MSI MEG X570 UNIFY Review

Are you fed up of the current trend of plastering components in RGB LEDs? Don’t want to pay the premium that comes with them? This MSI motherboard might be exactly what you need for that 3rd Gen. Ryzen processor.

Product on Review: MSI MEG X570 UNIFY
Manufacturer: MSI
Street Price: GBP £294.49 / USD $299.99

AMD’s 3rd Generation Ryzen has made quite the splash within the industry, with the X570 chipset also benefitting from its popularity. MSI have been no stranger to that, introducing a model for every price point, including those who want to spend £700. However, today we look at something very familiar, but also different. The MSI MEG X570 UNIFY.

So, what’s different about the UNIFY? Well, despite the very similar feature-set and appearance to the MSI MEG X570 ACE, the UNIFY has been stripped of all RGB LEDs, being squarely aimed at those who have grown tired of the craze that’s swept across the components market, it also lands at a more budget-friendly price, which you’d expect.

While the RGB might’ve been removed, it still packs one hell of a punch; we get three M.2 slots, each equipped with a Shield Frozr heatsink, three x16 slots and a pair of x1 slots to round out PCI-E 4.0 connectivity. There’s also 2.5G ethernet, 4600MHz memory support, USB 3.2 Gen. 2, WiFi 6 and Audio Boost HD.

All in, the MSI MEG X570 UNIFY seems to offer the vast majority of its ACE brother, but at a decent price reduction. If you don’t care for RGB and want something stealthy, the UNIFY sounds like a win-win. Let’s chuck it on the testbench and see what it’s made of.

MSI on the MEG X570 UNIFY:

TAILORED FOR HARDCORE GAMERS AND ENTHUSIAST USERS. MEG X570 UNIFY EMPHASIZING ON THE TRUE VALUE OF THE MOTHERBOARD, ENHANCING NOT ONLY THE THERMAL BUT ALSO POWER SOLUTION. WHOLE BLACK AND UV PRINTING SHINING REFLECTION SYMBOLIZE A MYSTERIOUS AND HIGH QUALITY IMAGE. PURE BLACK, PURE PERFORMANCE, JOIN THE DARK SIDE.

Technical Specifications

SOCKET: AM4
CPU (MAX SUPPORT): RYZEN 9
CHIPSET: AMD® X570 Chipset
DDR4 MEMORY: 1866/ 2133/ 2400/ 2667/ 2800/2933 /3000 /3066 /3200 /3466 /3600 /3733 /3866 /4000 /4133 /4266 /4400 /4533 /4600 + Mhz by JEDEC and A-XMP OC MODE
MEMORY CHANNEL: Dual
DIMM SLOTS: 4
MAX MEMORY (GB): 128
PCI-E X16: 3
PCI-E X1: 2
SATAIII: 4
M.2 SLOT: 3
RAID: 0/1/10
TPM (HEADER): 1
LAN: 1x Realtek® RTL8125 2.5 Gbps LAN controller
USB 3.2 PORTS (FRONT): 1(Gen2, Type C), 4(Gen1, Type A)
USB 3.2 PORTS (REAR): 1(Gen2, Type C), 3(Gen2, Type A), 2(Gen1, Type A)
USB 2.0 PORTS (FRONT): 4
USB 2.0 PORTS (REAR): 2
AUDIO PORTS (REAR): 5+ Optical S/PDIF (Realtek® ALC1220 Codec)
DIRECTX: 12
FORM FACTOR: ATX
SLI: Yes
CROSSFIRE: Yes
OPERATING SYSTEM: Support for Windows® 10 64-bit

Packaging & Bundle

Even the packaging is almost identical to the ACE, they’ve just swapped out the product image and title. It does the job though, clearly showing the motherboard and chipset.

The reverse side goes into much more detail, and is in English only to maximise the usefulness of the area. We also noticed the “printed using soy ink” logo, which is nice to see from an environmental standpoint.

Tucked inside the box with the motherboard is a bunch of paperwork, including some cable tags and the manufacturer’s instructions, four SATA cables, some RGB extensions, the WiFi 6 + Bluetooth antenna, a software CD, a metal case sticker, three M.2 screws and a handy cloth drawstring bag to keep it all in.

Closer Look

The all-black, stealthy design of the MEG X570 UNIFY will certainly appeal heavily to some users, many of which will be fed up of having to choose the budget parts to avoid the RGB lighting craze. There’s a couple of large protective films for you to peel off here too.

After peeling off the films, which really weren’t that satisfying, the board looks incredibly elegant. We love the simplicity of the design with the total lack of colour. Compared to its more expensive counterpart, the ACE, aside from the RGB lighting, one of the biggest removals is the heatpipe interconnecting the FCH fan with the VRM heatsink around the CPU socket.

MSI have equipped the UNIFY with a 12+2+1 power phase design, fed by dual CPU power connectors. There’s six IR3599 IR Phase Doublers, twelve IR3555 60A DR. MOS power phases and twelve Titanium Choke IIs, all of which are controlled by an IR Digital PWM module.
The large heatsink structures are joined by a heatpipe for better performance.

