MSI PRO Z690-A Intel Z690 LGA 1700 DDR5 ATX motherboard

DDR5 Z690 ATX board

The MSI PRO Z690-A is an ATX motherboard built on the Intel Z690 chipset with an LGA 1700 socket. It supports 12th Gen Intel Core, Pentium Gold and Celeron processors and runs dual-channel DDR5 memory up to 6666 MHz when overclocked. Maximum capacity reaches 128 GB across the DIMM slots.

Expansion layout and connectivity

Three PCIe x16 slots provide the primary expansion: the top slot runs at PCIe 5.0 x16 from the CPU, while the second and third operate at PCIe 3.0 x4 and x1 from the chipset. An additional PCIe 3.0 x1 slot is also present. Storage includes four M.2 interfaces and five SATA III ports, and networking uses a single Intel I225-V 2.5 Gbps LAN controller.

Top-slot PCIe 5.0 x16

The decisive specification is the CPU-linked PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, which delivers the full bandwidth ceiling for current graphics cards and high-speed add-in cards. If a build does not require that generation of link speed, a less expensive Z690 board with only PCIe 4.0 primary slots may be more appropriate.