MSI B650M GAMING PLUS WIFI review: test of a budget motherboard with AMD Ryzen 9 9950X processor

Oct 24, 2024

An inexpensive and compact MSI B650M GAMING PLUS WIFI motherboard combined with the most productive processor of our time — what will it be? We checked how the hero of the review coped with the voracious and extremely powerful 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and were pleasantly surprised. As it turned out, even this motherboard is quite enough for this «stone», but let’s get things in order.

Pluses:

strong power supply to support the most powerful 16-core processors; support for up to 256 GB of RAM and easy RAM overclocking; useful and functional proprietary utility;

Minuses:

Slow BIOS loading; only two M.2 NVMe connectors;

Content

We tested the motherboard with the following set of components:

The motherboard is wrapped in an antistatic bag and packed in a small box with a basic set of accessories. Inside you will find paper documentation, screws for M.2 connectors, an external Wi-Fi antenna with a long cable, and a SATA cable for old-style drives.

MSI MAG B760M MORTAR WIFI has dimensions of 25×25 centimeters and a nice look. Contrasting silver-colored radiators with acid-blue elements catch the eye. The manufacturer covered the power supply area, two drives, and a chipset with cooling.

There are no complaints about the ergonomics and appearance if you have not used other MSI motherboards before. For example, the MSI B650 CARBON WIFI has a convenient M.2 drive mount without any screws. That is, you can install the SSD with your bare hands in a few seconds. I had to pick up a screwdriver right away. It’s a completely standard type of mounting with screws.

USB connectors were not spared: there are 15 of them in total, including all types on the front and rear panels. Most of them have a bandwidth of 5 Gbps, although there are also USB 3.2 versions with 10 Gbps. We didn’t forget about the standard HDMI 2.1 and DP 1.4 for outputting images from integrated graphics. Such connectors will definitely not be superfluous.

The motherboard has Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6E modules. Thanks to the remote antenna, the review subject receives the signal very well. The main thing is to put it on a table or somewhere in a prominent place so that nothing blocks access to the signal, and you can catch Wi-Fi much further than a typical smartphone or laptop. After the classic antenna (without an extension cord) in MSI B650 CARBON WIFI, it’s nice to see such an option in a half-priced board.

The memory configuration is as follows: four DDR5 RAM sockets with support for 64GB modules and a frequency of up to 7200 MHz. It is worth noting that when all the connectors are full, the maximum speed drops to 5400 MHz. There are two PCI-E 4.0 slots for M.2 drives.

Additionally, you can connect four more SSDs/HDDs via SATA 3.0. Like every modern motherboard, MSI B650M GAMING PLUS WIFI can work with RAID arrays in 0, 1 and 10 configurations for SATA and Raid 0, 1 for M.2 NVMe. For those who like rainbow lighting, there are RGB/ARGB connectors.

The board has a functional, user-friendly, useful, but slow BIOS. MSI motherboards are still relatively slow when it comes to booting the operating system. After numerous attempts and tweaks, we managed to reduce the computer’s boot time to 30 seconds, which is 2-3 times longer than the competition.

The BIOS allows you to overclock processors and RAM. The MSI Memory Try It function came in handy, as it managed to reduce memory latency from CL40 to CL30 with stable system operation. The processor was set to 230 W (maximum available). There were no problems with AMD Precision Boost Overdrive.

Yes, it was not possible to take the PBO Negative Curve -40 undervoltage, but this is not possible on other motherboards with which we tested AMD Ryzen 9 9950X. It is optimal to choose automatic PBO, where the board itself decides which cores can be reduced. In Auto mode, the computer works stably without the slightest hint of problems, gaining a bonus 3-6% of performance.

To further customize the motherboard, the manufacturer recommends the MSI Center program. The software is heavy, takes up a lot of space, and takes a long time to load, but it has no analogues from other manufacturers in terms of functionality. The program can control the backlight, fan speed, detect other MSI equipment, and so on.

Before testing in synthetic tests, we updated the BIOS. It’s impossible to do this from the system, so we had to download the file to a flash drive and then update it from the firmware interface.

The test conditions for MSI B650M GAMING PLUS WIFI were the most difficult — the processor AMD Ryzen 9 9950X is currently the most productive solution from AMD and beyond. This CPU breaks performance records and consumes 100W less power than the Intel Core i9-14900K.

Almost 3500 points in Geekbench Single Core is an incredible result against other x86 processors, although it is still the level of 10W iPad Pro M4. In Cinebench 2024, the performance per core is identical to the Intel Core i9-14900K, but in the browser benchmarks AMD Ryzen 9 9950X comes out ahead. In CPU-Z, the advantage over the predecessor Ryzen 9 7950X is 10%, which is an adequate increase in one generation.

