Despite sitting pretty at the top of MSI’s X870 and Z890 motherboard lineup, the flagship didn’t join its more affordable brethren at launch. However, MEG X870E Godlike is finally ready for primetime, packing all the features you could want and more from a board. With this in mind, it naturally carries a high cost.
Costing a whopping £1,199.99 ($1,099.99), this is a seriously expensive motherboard. However, it’s difficult to find an alternative with such a advanced, robust feature set. For all those hard-earned pennies, it features expected niceties like PCIe Gen 5 across graphics and storage, 10Gb Ethernet, and USB 4 support. On top of all that, though, there are a host of unique additions, all running on the best engineering MSI has to offer.
| MEG X870E Godlike | |
|---|---|
| Form Factor | EATX |
| VRM Design | 24+2+1, 110A |
| RAM support | Slots: 4 Capacity: 256GB Speed: 9,000+MT/s |
| Onboard graphics | USB 4 Type-C (x2) |
| PCIe expansion slots | PCIe 5.0 x16 (x2) PCIe 4.0 x4 (x1) |
| Audio | Realtek ALC4082+ESS9219Q DAC |
| Storage | PCIe 5.0 x4 (x2) PCIe 4.0 x4 (x3) SATA 6Gbps (x4) |
| Rear USB | 4.0 40Gbps Type-C (x2) 3.2 10Gbps Type-C (x5) 3.2 10Gbps Type-A (x8) |
| Front USB | 3.2 20Gbps Type-C (x1) 3.2 10Gbps Type-C (x1) 3.2 5Gbps Type-A (x4) 2.0 Type-A (x4) |
| LAN | Marvell 10Gbps (x1) Realtek 5Gbps (x1) |
| Wireless | Bluetooth 5.4 Wi-Fi 7 |
| Features | Dynamic Dashboard III EZ Antenna EZ Button EZ Conn-Design EZ Link EZ M.2 Clip II EZ M.2 Shield Frozr II EZ PCIe Release M.2 Expander-Z Slider Gen 5 Metal backplate Steel Armor II |
In terms of expansion slot, MSI kits out MEG X870E Godlike with four DIMM slots that support up to 256GB of RAM running at 9,000+MT/s. Elsewhere, the motherboard offers two PCIe 5.0 x16 slots, in addition to a single PCIe 4.0 x4. While it makes sense to house a powerful pixel pusher in one of the two Gen 5 ports, the manufacturer also includes an ‘M.2 Expander-Z Slider Gen 5’ accessory which makes use of all that bandwidth too. The card essentially serves as a means to expand your storage options further, with two PCIe 5.0 x4 slots.
Out of the box, though, MEG X870E Godlike can house up to five M.2 SSDs, across two PCIe 5.0 and three PCIe 4.0 x4 ports. MSI has even found room to include four SATA 6Gbps ports on the board. Suffice to say, there’s space for drives aplenty here.
Moving to I/O we find not one, not two, but five USB 3.2 10Gbps Type-C ports, alongside two USB 4 40Gbps connectors that also serve as inputs for any onboard graphics via DP Alt. Mode. Eight USB 3.2 10Gbps Type-A inputs round off peripheral connectivity, making for a practically dream assortment from which to connect devices to your system.
The quality of network connectivity is appropriately high too, with two Ethernet ports with respective speeds of 10Gbps and 5Gbps. Naturally, as an X870E board, Wi-Fi 7 support is here alongside Bluetooth 5.4, complete with MSI’s ‘EZ Antenna’ design.
Bleeding-edge specifications aside, MEG X870E Godlike is one showpiece of a motherboard. In addition to tasteful RGB on its chipset, M.2, and VRM heatsinks, the board also offers a 3.99-inch colour display. This screen can serve as a hardware monitor, troubleshooter, among other functions. Its music player function definitely has a certain charm to it. However, its debug function seems to be the most useful of the bunch. Should you encounter an error, the display will clearly display the culprit (GPU, for example) while also providing a QR code, presumably taking you to a support page.
Lastly, MEG X870E Godlike aims to address cable clutter through ‘EZ Link’ by collating connectors in a centralised hub. It includes even fan headers, two ARGB and a single RGB connector, as well as a water flow header for those running custom loops.
Clearly, this is a beast of a board that any system builder would be glad to have were money no object. It’s now available to pre-order from retailers and will launch imminently.