Moving over to the DDR4 slots, another change from the ACE is the removal of the steel armour around each slot. MSI claim their UNIFY can handle memory up to 4800MHz and has been rigorously tested with major memory manufacturers to offer the best possible support.
Around the DIMM slots are five 4-pin PWM fan connections which are spaced nicely, a couple of RGB connections and the 24-pin motherboard power.

In the bottom-right of the board you’ll find four SATA 3.0 ports and a front USB 3.0 header, all of which are mounted at 90° for better cable management.

Closer Look (Continued)

The bottom half of the motherboard features three PCI-E 4.0 x16 slots, a couple of PCI-E 4.0 x1 slots and three M.2 SSD slots, each of which is equipped with a black heatsink. As you’ve probably seen, all of the X570 motherboards currently released feature some variation of active heatsink on the FCH (Fusion Controller Hub), this is due to the increased power demands of PCI-E 4.0 components. MSI have placed this fan as close to the bottom-right as they could which helps prevent it from being covered the graphics card in slot 1, even when triple-slot coolers are installed.
In the bottom-right there’s a seven-segment display and onboard power/reset buttons. Next to that is a front USB 3.2 Gen. 2 header, a USB 3.0 header, a couple of USB 2.0 headers and an additional two 4-pin PWM fan headers.

Removing the three M.2 Frozr heatsinks you can see the layout of each slot. The uppermost can take drives of four sizes, 2240, 2260, 2280 and 22110, with the lower two taking 2240, 2260 and 2280. Almost all M.2 SSDs conform to the 2280 form factor.
Each heatsink has been notched in such a way that relocating it is super easy, which is particularly useful for the top heatsink which has to be removed to fit the middle motherboard mounting screw.

Last, but certainly not least, is the rear I/O. This section comes pre-applied for a better fit and to make installing the board just that little bit easier. We get the following:

BIOS Flash
Clear CMOS Button
Wi-Fi /Bluetooth Antenna Connectors
PS/2 GAMING Device Port
REALTEK 2.5G
HD Audio Connectors
Flash BIOS Button
2x USB 2.0 Ports
2x USB 3.2 Gen1 Ports
3x USB 3.2 Gen2 Ports Type A
1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Ports Type C

BIOS

The landing page when you enter the BIOS, in Easy Mode, gives you an extensive amount of information at a glance, as well an A-XMP button to toggle your memory into its advertised speeds with ease. The boot priority is a case of click-and-drag to re-order the list.

The Advanced Mode doesn’t go too much more in-depth.

Overclocking options are plentiful though, with differing levels of complexity for those with a more advanced understanding. If you’re brand new to overclocking, the Game Boost button in the top-left can automatically apply overclock settings for you but they’re not guaranteed.

Test Setup & Software

BIOS Version Tested: 7C35vA2 – 07/11/19
Test Setup

CPU AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
Cooling Corsair H150i Pro RGB – Balanced Profile
Motherboard
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHz @ 3000MHz @ 15-17-17-38-58
Graphics AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB
Storage Corsair Force LE 480GB
PSU Corsair RM750X 80 Plus Gold Certified PSU

Benchmarks

Cinebench R20 – CPU Score
SiSoftware SANDRA – CPU & Memory benchmarks
POV-RAY – CPU benchmarks
TrueCrypt – CPU benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks & Memory
PCMark 8 Photoshop
PC Mark 10 Extended Test
3DMark – FireStrike Extreme & TimeSpy
Games – Rise of the Tomb Raider & Total War: WARHAMMER

Other Software

Temperature Analysis: Aida64 & Ryzen Master
Stress Testing Software: AIDA64 Stability Test
CPU Specification Monitoring: CPU-Z
Performance Monitoring: MSI Afterburner

Benchmarks: Power Consumption

It’s interesting to note the power consumption across all motherboards. Although they are using the X570 chipset, energy results can fluctuate between manufacturers due to the features and specifications that are integrated. First of all, for the idle tests the system is cold booted into Windows and no additional applications are executed – the watts are noted on the external energy monitor we use and then the system is loaded with 3DMark FireStrike – watts are again monitored for the duration of the test and the highest rated wattage result is then noted down. Below are the results of this energy test.

Ray Tracing Performance – POV-Ray 3.7

Persistence of Vision Raytracer’s PovRay is a free and open source 3D animator application with versions for computers with different operating systems.

This product allows users to build their custom 3D worlds with excellent quality despite their computer’s hardware. It has adjustable options for levels of radiance, refraction, and reflection. Calculation time may vary depending on the computer model, but PovRay can adapt to many computer builds, and is supported by the open source community.

AES Encryption Performance – TrueCrypt 7.1a

TrueCrypt is a discontinued source-available freeware utility used for on-the-fly encryption (OTFE). It can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file or encrypt a partition or (under Microsoft Windows except Windows 8 with GPT) the entire storage device (pre-boot authentication).