Under heavy load, the processor keeps 5.1 GHz on all cores, consuming 230 watts of power. There were no problems with temperatures thanks to the 360 mm SRO. The CPU heated up to 88-90 °C, but the room was quite noisy due to the humming of the fans.

With liquid metal, it would be possible to reduce the noise level with the same temperatures, or to cool the processor to 75 °C or even lower. Using low-quality «folk» GD» thermal paste and similar counterfeits will lead to a loss of performance of up to 30% due to frantic trotting. We got results slightly higher than the official charts.

With the RAM, MSI B650M GAMING PLUS WIFI works well at 6000 MHz (the recommended frequency by Kingston). With the XMP profile, we get quite familiar values for the AM5 platform: 73 GB/s read, 75 GB/s write and 75 nanoseconds latency.

The MSI Memory Try It 6000CL30 profile allows you to improve these results: 77 GB/s read, 80 GB/s write, 72 nanosecond latency. There is no point in chasing faster RAM for such computers.

The drives work well, they don’t get hot under the radiators. With the Kingston KC3000, we got the coveted 7500 MB/s when working with large files, and the junior 4 TB drive is working at the limit of its capabilities (PCI-E 3.0 SSD).

TDP 230 W is still quite a lot for a low-end motherboard. The sensors in the Aida 64 show strange values because 40 °C is too low after ten minutes of stress tests. The pyrometer measured almost every corner of the review hero and got the following results: it’s hard to see 50 °C on the heatsinks of the drives, more often 40-45 °C. The power supply area heats up to 55-60 °C on average, but the hottest capacitors reached 67-70 °C at the end of the stress test.

It is worth reminding that the testing was conducted in a roomy chassis with a liquid cooling system. Owners of smaller chassis (which this motherboard is designed for) and air coolers will never get such low temperatures with a 16-core 230W processor.

That’s not to say that the results are bad because they are excellent! The 13-phase power supply and medium-sized radiators proved to be quite enough to run the most productive desktop processor of today in extreme conditions.

In everyday use with a partial load of AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, the MSI B650M GAMING PLUS WIFI motherboard is even more confident, and the temperatures of the power supply area are far from being something to worry about.

After the B650 CARBON WIFI, the transition to the B650M GAMING PLUS WIFI was easy, and nothing has changed fundamentally. The board is still powerful enough to handle any processor and has almost identical functionality.

Yes, the sound chip is cheap, and there are fewer connectors, but these are all trifles. After a week of using MSI B650M GAMING PLUS WIFI, the following thought comes to mind: «Do we really need expensive motherboards for AMD AM5?

No, they are not! For example, to hear the difference in sound quality, you need really top-of-the-line speakers paired with a musical ear, because ACL897 still sounds good compared to what was put in terrible FM2+, AM3+, LGA1151 motherboards.

One more thing: if you fill all the M.2 connectors in the B650 Carbon Wi-Fi, the PCI-E x16 slot will operate at half the bandwidth. The combination of 1 TB + 4 TB of two drives is definitely enough for most users, but for some it is too much.

Budget motherboards have become so cool that there is no need for flagship models in all scenarios except for the most demanding enthusiasts who don’t use their computers but play benchmarks, always twisting, changing, configuring, and reassembling something.

Pros MSI B650M GAMING PLUS WIFI you’ll have to pay 7000 hryvnias. It seems to be an adequate price for this functionality, although there are plenty of competitors. There are many good models in this price category with their own compromises, let’s look at just a few of them.

ASRock B650M Pro RS WiFi supports up to three M.2 drives, 192 GB of RAM, and has an 8+2+1 phase power supply.

Gigabyte B650M AORUS ELITE AX offers 15-phase power supply, support for RAM up to 8000 MHz, but only 1×8 pin power for the processor.

Asus TUF GAMING B650M-E WIFI in a strict design without unnecessary backlighting will definitely appeal to lovers of the classics. The «characteristics on paper are not impressive, although for the money it is not the worst option.

Conclusion:

MSI B650M GAMING PLUS WIFI handles the 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 9950X perfectly, showing adequate temperatures during stress tests, so this board can be confidently recommended for any AMD AM5 processors. In a compact gaming build, something like AMD Ryzen 9600X, 9700X, 7800X3D, 7700X, 7900X, 8700G, etc. will be a great fit.

It's nice that the board supports up to 256 GB of RAM and is also good with overclocking, allowing you to further reduce latency, which is so important for AMD processors. Despite strong competitors, MSI B650M GAMING PLUS WIFI will definitely be in demand among a small circle of computer users who are still interested in building a PC themselves.

The result is a pretty good motherboard with excellent hardware without any bells and whistles. If you don't mind the slow (30+ seconds) system bootup, not top-notch sound, and only two M.2 drive slots, then MSI B650M GAMING PLUS WIFI is a good choice for your money.