With all the intel shenanigans going on I thought I should update my review. On August 13, 2024 BIOS (7E25vA6) was released to - Update CPU Microcode 0x125 & Fixed CVE-2024-36877 security issue. New BIOS on MSI's website.

Nothing that's MSi's fault

Flashed new BIOS, enabled XMP I, did all my windows updates and then ran Cinebench R23.200. Did not mess around with any other power related BIOS features. HW Monitor Pro won't work like it used to and wants money now so I'm not using it. I have "FanControl" installed which I like and will monitor temps / fan speeds for free. CPU package and core 6 ended up staying pinned at 100c during the test. First multicore test gives a score of 34781 while messing around with HW monitor and trying to get it to work while looking at task manager. A reboot and another multicore test while doing nothing gives a score of 34335. From my pre-BIOS update best score to my after-BIOS update worst score I am at 90.2% of what I was. If this helps not cooking the CPU and will give me reliability for it then I'm "happy" with the results. I should mention that before the BIOS update I had no issues, no crashing and no instability of any kind. Just wanted to let everyone know what was changed since the update. For funzies I ran a CPU single core Cinebench R23.200 test and got a score of 2276 for anyone that's curious. I hope anyone considering this motherboard makes the best informed decision.

Bought it on sale: All other boards with similar features are way more money. Has latest BT 5.4 and Wifi 7 Memory Express installed the RAM & CPU and updated the BIOS for no fee. Love these guys!

Have to install the Gen4 NVMe drive into M2_2 slot which runs off the chipset (and not the CPU lanes). If you use the M2_1 slot it slows down the PCI 5.0 GPU slot from x16 to x8. So you can either have a Gen5 GPU or Gen5 NVMe but not both. Unable to have a Gen5 NVMe & Gen5 GPU due to CPU limitations. (No fault of the motherboard) You need to have network drivers handy to install Windows 11. But really, get the drivers from the MSI website ahead of time. Then create your bootable Windows 11 media using Rufus and bypass the requirement of having an online Microsoft account. https://palmertech.medium.com/installing-windows-11-offline-with-rufus-e5e039c90ab8 - Once logged into Windows use those drivers you obtained earlier to update the devices in Device Manager then do your Windows Updates.

I wanted a 14900K, and because I'm old, I wasn't going use any watercooling or RGB. Goal was to obtain no “red” (or thermal throttling) while running a CPU stress test in CPUID Hardware Monitor Pro Went with a Noctua NH-D15S chromax.black CPU Cooler & Noctua NF-F12 PWM chromax.Black.swap added to make it similar to a NH-D15. (Only things I had to buy off of amazon) Installled into a Define 7 XL Case (Solid Black) and used the included Noctua thermal paste. Went into the BIOS and set the following: CPU Game Boost = Off XMP Profile 1 to match specs of RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws S5 64GB (2x32 GB) F5-6000J3238G32GX2-RS5K -> DDR5 6000MHz 32-38-38-96 1.400V (On G.Skill's QVL list) Click on the “Overclocking Settings OC” (big button) on the left hand side Under CPU Cooler Tuning I selected "Tower Cooler". Then clicked on the "Advanced CPU Configuration" and set the following: "Intel C-State" to Enabled "C1E Support" to Enabled "Package C-State Limit" to C10 "Intel Speed Shift" to Enabled Long Duration Power Limit -> 295W Short Duration Power Limit -> 295W CPU Current Limit(A) -> 360A CPU Lite Load -> Mode 8 These settings allowed Cinebench R23 to run a 10 minute multicore test without thermal throttling CPU (Multi Core) score of 37967 in Cinebench R23 CPUID HWMonitor Pro 1.53.0 showed P-Cores Max at 93c and the highest temperature seen was a 98c on the CPU Package. Second test to verify CPU (Multi Core) score of 38067 in Cinebench R23 CPUID HWMonitor Pro 1.53.0 (with 30s left in the test!) showed Package & P-Core #5 spike to 100c momentarily. One other P-Core at 96c and the rest between 85-89c. Ran heaven benchmark to test the GPU and ran MemTest86 to test the RAM. Good temps and no crashes. Despite that one spike, I'm not going to lower the wattage any more, this is good enough for me. I tested multiple times between 200W - 300W. The "CPU Lite Load" setting made the most difference. (Moving from Mode 10 to Mode 8) If you can get this board on sale pick it up. It's a good one!

just bought it, and the bios was easy to handle. MemoryExpress offered to check the processor pins for free to facilitate the warranty with them.

The only problem I had was that when installing Windows 11, the network was not detected. I finally installed Windows 10, used the drivers provided on a USB key, and installed Windows 11 afterwards.

Nice graphics card