MSI MAG Z590 TORPEDO Motherboard Review

Yay! More Z590 motherboard reviews! As always, MSI has something for everyone in every price range. This time, we are looking at the MSI MAG Z590 TORPEDO motherboard which is aimed at the more budget-conscious user looking to upgrade to the new Z590 chipset. Coming in at around £220 at the time of review, this board will handle the i9-11990K or better yet, be nicely paired with something like the six-core 11400. No matter what you pair your new TORPEDO board with, it will be up to the challenge and offer good performance.

MSI MAG Z590 TORPEDO

The Z590 TORPEDO is going to have most of the features users will want from the new 11th Gen processors when paired with the Z590 chipset. There are three M.2 slots of which one is PCIe 4.0, support for DDR4 RAM up to 128GB and 5,333MHz when overclocked, HDMI 2.0 and much, much more. When it comes to performance, don’t let that lower than most price tags fool you, the Z590 TORPEDO is ready to compete with the big boys and it does!

Features

• Supports 10th Gen Intel^® Core™, 11th Gen Intel^® Core™, Pentium^® Gold and Celeron^® processors for LGA 1200 socket
• Supports DDR4 Memory, up to 5333(OC) MHz
• Premium Thermal Solution: Extended Heatsink Design and M.2 Shield Frozr are built for high performance system and non-stop works
• Latest Network Solution: Onboard 2.5G LAN plus Gigabit LAN with LAN Manager deliver the best online experience without lag
• Lightning M.2: Running at PCIe Gen4 x4 maximizes performance for NVMe based SSDs
• Lightning USB 20G: Powered by USB 3.2 Gen2x2 controller, offering never before seen USB speeds up to 20Gb/s with USB Type-C
• AUDIO BOOST 5: Reward your ears with studio grade sound quality for the most immersive gaming experience
• Multi-GPU: With Steel armor PCIe slots. Supports 2-Way AMD Crossfire™

For in-depth specifications, please visit the official Manufacturer Motherboard product page here.

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Scan.co.uk: MSI MAG Z590 TORPEDO

It looks like one of the ways MSI kept prices down was to not include a load of accessories in the box that generally go unused anyways. We have a pair of SATA cables, a couple of screws and a USB drive. Other than that, we have some stickers and the normal host of manuals and info brochures that come with motherboards these days.

A Closer Look

It might just be me, but I quite like the colour scheme found on the Z590 TORPEDO. I, for one, am sick of the plain black motherboard and while I know why companies do it, it’s still just boring, we need more colours! The RGB lighting is currently taking over the PC market meaning that there isn’t as much of a need for single colour products, companies are trying to go with just neutral colours and add RGB to it.

MSI has gone with 8-pin and 4-pin EPS power connectors to get power to the CPU. It seems a single 8-pin is becoming outdated and more ranges of motherboards are now coming with extra EPS connectors whether 4 or 8 pins.

To the top right of the board and we have out 5v aRGB and 12v RGB connectors and a trio of fan headers. The fan headers are designed for one of each, CPU fan, system fan and AIO pump. This will give users multiple options when it comes to CPU Cooling.

MSI has gone with a 14+2+1 Power design on their Z590 Torpedo. One thing I noticed was the 14 Phases for the CPU are only at 60A, whereas we have seen competitors offer their Phases at 90A. Now, this may not mean a lot to most, but ultimately it does mean that phases can handle less and may not offer the extra power the CPU needs when overclocking or gaming at higher loads. However, in all our testing, we noticed no need for concern so maybe the others are just overdoing it?

MSI has opted to save a bit of money by not going with full shielding on the bottom have of the motherboard and that is fine! Two of the three M.2 slots still have their own shields which are more than ample for this type of motherboard.

There are a total of six SATA 6GB/s ports on this motherboard but only four of them are on the side, the other two are actually on their own on the bottom of the board. We also have another system fan header here just next to the four SATA ports.

Our third M.2 slot is out on the bare board all on its own. While the other two have covers, this one is easily accessible. Using this slot will disable the SATA 5 & 6 ports so make sure you don’t have anything plugged in them should you want to use this.

