Motherboard

MSI MPG B760I Edge WiFi Gaming Motherboard (Supports 12th/13th Gen Intel Processors, LGA 1700, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, M.2, 2.5Gbps LAN, USB 3.2 Gen2, Wi-Fi 6E, Mini-ITX 

MPG B760I EDGE WIFI
Support Intel® Core™ 14th/ 13th/ 12th Gen Processors, Intel® Pentium® Gold and Celeron® Processors for LGA 1700 socket
Supports DDR5 Memory, up to 7200+(OC) MHz
Lightning Fast Game experience: PCIe 5.0 slots, Lightning Gen 4 x4 M.2, USB 3.2 Gen 2
Enhanced Power Design: Direct 8+1+1 phases power, Core Boost, Memory Boost
Premium Thermal Solution: Enlarged heatsink, MOSFET thermal pads rated for 7W/MK, additional choke thermal pads, and M.2 Shield Frozr are built for a high-performance system and non-stop gaming experience

2.5G LAN and Intel Wi-Fi 6E Solution: Upgraded network solution for professional and multimedia use. Delivers a secure, stable, and fast network connection
AUDIO BOOST: Reward your ears with studio-grade sound quality for the most immersive gaming experience
High-Quality PCB: 8-layer PCB made by server-grade level material
Pre-installed I/O Shield: Better EMI protection and more convenience for installation

The motherboard works as expected and on top of that, it looks great. This is generally a compact motherboard for a Mini-ITX PC build. The main advantage of gaming is the ability to have a dedicated graphics card, although not powerful. It works fine for manageable games. If you use it, you will be happy. My friend uses this motherboard and gives very good performance.

MSI’s MPG B760I Edge Wi-Fi is a Mini-ITX form factor motherboard on the budget side of the menu. (Although “budget” is always relative to pricey mini-ITX boards.) While its size limits what it can offer, you still get great features for the price. The B760I Edge doesn’t support PCI Express 5.0 (neither a slot nor an M.2 socket), but it does offer plenty of storage (two M.2 sockets and four SATA ports), enough power delivery for flagship CPUs, plenty of USB ports on the back. including /O, and so on. Its black-on-silver styling is handsome and a bit bolder than its competitors. All told the board gives you a comprehensive feature set at a reasonable price, though it’s not an untouchable value.

CPU and memory
The motherboard supports Intel’s 12th and 13th-generation processors. Hardware-wise, it has a 10-phase power design using 90A SPS MOSFETs (eight dedicated to Vcore). The total 720A available isn’t much, but it couldn’t keep up with our Intel Core i9-13900K in our tests. VRM heatsinks do a great job of keeping the power bits cool. While you can’t overclock the CPU on Mini-ITX boards (without the BCLK generators), you can overclock the RAM. I have done a good job with it. I understand everything. It supports everything.

Board design
Small-form-factor motherboards like the mini-ITX platform don’t have much real estate to work with compared to larger boards. The B760I Edge uses a 10-layer, all-black PCB with 2-ounce thick copper connections. The gray heatsinks provide a stark contrast to the black PCB; They carry MSI branding including the company’s gaming dragon on the left VRM bank and its MPG moniker above. The bottom bears the M.2 heatsink edge label. It is very good. I think this is a good motherboard. This is what you can do.

There are no integrated RGB LEDs, although you do get two onboard headers where you can connect your own lights. Overall, this is a nice motherboard, especially for builders looking to get away from the typical all-black look.

Memory support is listed up to DDR5-7200+ (OC), which is average for this Intel platform. Smaller boards have more overclocking headroom, but since this isn’t an enthusiast platform, the ceiling is a bit lower than the more expensive Z790 ITX options. MSI lists memory capacity at 96GB, with the new 48GB stick and kit supported. This should be enough for an overwhelming majority of users; If you want more than 96GB, you need to find a board with four slots, which should give you a good performance.ssss

As mentioned, if you’re overclocking your RAM to get the last few percent of performance out of your system, you’ll need to work at a higher speed. The BIOS offers a lot of memory-tweaking options, including voltage, primary, secondary, and tertiary timing that might work for you. We tried our base DDR5-5600 and DDR5-7200 kits, both with the internal profile set to stable (XMP on one kit, EXPO on the other), so everything was fine, even reaching the maximum speed listed for the board.

Layout and Internal Connectors
Starting with the upper left corner, there’s a single 8-pin EPS connector to power the CPU. Above the top VRM heatsink are a slew of headers, starting with 3-pin ARGB and 4-pin RGB headers to add your own compatible lighting. Next are three 4-pin fan headers. Each header supports DC and PWM-controlled devices. The CPUFAN1 header outputs up to 2A/24W, the PUMPFAN1 a whopping 3A/36W, and finally the SYS_FAN1 header 1A/12W. That’s plenty of power for your pump or even to piggyback a couple of fans on a header; just be sure not to overload them. You can control any LEDs through the MSI Center app and Mystic Light applet while the fans adjust through the BIOS.
Then there are two unreinforced DRAM slots with a single locking mechanism at the top. As mentioned, MSI specifies support for up to 96GB of DDR5-7200. Along the right edge you have a 24-pin ATX connector to power the spy board; four vertically mounted 6Gbps SATA3 ports; One front-panel USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5Gbps) Type-A port and one USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) Type-C port.

UEFI BIOS and Utilities

This MSI’s BIOS, like nearly all motherboards’, starts in Easy Mode. This mode is informative with system details listed across the top, and functional with the ability to change a few options including boot priority, XMP profiles for the memory, Game Boost, and so on. Overall, it provides plenty of data and enough versatility to be helpful.
The advanced version of the BIOS looks different than most: instead of arranging the main headings across the top, you’ll find them with details and all the information the BIOS provides in the middle. System summary is visible at the top which is good for you.

MSI Center’s hardware monitoring is detailed, displaying CPU usage, frequency, and temperature. It also lists several system temperatures including DRAM, CPU, MOSFETs, chipset, and critical voltages. It’s informative, but again lists nothing you can tweak or adjust.
I mentioned MSI Center’s Mystic Light app. While the board doesn’t have its own RGB lighting, it does offer four headers and an integrated control header to add more RGB bling. You can set profiles, change brightness, sync RGB and adjust each part separately.

Keeping this MSI board at a 3.5-star rating and just shy of an Editors’ Choice award is Asus’ ROG Strix B760-I gaming Wi-Fi, which offers a 20Gbps port and a superior albeit previous-gen audio solution. The same $219.99 price, though it lacks the flexibility of a SATA-based M.2 socket you might notice. You can save a little money by opting for Gigabyte’s B760I Aorus Pro DDR4 or ASRock’s B760M-ITX Wi-Fi, but those boards don’t support DDR5 and only have one M.2 socket each. I think it is the best.