Review: MSI MEG Z490I Unify

Power Tests

The trio of Z490 boards ignore the Core i9's 125W TDP for long-term all-core load. MEG Z490i Unify actually does well here, pulling only 186W at the CPU socket level to maintain 4.8GHz. The MSI Gaming Carbon needs over 200W wile the Asus Maximus XII requires 226W for it to run the 4.9GHz all-core mandated by its BIOS. Even so, all are comfortably more than what's required by the X570 and 12C24T AMD Ryzen 9 3900X. Food for thought.