A commendable entrant in the X570 arena. AMD supports older motherboards with its range of nascent 3rd Gen Ryzen processors, but for users wanting to get the most out of them, the recommended path is to invest in X570 boards. That's all well and good, as they offer unique PCIe 4.0 connectivity and best-of-breed overclocking support, though the caveat is one of high pricing. X570 boards start at £150 and quickly escalate to beyond £500 as manufacturers add better power delivery, all forms of RGB, and esoteric cooling.

MSI has seven X570s in its arsenal, and sitting nearer the top of the stack is the MEG X570 Ace that retails for £350. Compared to the firm's own MPG X570 Gaming Plus, which we reckon is a decent entry-level effort costing exactly half as much, MSI adds an extra PCIe x16 slot, a trio of additional USB 3.1Gen2 (Type-A), explicit support for SLI, 2.5G LAN, WiFi 6, significantly beefier cooling and VRM support, along with better RGB lighting. Decent differentiation, then.