MSIPRO Z690-A WIFI Motherboard ATX - Intel Core 12th Gen Processors Ready, LGA 1700 - 14 Duet Rail 55A VRM, Memory Boost (DDR5-6400MHz/OC), 1x PCIe 5.0 x16, 3x M.2 Gen4 x4, HDMI, 2.5G LAN, Wi-Fi 6E

I purchased the motherboard to use with a 13600k and ddr5 ram. The Z690 chipset of course requires a BIOS update to use with the 13th generation intel CPUs, and there were instructions on how to do this in the motherboards manual. It was as simple as downloading the latest bios from the MSI website and putting it on a USB drive. I then put the USB drive into the slot on the I/O panel and pressed the "flash" button. I did this without installing any parts in the motherboard, and only connecting the CPU and motherboard power cables. The BIOS flash worked flawlessly and the PC posted with no issues after installing all of my components. The motherboard itself looks very nice for the price and the BIOS is easy to navigate. In terms of performance, I have little knowledge of what to look for between motherboards as I have used so few, however everything in my system is working brilliantly with no issues.

I wanted to build myself a new desktop PC, although I have owned and worked on PC's upgrading since the early days I have never built my own, and I found the more I researched what I should get or what fitted my needs the more bogged down I got.I finally went for this motherboard mainly because I had DDR5 to fit and a couple of NVMe Internal SSD's, and this would take them with additional slots for more, and was DDR5 compatible. I actually found the build very straight forward following instructions and the PC has not missed a beat since I put it together, and it has filled all my needs along with giving me a massive increase in speed and power over my old PC.Overall this motherboard fitted my needs perfectly and has worked flawlessly since I put everything together six months ago. I can't fault it so have given top marks.

The motherboard is great for me using it for gaming and some other machine learning tasks too. It supports the 13th gen Intel processors, but you will need to do a bios flashback, which isn't difficult, but you will need a spare USB key. When I first started using it, I was getting very high temperatures on the CPU. I thought I had messed up mounting the CPU cooler, but it turns out this motherboard supplies way higher voltage than is needed to the CPU. So be sure to go into the bios settings and turn the CPU Lite mode down to 3, maybe lower if you can without the computer crashing. After changing this, the CPU runs much cooler with no throttling. You may want to look further into this if you're not familiar with changing bios settings.

Initially, I was very pleased with this board, however this changed when I found that the Ethernet connection has frequent dropouts. From what I can gather, this appears to be some sort of driver issue that has yet to be patched as of June 2022, mainly affecting Windows 11. I had to buy a separate PCI-E Ethernet card in order to keep the network running in the end.If you're planning to run Linux or Windows 10, you may have more luck, but there are no guarantees. If you're planning to use WiFi exclusively via an external dongle, you'll be alright, but if you're reliant on an Ethernet connection, either plan to buy a PCI-E Ethernet card as well or look elsewhere for a motherboard.Update June 2023: It seems that the latest Intel drivers have patched this issue for me, but your mileage may vary.

I have build 7 pcs with this board and works perfect every time.It’s a good board with ddr5 will def use again

The software that MSI installs appears to have gotten my gaming account banned. This was last year but I am only just writing the review.There was a program called CFosSpeed which MSI used to try and reduce internet latency for gaming. Unfortunately this program breaches the rules for call of duty and resulted in my pc account and linked Xbox account being permanently banned from the game.The program is very difficult to uninstall. Every time I uninstalled the computer would want to do an update and would reinstall the CFosSpeed program. In the end it took my friend who is a gamer and works in IT over an hour to figure out how to get rid of it. Since then I have been able to make a new account and not been banned.The motherboard is actually fine but it does not come with many installation instructions. After getting rid of the program there is nothing wrong with the motherboard.

I started looking for a new motherboard after deciding on a 12th generation Intel i5 12600KF CPU.That's when I came across this reasonably priced motherboard, which, while lacking RGB, couldn't be faulted.The numerous M.2 and SATA ports, as well as the abundant IO, met my requirements, and since receiving the product in March, I've been able to maintain a reasonable overclock of 4.8Ghz. My one complaint would be the IO Shield is of lesser quality than my previous MSI motherboard and has metal tabs which (in my case) has to be bent out the way to allow all the IO ports to be used.Pros:- Affordability- Overclocking support- DD4/5 Variants- Simple design- Easy to installCons:- No RGB (if that's your thing)- IO Shield QualityI would recommend it to anyone who is on a limited budget.For many years, I've used MSI motherboards and have never been disappointed.

Very nice mother bored. It is kinda hard to line up with the back IO plate.