Processing Features Performance – AIDA64

AIDA64 Product Page

This simple integer benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and the misprediction penalties of the CPU. It finds the solutions for the classic “Queens problem” on a 10 by 10 sized chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores. For example — with HyperThreading disabled — the Intel Northwood core processors get higher scores than the Intel Prescott core based ones due to the 20-step vs 31-step long pipeline. CPU Queen test uses integer MMX, SSE2 and SSSE3 optimizations.

Memory Transfer Performance – AIDA64

AIDA64 Product Page

Memory bandwidth benchmarks (Memory Read, Memory Write, Memory Copy) measure the maximum achiveable memory data transfer bandwidth. The code behind these benchmark methods are written in Assembly and they are extremely optimized for every popular AMD, Intel and VIA processor core variants by utilizing the appropriate x86/x64, x87, MMX, MMX+, 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, SSE4.1, AVX, and AVX2 instruction set extension.

The Memory Latency benchmark measures the typical delay when the CPU reads data from system memory. Memory latency time means the penalty measured from the issuing of the read command until the data arrives to the integer registers of the CPU.

Processing Power Performance – Cinebench R20

Cinebench is a real-world cross-platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s hardware capabilities. Improvements to Cinebench Release 20 reflect the overall advancements to CPU and rendering technology in recent years, providing a more accurate measurement of Cinema 4D’s ability to take advantage of multiple CPU cores and modern processor features available to the average user.

Bandwidth Performance – SiSoftware SANDRA

SANDRA isn’t always a benchmark that is included in hardware reviews but I believe it shouldn’t be ignored. SANDRA provides a vigorous package that tests your system in a rather large array of benchmarks. There are many aspects of benchmark that can be executed. We will be considering – CPU and memory tests.

Image Editing Performance – PCMark 8 Photoshop

PCMark 8 Product Page

Developed in partnership with Benchmark Development Program members Acer, AMD, Condusiv Technologies, Dell, HGST, HP, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Samsung, SanDisk, Seagate and Western Digital, PCMark 8 is the latest version in FutureMark’s popular series of PC benchmarking tools. Improving on previous releases, PCMark 8 includes new tests using popular applications from Adobe and Microsoft.

Overall System Performance – PCMark 10

PCMark 10 is the latest version in our series of industry standard PC benchmarks. Updated for Windows 10 with new and improved workloads, PCMark 10 is also faster and easier to use.
PCMark 10 features a comprehensive set of tests that cover the wide variety of tasks performed in the modern workplace. With a range of performance tests, custom run options, and the new Battery Life Profile, PCMark 10 is the complete PC benchmark for the modern office.

VR Performance – VRMark

VRMark Product Page

VRMark includes two VR benchmark tests that run on your monitor, no headset required, or on a connected HMD. At the end of each test, you’ll see whether your PC is VR ready, and if not, how far it falls short.

3D Performance – 3DMark

3DMark FireStrike Product Page

Fire Strike is our new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is our most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today. Fire Strike will only be available in the Windows editions of 3DMark initially.

Gaming Performance – Rise of the Tomb Raider & Total War: WARHAMMER

It’s important for us to perform a number of game benchmarks as well as the synthetic tests because gamers will want to know if there are any significant benefits. So here we have two recent gaming titles.

Conclusion

At around £50 less than the MSI MEG X570 ACE, with very few trade-offs, the UNIFY presents an incredibly compelling choice for those seeking raw performance without sacrificing many of the high-end features they may need.

For starters, while we liked the black and copper theme of the ACE, it wouldn’t be for everyone. The all-black colour scheme on the UNIFY is more palatable to more people, we expect. Plenty of components are available in black to complete the look so there’ll be no struggle in making an RGB-free build.

Performance, as you might see from the graphs, is excellent. However, that does come with a caveat of kinds. AMD, after releasing the 3rd Gen. Ryzen processors, came under a little bit of pressure from users who weren’t achieving the Boost Clocks advertised on their CPU, so with that, AMD set about developing the 1.0.0.4 ABBA BIOS updates which would allow additional performance from the processors. Due to that update, the results in our graphs are now a little skewed but still somewhat relevant. Cinebench is probably the most relevant measure of a direct impact on CPU speeds, and as you can see from that result, the latest BIOS update has made a significant impact.

MSI’s DIY Friendly board layout is evidential for a few reasons, chief amongst which is the placement of 4-pin PWM headers around the board. The 90° connections for SATA and front USB headers also helps cable management to potentially improve airflow.

It’s difficult to find any real flaws with the board, apart from the lack of RGB lighting and the omission of the heatpipe between the VRM cooling and the active heatsink on the FCH.

If you seek a feature-packed motherboard but don’t want to pay for the blingy RGB LEDs, this will be right up your street.

Pros
+ No RGB
+ Cracking performance
+ Looks excellent with the stealthy appearance
+ Considerable cost saving over the MEG X570 ACE
+ Loads of fan headers
+ 90° front USB header

Cons
– Removed the heatpipe interconnect
– Straight USB 3.2 front header

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