MSI B850MPOWER Motherboard Review – $259 Is What You Pay For The Best Overclocking mATX AM5 Motherboard

Conclusion - The Best Enthusiast & OC-Ready mATX Motherboard

Since the arrival of B850 motherboards, AM5 builders have been getting good options for their new Ryzen 9000/7000 CPUs. While B650 motherboards have been decent, B850 options do an upgrade, & that's compelling enough to reconsider your choice if you're coming from an older AM4 board. Today, we tested MSI's latest and first MPOWER offering centered around the AM5 socket, the B850MPOWER.

The MPOWER/XPOWER series is an iconic series from MSI, but has mostly been restricted to Intel platforms; however that changes. The spark has been, without a doubt, the ever-increasing popularity of AMD's Ryzen CPUs and just how well the new AM5 platform has been optimized with recent BIOS revisions. As such, the MSI B850MPOWER delivers top-tier overclocking capabilities in a cost-effective and mATX form factor.

The power delivery and the BIOS features on the B850MPOWER are superb and very extensive. MSI takes things up a notch by introducing new Direct OC, a real-time BCLK overclocking tech, on its motherboards, which allows users to change the CPU.SOC BCLK individually or together. There are plenty of BIOS features like MSI's X3D Gaming Mode, High Efficiency Mode, several power profiles, PBO/CO profiles, and more. To top it all off, the VRM capabilities and dual 8-pin connectors on this motherboard ensure that Ryzen CPUs get the proper juice to deliver the best performance. We saw up to 7% gains in games and apps using these features, a solid uplift versus the stock operation.

The MSI B850MPOWER also enables up to 10,200 MT/s support with its dual DIMM DDR5 design. This OC is possible with AMD's Ryzen 8000G APUs, while Ryzen 9000 CPUs can do well at up to 8400-8600 MT/s speeds. We were able to run our DDR5-7400 CL34 kit without any issues with the aforementioned High-Efficiency Mode.

Besides the OC-side, the B850MPOWER also has a solid array of IO with 5 GbE LAN, Wi-Fi 7, BT 5.4, multiple USB Type-C and Type-A ports, which are listed below:

• 1 x USB 20 Gbps (1 Type C)
• 5 x USB 10 Gbps (3 Type A + 2 Type C)
• 6 x USB 5.0 Gbps (6 Type A)
• 4 x USB 2.0

The four M.2 slots, of which two are Gen5 and the full-length Gen5 x16 slot, are definitely an essential. The four M.2 slots are also good since the motherboard only offers 2 SATA III ports. The heatsinks, both for the VRMs and the M.2 slots, are well-designed, and that is also true for the entire motherboard itself, which features a stunning all-black design with yellow hints to align with the MPOWER theme. The supplementary 8-pin connector, EZ Con ports, and a BCLK JCon jumper that lets you increase or decrease the BCLK on the fly are also great additions.

Plus, the add-on EZ Dashboard is one of the most useful accessories that the MSI B850MPOWER comes bundled with, offering tuners and overclockers with a handy set of tools near them.

MSI B850MPOWER Motherboard Pros/Cons:

• + Good Price at $259
• + Solid BIOS & Huge array of tuning/OC features
• + Solid Ryzen 9000 CPU Performance
• + Triple M.2 slots with Frozr cooling
• + Up To 10,200 MT/s memory support
• + WIFI 7 + BT5.4 + 5GbE LAN
• + 16 USB ports (3 Type-C)
• + EZ Release M.2 slots
• + EZ Dashboard for tuners & overclockers
• + Available in All-Black and All-White colors
• - A few memory kits have compatibility issues

Out of nowhere, MSI has not only released the first AM5 MPOWER motherboard, but also the best B850 mATX designs to date. With a powerful set of overclocking features, a strongly armed power solution, & a huge array of IO features, the B850MPOWER goes for the win in the AM5 mATX category with a solid price ($259) to back it up.

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