missing as everyone else. I ordered an M2 screw kit off of Amazon for $8.52 which I should not have had to do but it can't hurt to have a few extra M2 screws. The mb came with the usual mounting screws, standoffs, mb backplate / IO shield and I believe it may have had 2 sata cables. As far as the motherboard goes, it was a very smooth install. During the install, I added an NVMe drive (Crucial P1 500GB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD - CT500P1SSD8) with no issues (besides the missing M2 screw). I flashed the MB to the current firmware. I used a Corsair Power Supply (Corsair CX Series 650 Watt 80 Plus Bronze Certified Modular Power Supply (CP-9020103-NA)). Adding the CPU and memory were "put it in and go" processes (with the exception of spending time to find stable overclocks after the build was complete). Installed an AIO Liquid CPU Cooler (CORSAIR HYDRO Series H100i PRO) due to overclocking. Backplate and Cooler Fit the mb with no issues. This mb runs very well!

This review is for the MSI Review Rebate Program. I was looking to upgrade my 8 year old MSI motherboard to a 10th gen board. That board was solid for me, so I decided to stick with MSI, rather than Gigabyte. (Plus, the Gigabyte 10th gen boards were more expensive.) While I'm not a hard-core gamer, I do plan on playing games with this PC. As I don't really care about RGB on the board, I opt'd out of the Gaming Plus board for this cheaper Pro model. From what I can tell RGB is the only notable difference in the two. Edit - 8/8/20: The ALC1220 audio codec on the Gaming Plus board is supposedly better than the ALC892 on this Pro board. The Gaming Plus board also has an S/PDIF audio connector. As the MSI web site says, this is a well-constructed board. I could tell just by taking it out of the box. Installing a board is installing a board - pretty straightforward, if you've done it before. The user guide is pretty decent for being a foreign-based company - i.e. English instructions are pretty good. Plus, there is a lot of good detail in the manual. One thing they could improve on in the install instructions is providing clarity on CPU power. Instructions imply you need the 8 pin and 4 pin power connectors, but you only need the 8 pin, unless you are going to do some very serious CPU overclocking. (multiple articles on the internet on this) I'm using an NVME card as my primary storage. Installing that under the FROZR shield was a piece of cake, especially since multiple m.2 screws are included. When the board booted, it had no problems with the NVME card or any other component for that matter; the board just booted up fine. Something I find slightly odd... when booting up, the logo displays, but the options to boot into BIOS or Boot Manager only blip on the screen for .5 seconds. I'm not sure if this is because I have a fast NVME drive and CPU, or if its a flaw in the design of the board. I installed Windows 10 (2004) on this PC. I seem to be having some issues with the onboard Realtek audio drivers. When I try to install the latest from the MSI site, they don't seem to stick - the Microsoft drivers stay there. I called MSI tech support and they couldn't really figure it out. So, I'm hoping either Microsoft or MSI comes out with a patch for this. I personally think Dragon Center is a bloated piece of software. It installs multiple components that do not apply to me - e.g. mystic lighting. Also, the "scenarios" feature I found to be harmful, in that as soon as you click on a scenario, it changes your BIOS settings (e.g. memory speed). On the surface, that sounds like a good idea. However, the scenarios customization does not allow you to customize key aspects (like memory speed). You have to go back into BIOS. It turns out Live Update is all I really needed, so I uninstalled Dragon Center and downloaded Live Update from the MSI web site. (It is not on the install disk included with the motherboard.) Everything considered, this appears to be another solid board from MSI at a decent price-point. Update (8/7/20): While the initial install of the Realtek drivers did not work well (install package kept reinstalling), I did eventually get it to work by cancelling out of the reinstall. Part of the issue was that I originally got a bad tech support person at MSI. His immediate and only advice was to reinstall Windows, which I had just installed. He didn't bother to understand the issue. When I later got someone who knew better, he clarified that only the "Sound, video and game controllers" device shows an updated driver. The devices under "Audio inputs and outputs" still show an older Microsoft driver. This is how it is supposed to work according to MSI. Audio is working fine, which leads me to a point... I'm not clear what the "Audio Boost" feature does. The sound from this board is no different than what I got from my 8 year old MSI board. BTW - Both times I called MSI tech support I waited less than 5 minutes and both techs were clearly English-speaking - likely in the US like me.

