Installation
For our system build, we used a Corsir iCUE LINK 3500X RGB Mid-Tower chassis, which is compatible with MSI’s Project Zero motherboards. For cooling we used the Corsair iCUE H150i Elite LCD XT AIO CPU Cooler mounted with 3 x Corsair iCUE LINK LX120 RGB PWM Cooling Fans.
We also installed a 2TB Lexar NM800Pro SSD with heatsink and 32GB of Corsair Dominator Titanium First Edition DDR5-7200 32GB Memory Kit.
We also used a GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card for good measure. And to power the whole system, we used the Corsair RM1000x SHIFT 80 PLUS Gold Fully Modular ATX Power Supply, which is more than plenty.
Connecting all the cables was super easy, especially with all the connectors on the reverse side of the motherboard. No more trying to awkwardly thread the power and fan cables, through the motherboard’s backplate … I do all my cable connections on one side of the case (with ease)!
BIOS
I’ve always like the BIOS on MSI motherbaords. It’s simple to naviigate and really easy to use. For this motherboard, there are two BIOS modes on the MSI Z790 Project Zero … Easy Mode and Advanced Mode. The Easy Mode is the default page, and allows you look at the system spec at a glance. You can enable XMP mode, switch boot priority, look at the CPU, memory and storage information.
In the Advanced Mode, there are a lot of options available for tweaking your processor, memory speeds and more. Voltages for memory and processor can also be adjusted here.
Users can also configure other settings for CPU, chipset, storage and NVMe, as well as onboard devices such as USB, TPM, onboard devices and more.
During our tests, we left everything on AUTO/Default. All we did was to make sure that XMP was enabled to ensure that the ram was running at DDR5-7200 speeds. For a list of compatible memory kits, check out MSI’s QVL page here.
If you want to run the latest 14th Gen processor, make sure you update the BIOS to the latest version. You can do to MSI’s downlaod page here.
