Board Layout
The MEG Z890 ACE looks and feels like it’s worth its price tag, with monstrous heatsinks and a backplate that cools the rear of the banks of VRMs. There are three PCIe x16 slots, offering a maximum of 16, eight and four lanes respectively, depending on what other devices are installed. RGB lighting extends to the I/O shroud and top M.2 heatsink.
The top two PCIe slots are Gen 5-capable, with the usual maximum of 16 lanes at the top, and up to 8 lanes in the second slot, and using those will also see the first slot drop to eight. The top M.2 port is also PCIe Gen 5 capable, with Gen 5 possible on the M2_4 slot too, although doing so on the latter will see bandwidth cut in half for both PCIe Gen 5 PCIe slots. By default, the M2_4 port runs at PCIe Gen 4 from the chipset, but it can be forced to Gen 5 from the CPU in the EFI.
There are eight 4-pin fan headers in total, with the main CPU header offering 2 A/24 W, the two PUMP_SYS headers supplying 3 A/36 W a piece, while the five remaining system fan headers are limited to 1 A/12 W. The top right corner is also home to a 3-pin ARGB header and LED POST code display.
The EZ Conn header is located next to the EZ PCIe release button, so if you do plan on using the included splitter cable it will be easy to route it through your case’s usual cable routing holes. The EZ PCIe release button is push to release and push to lock, which differs from others out there, so make sure you secure your graphics card properly. There are also dual USB 3.0 headers, four SATA ports and the Type-C header here offers USB PD 60 W output, but you’ll need to use a PCIe 6-pin connector to power the 6-pin socket nearby to get that full power.
There are some extreme overclocking features here too, such as a dual BIOS switch, low temperature booting jumper and slow mode booting jumper, of course we get power and reset buttons too, so the board is up to the task of some weekends under sub-zero temperatures. The base of the PCB also has a pair of USB 2.0 headers, plus two fan headers and a 3-pin flow rate header for custom watercooled systems.
Moving along to the left of the PCB we have another pair of fan headers plus two 2-pin thermistor probe headers, with the third 2-pin header here being a header to power up the RGB lighting without having the board itself powered on. Next to these we have additional PCIe power from an 8-pin connector, plus a 4-pin RGB header.
There are five M.2 ports in total and each features top and bottom cooling for SSDs. The top heatsink is relatively large but quite flat and features tool-free installation. The illuminated logo is possible thanks to connectors that make contact when the heatsink is installed.
The huge lower heatsink is also tool-free, which sets the board apart from many of its peers which often still use fiddly screws. The downside here is that your graphics card will block it, requiring GPU removal to get at any SSDs here. While being tool-free it proved tricky to install, with the flat nature of the securing mechanisms meaning it was difficult to line up properly, besides feeling a little loose.
The rear I/O panel is impressive even though the board is a fair way through its lifecycle. While it’s clearly USB Type-C biased, there are still 11 Type-A USB ports and all of them are USB 3.2 Gen 2 10 Gbps. The quartet of Type-C ports are split evenly between Thunderbolt 4 40 Gbps and USB 3.2 Gen 2 10 Gbps. Display outputs include HDMI, plus DisplayPort Alt mode outputs over the two Thunderbolt 4 ports. There’s a trio of additional buttons here too, including USB BIOS flashback, CMOS clear and also a configurable smart button. The 10 Gbps Ethernet port is compatible with standard network cables, but you’ll need the necessary accompanying network hardware to make use of its full speed of course. Finally, we have EZ Antenna connectors—which are also compatible with standard antennas—plus the usual audio jacks and optical output.
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