Even though this is a more budget-friendly board, we still have quite a bit going on across the bottom of the board, more so than we have seen from other boards that cost £100 more! We have the HD audio input, another set of 5v and 12v RGB connectors, two more PWM fan connectors, a 6-pin PCIe power connector which when used will give more power to the PCIe lanes for better efficiency and more stability for the GPU.

Moving along and we have a pair of USB 2.0 front panel headers, our other two SATA ports our front panel connectors and one more fan header just for good measure. This should be more than ample connectors for people to make the most out of the Z590 TORPEDO.

We have a fairly normal rear IO on the Z590 TORPEDO. Seven standard USB ports and one USB-C, dual Lan ports, HDMI/DP and our standard audio ports. The interesting this is that the all-mighty flash BIOS button will allow you to flash the BIOS on the Z590 TORPEDO without the need for a CPU.

• DisplayPort
• USB 2.0
• Gigabit LAN Port
• 2.5G LAN Port
• HD Audio Connectors
• HDMI
• Flash BIOS Button
• USB 3.2 Gen 1 5Gbps Type-A
• USB 3.2 Gen 1 5Gbps Type-A
• USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps Type-A
• USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 20Gbps Type-C
• Optical S/PDIF OUT

As always, a quick image of the back side of the motherboard just to show that there is nothing going on.

How We Test

Here at eTeknix, we endeavour to disclose vital information regarding the benchmarking process so that readers can quantify the results and attempt to replicate them using their hardware. When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of motherboard, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there’s always a margin for error when using any software. Therefore, your experience may vary.

Testing Your Own System

We typically focus on commonly available benchmarks so that you too can run the same benchmarks on your own system. We hope this makes it easy for our readers to gauge the performance improvement available to them when they upgrade their own systems.

Gaming Tests

All games are run at their specified resolutions using the “high” settings or equivalent. We avoid using the Ultra settings as these often offer diminishing returns for performance vs visuals.

Test Benches

Rocket Lake S

Synthetic Benchmarks

Online Benchmarks

Compression & Rendering

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider Performance

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Far Cry New Dawn Performance

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Metro Exodus Performance

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World of Tanks Performance

Memory & Storage

Power Consumption

How Much Does it Cost?

Coming in at just £220 here in the U.K. this is one of the cheapest boards we have tested for the current 11th Gen CPU launch. However, don’t let us saying it’s the cheapest put you off, it literally just means it costs less than others and doesn’t mean that it is made cheap!

Overview

User’s looking to save a bit of money will surely want to check this out! If you can live without things like onboard WiFi 6E this is definitely worth checking out. The Z590 TORPEDO offers plenty of features and backs them up with the performance to match! This really is a great board to dip your toes into all that is on offer with the Z590 motherboards and Intel’s 11th Gen CPUs.

Build Quality & Design

Designed with a 6-layer PCB with 2OZ thickened copper, PCIe Steel Armour, extended heatsink and dual M.2 shields, the Z590 TORPEDO has most of the quality and design that you would hope to find in more expensive boards! MSI has done a great job at cutting some small corners to allow for a better price without compromising the quality and design we have come to expect from them. Again, I will just mention the blue heatsinks really helps set this board apart from the others for me, as not only does it look different, it really is done quite nicely.

Performance

I was quite surprised by the performance of the Z590 TORPEDO! While in our synthetic tests it manages to hold its own, it’s the gaming tests that amazed me. If you look back at the gaming benchmarks you may notice that this board offered some of the best FPS we saw! Considering this is the cheapest board on our charts, this is great to see and really does show MSI have not skimped out on the quality of components used.

Added Value

It’s hard to talk about added value on one of the cheaper Z590 board we have seen. However, the extra 6-pin PCIe power connector is a good start. Or, maybe you are like me and like the metallic blue heatsinks? The amazing performance it has to offer could offer added value as well I suppose. Basically, when it comes down to it, this board is great value for the money and I would say all it has to offer could add value to it.

Should I Buy One?

If you are looking for a no-frills way into the Z590 chipset and 11th Gen CPUs from Intel, yes you should. The Z590 TORPEDO still comes with plenty of features to make the most of your hardware all while remaining at an amazingly affordable price. For me, the price of this board is going to help make it just that much easier to recommend, couple that with some of the better performance we have seen from a Z590 and you have a very capable motherboard on your hands.