MSI Hits it out of the park again! Keep in mind that the "PRO" part of this model, not everything is beginner friendly, although MSI's technical support will happily help you with your build. I would say this motherboard has so many OC features that it would be a waste to use this without an unlocked (K model) CPU. All the 1-3 star reviews are people who either won't read instructions or don't want to call MSI support when they don't know what they did wrong. I paired this with i7 9700K, G.Skill 3600MHz RAM, GTX 1080 Ti, Samsung M.2 SSD and an acer 144Hz monitor. Everything worked great with minimal setup! First boot I opened BIOS and clicked XMP and this MB auto detected a good 3600MHz profile for my RAM. I have adjusted some settings in "expert mode" to make the CPU turbo boost all cores and disabled clocking down for AVX instructions (heat warning!). In benchmarks it maintains 4.85GHz across all cores at once on air cooling (stock limits to 4.6GHz all cores and AVX safety can drag it down more). FireStrike 3D scores improved 15% with max temps reaching 70C so there is even more room to OC. Notes that may help others avoid issues: The M.2 Screw is incredibly tiny and is in a very tiny bag that is easy to miss, but it is there. I even called tech support before I looked more carefully and found it in the box. The M.2 slot when in SATA Mode will take over SATA Slot 1. It will literally replace the slot in the BIOS. If you can't find a drive, that is probably it. The extra 6 pin on the motherboard near the PCI Express lanes are for if you are using two high power draw GPUs (e.g dual 1080 ti or 2080). With one GPU it is not necessary and will not affect performance. If you don't install from an up to date version of Windows 10, the ethernet port likely won't be detected or usable until you install the network drivers from disk or USB. This does not affect wireless. Windows 7 of course is not supported but that has nothing to do with the motherboard, it's the fact that no 8th gen intel CPUs will run windows 7. Any complaints about this are completely misdirected and should be going at Intel. PROS: Designed for OC and high performance gaming Tons of features for beginners and experts Lightning fast USB C 3.1 port in the back plus headers Builtin POST Speaker Mystic RGB headers Lots of headers! Easy OC ranging from no skill to expert level. Has OC settings specific to Intel's 9th gen chips XMP just works M.2 storage and M.2 bluetooth slots RAID Controller It's a motherboard from MSI Con: The only thing remotely negative about this is the noticeable (or almost loud) pop/click when the motherboard powers on. This is not worth a lower rating and it's not much of a con unless you are overly sensitive to computer noises. It's the sound of a solid relay activating to power on your devices and is reminiscent of many years ago when electrical components were overbuilt and could last for decades.

I replaced an older version of this same motherboard, and part of me expected to have issues. I did not. It still works with an i9 processor, and though it won't work with the latest PCIe SSD cards, it does work with some. Additionally, the socket type is supported for some i9 processors, which means it is capable of running with the latest processors. I think my primary concerns with the board were how it would handle my 7 fans I have for my case, but, again, that was not an issue. Overall, price point and standardization of the board make it a decent purchase for someone looking to get a board that works with near-top of the current specs of gaming machines. It is affordable and allows you to spend that money on some of the pricier components such as graphics cards or processors.

1st open box seemed to work fine. Even installed all my software, set it in the rack and connected all cables. Great until I tried the back usb ports. Failures. Oddly enough the front usb headers worked fine. Returned it. Second one would not advance to boot. Drives appeared in bios but always went directly to bios post. Even hitting f11 did not show my drives. Cleared cmos, didn't help. Contacted msi because I thought it had to be a setting and they immediately said it was a bad motherboard. I'm mad because to save a hundred bucks I spent hours installing, Uninstalling, installing, Uninstalling, and now I'm going to have to buy new at regular price and install for a third time. I spent hours troubleshooting. I easily have 10 hours already vested in this new project. Contacted Amazon to complain. I told them I believe Amazon is taking returns that customers say are defective and putting them back on the shelf and marking them open box. Not a good business practice. Told them with all my time waisted I wanted it replaced with a new product. Nope. I was told they could only replace with another open box. No freakin' way. So to compensate me for all my time waisted they gave me a ten dollar credit. That's a buck an hour. I should go into business for myself working on defective Amazon open box items. I could earn 40 dollars a week! Needless to say, I will never buy another open box or refurbished item again.