MSI Unveils MPG B850I EDGE TI WIFI To Build An Elite Compact Ryzen Gaming PC
This is a frankly gorgeous black-and-white Mini-ITX motherboard for Socket AM5 CPUs that comes with active cooling for power-thirsty PCIe 5.0 SSDs, a single pair of DDR5 DIMM slots for excellent signal integrity, and a full suite of fancy connectivity: PCIe 5.0 on the main x16 slot, 5-Gigabit Ethernet LAN, and the latest Wi-Fi 7 wireless networking. You also get a respectable selection of rear-panel connectivity, including analog and optical audio as well as an HDMI 2.1 port for the integrated graphics.
While this board isn't going to be an overclocking monster, the 8+2+1 VRM with 90A smart power stages will suffice for any of AMD's Socket AM5 CPUs, even with Precision Boost Overdrive enabled. MSI says that it can hit memory transfer rates of 8200 MT/s, which is not the highest we've seen on Socket AM5, but it's pretty damn fast. If you're still carting around a couple of hard drives, this board still comes with two old-school SATA-III ports. Oh, and there's a second M.2 socket supporting PCIe 4.0 x4 on the back of the board.
Honestly, this is a remarkably full-featured board for the Mini-ITX form factor, and it should suffice for the needs of the vast overwhelming majority of DIY builders and PC gamers. Your hard-core power users who really want more storage or PCI Express expansion aren't looking at Mini-ITX builds anyway. You could slap a Ryzen 7 9800X3D and a GeForce RTX 5090 in this thing and have the most powerful gaming PC it is possible to build at this time. Alternatively, throw in a Ryzen 9 9950X, up to 16TB of NVMe storage, and a whopping 96GB of fast DDR5 memory, and you've got an absolutely baller workstation.
The board hasn't quite hit store shelves yet and MSI hasn't announced pricing, but we're expecting it to come around in the mid-$200 range given the premium connectivity and other features. Let us know if you spot one at retail, because we're keen to snatch it up.
