MSI Details Its X670E & X670 Motherboards: Gives First Close-Up Look at Socket AM5 & Dual PCH PCB Design

During its latest 'Insider' webcast, MSI showcased and further detailed its X670 and X670 motherboard lineup which will support AMD's Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs.

MSI Gives Close-Up Look at Socket AM5 & Dual Chipset PCB Design On Its Next-Gen X670E & X670 Motherboards For AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs

MSI unveiled its X670E & X670 AM5 motherboards on Monday, featuring a total of four initial board designs that are headed to market shelves in Fall 2022. These include the MEG X670E GODLIKE, the MEG X670E ACE, MPG X670E Carbon WIFI, and PRO X670-P WIFI. While AMD will continue to offer support of its AM4 motherboards, the AM5 lineup is what's going to be the future home for next-gen Ryzen CPUs. One interesting detail that MSI shared is that the motherboards will come with a 32 MB BIOS (at minimum spec) compared to AM4's 16 MB (minimum spec).

This will ensure that the motherboards can offer support for future generations of CPUs without losing support for older CPUs. The BIOS ROM size was a major issue for AMD 300 & 400-series motherboards since the small ROM size couldn't accommodate BIOS support for future Ryzen 5000 CPUs. The only workaround by vendors was to remove support for older CPUs within the BIOS so that their motherboards could work with newer CPUs.

MSI also gave us a close-up shot of the AM5 socket itself on these motherboards which features 1718 LGA pads for connection with the motherboard. In addition to the socket, we also got a first look at the dual chipset PCB design. Now while this PCH don't require active cooling, vendors like MSI are including some nice Heatpipe cooling under the PCH heatsink which should keep them cool under operation.

MSI AMD AM5 Socket Close-Up Shot:

MSI AMD X670 Dual PCH PCB Close-Up Shot:

AMD AM5 vs Intel LGA 1700 Socket Comaprison:

So coming to the MSI lineup in general, the motherboard maker's X670E & X670 motherboards will be all PCIe Gen 5.0 / 4.0 and will only support DDR5 memory (same for the B650 series). They will come with:

Strong Power Design: Up To 24+2 Phases with 105A Power Stage
Advanced PCB Materials: Server Grade / 2oz Copper/ Up To 10 Layers
Extreme Thermal Design: Wavy Fin / Cross heat-pipe
More than USB: USB Type-C with PD 60W / DP 2.0

MSI MEG X670E GODLIKE Motherboard - The Flagship To Rule Them All!

Starting off with the motherboards, MSI will have its MEG X670E GODLIKE as the new flagship and although they didn't show any pictures of the motherboard, they did talk about features. The board will offer:

Wavy fin heatsink with cross heat-pipe
24+2 phases / 105A power stages
Lightning Gen 5 slot and M.2 support
Screwless M.2 Shield Frozr heatsink
Onboard 10G + 2.5G LAN with WIFI 6E
Front USB Type-C supports PD 60W
M-Vision Dashboard

MSI MEG X670E ACE Motherboard - Enthusiast-Tier Design With A Pinch of Gold!

The MSI MEG X670E ACE motherboard was one of the units that the 'MSI Insider team showcased during the webcast. Before talking more about it, let's list down its primary features:

Stacked fin-array heatsink with heat-pipe
22+2 phases / 90A power stages
Lightning Gen5 slot & M.2 support
Screwless M.2 Shield Frozr
M.2 Shield Frozr with magnetic design
Onboard 10G LAN with WIFI 6E
Front USB Type-C supports PD 60W

The MSI MEG X670E ACE motherboard features a very large heatsink with a finned design & it also comes with several M.2 Shield Frozr heatsinks. The most interesting is the one next to the DDR5 DIMM slots which have a tool-less installation design and can easily be removed and latched in to place with a special knob mechanism.

MSI MPG X670E Carbon WIFI Motherboard - An All-Rounder With High-End I/O

MSI has also given the X670E treatment to its next CARBON WIFI motherboard. This means we will be getting the same PCIe Gen 5 support for storage and graphics on this motherboard too. Listed features include:

Extended Heatsink with heat-pipe
18+2 phases / 90A power stages
Lightning Gen 5 slot & M.2 support
Screwless M.2 Shield Frozr
Onboard 2.5G LAN & WIFI 6E
USB Type-C supports up to DP 2.0

MSI PRO X670-P WIFI - Entry Into The X670 Segment With Quality Features!

Finally, we have the MSI PRO X670-P WIFI which combines stable functionality with high-quality assembly. Now one thing that MSI has told is that the X670E class motherboards will come with a 10-layer PCB design while the X670 motherboards will come with up to 8-layer PCBs. We know that the X670E class motherboards need those increased server-quality PCB layers to maintain the Gen 5.0 signal integrity for both discrete GPUs and storage. Since the X670 motherboard doesn't have to offer both dGPU and M.2 Gen 5 support, they can do away with 8-layers which is still a high-end PCB design. The main features of the motherboard include:

Extended Heatsink Design
14+2 phases / 80A SPS stages
Lightning Gen 5 M.2 support
1x Double-side M.2 Shield Frozr
Onboard 2.5G LAN & WIFI 6E
USB Type-C supports up to DP 2.0

MSI will discuss more motherboards and details such as specs, pricing, overclocking & performance of its AM5 X670E, X670, and B650 motherboards close to the AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPU launch this fall.

MSI X670E & X670 Motherboard Close-Up Shots: