MSI MEG Z690 Godlike – By Invitation Only

1. Introducing the MSI MEG Z690 Godlike2. Test Setup and CPU Testing3. Performance - Gaming4. Performance - Technical5. Closing Thoughts6. View All Pages

The MSI MEG Z690 Godlike is an interesting motherboard package that caused your reviewer a huge amount of frustration.

The starting point is an E-ATX motherboard is loaded with high end hardware, including 20+2 phases of VRMs and six M.2 SSD slots. There is only one likely reason for this board to be ATX rather than E-ATX and that is to provide support for the M-Vision Dashboard display/control unit which we will come to in a moment.

There is little doubt that MSI is proud of providing six M.2 connectors however you saw in our video that it requires a fair amount of dismantling to provide enough access to add more storage. This is not difficult on the bench but could be tricky inside your finished PC. MSI also boasts support for dual PCI Express 5.0 graphics slots when almost no-one is inclined to run Nvidia SLI or AMD CrossFire.

The problem is that the MEG Z690 Godlike lacks focus and instead piles feature upon feature. We can easily imagine tech enthusiasts who want 10Gbit Ethernet and DisplayPort pass-thru to the Thunderbolt 4 ports however it is tricky to imagine those same people wanting RGB on the six M.2 Frozr covers. Similarly we can picture the owner who wants support for two front panel USB-C ports and a load of USB 3 on the rear IO panel but they will be repelled by a price far beyond £1,000.

And then we come to the crowning glory of the M-Vision Dashboard. Perhaps you might want an LCD display inside your PC that tells you temperatures and clock speeds. Possibly you might like the idea of an extension cable that allows you to move the M-Vision Dashboard outside your PC so it can sit on your desk. Where we struggle is imagining who might want the display to double up as a touch screen control unit, and would that person accept a resistive touch display that only works reluctantly?

Take all that together and add in the colossal price tag and we are left completely stumped. It seems to us the ideal customer for the MEG Z690 Godlike is a teenage boy who does not pay for his own extremely high-end PC hardware, and that seems like a rather tiny demographic.

Qualifying MSI owners will be able to buy the MSI MEG Z690 Godlike for £1,850 – it won't be available on general sale.

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Pros:

• Glorious bling, RGB and LCD screens galore.
• Colossal VRMs with mega cooler.
• Six M.2 SSD slots.
• Display Port passthrough to Thunderbolt 4.

Cons:

• M-Vision Dashboard feels like a gimmick.
• Resistive touch screen is poor.
• Crazy high price.
• Bundle includes a cooler and DDR5 you may not want.

KitGuru says: Wealthy lovers of RGB should step right this way. The rest of you can keep on walking.

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