# MSI X870E Gaming Plus WiFi Source: https://www.ranked10.co.uk/tech/best-gaming-motherboard/msi-x870e-gaming-plus-wifi Ranked #9 in "Best Gaming Motherboard 2026: 10 Ranked": https://www.ranked10.co.uk/tech/best-gaming-motherboard - Price: £184.99 (checked on Amazon UK on 2026-10-10) - Amazon rating: 4.3 from 140 ratings - Buy on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0F67B9XT7?tag=ranked10-21 ## Is the MSI X870E Gaming Plus WiFi worth buying? The MSI X870E Gaming Plus WiFi is worth buying at £184.99 if your AM5 build needs a 40 Gbps USB4 port, Wi-Fi 7 and a third M.2 slot, and 140 owners rate it 4.3. It takes Ryzen 9000, 8000 and 7000 processors in the AM5 socket and pairs them with four DDR5 slots holding 256 GB. MSI covers it with a 3-year manufacturer warranty, which is longer cover than most PC parts carry. It is not the board for a build that only needs solid power delivery. The £127.99 ASUS TUF Gaming B650-Plus WiFi carries the same 14 power stages at £9.14 each, £57.00 less, and 1,244 owners have rated it. Pay the £184.99 only if the USB4 port and the 5 Gbps LAN are things you will actually plug into. ## What do 14 power stages at £13.21 each mean for a gaming build? Fourteen duet rail stages rated at 60A each feed the processor, and at £184.99 that works out to £13.21 a stage. They sit under an extended heatsink with 7W/mK MOSFET thermal pads and extra choke thermal pads, which is what keeps delivery steady when a Ryzen 9 holds its boost for an hour. That rate is the highest of the AM5 boards on this page: the £127.99 ASUS TUF Gaming B650-Plus WiFi asks £9.14 a stage for the same 14, and the £189 ASUS TUF Gaming B850-Plus WiFi £11.12 for 17 stages stacked at 80A each. What the £184.99 buys instead is memory headroom, 256 GB of DDR5 at up to 8,200+ MT/s across four SMT slots. ## What comes in the box and what is it like to build with? The board arrives as an ATX board weighing 1 kg, with Steel Armor around the PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, a 24-pin main power header and EZ M.2 Shield Frozr II latches that seat an SSD without a screwdriver. Rear connectivity runs to 14 USB ports, one of them a USB4 Type-C at 40 Gbps with display output, alongside 5 Gbps Ethernet, Bluetooth 5.4 and 7.1 HD Audio with Audio Boost. Three M.2 connectors cover storage, one at Gen5 x4 128 Gbps and two at Gen4 x4 64 Gbps, while six SATA 3 ports take the drives an M.2 slot cannot. A Combo-fan header rated at 3A runs a pump and a system fan from one point, and budget separately for the processor, the DDR5 modules, the graphics card and the power supply, because none of those come with it. ## Where does the MSI X870E Gaming Plus WiFi fall short? Cost per power stage is the first thing to weigh, because £13.21 each is the highest rate of any AM5 board here and the count, 14, matches a board costing £57.00 less. The record is short as well: 140 owners have rated it 4.3, against more than a thousand on two boards further up this page, so there is less buyer history to lean on. Expansion is the third. One PCIe x16 slot and one Ethernet port is all the board carries, so a capture card or a second wired network connection has nowhere to go. Six SATA 3 ports and three M.2 connectors mean the shortage is slots rather than drives. ## Is the MSI X870E Gaming Plus WiFi better than the ASUS TUF options? Against the £127.99 ASUS TUF Gaming B650-Plus WiFi, the MSI costs £57.00 more for the same 14 power stages, though the ASUS settles for Wi-Fi 6 where the MSI runs Wi-Fi 7 and a 5 Gbps LAN port. Buy the MSI when the network and the USB4 port matter to you, and the ASUS when the build is a Ryzen 7 and the £57.00 is better spent on memory or a faster SSD. Against the £189 ASUS TUF Gaming B850-Plus WiFi, the MSI is £4.01 cheaper and answers with a rear USB4 Type-C port at 40 Gbps and 5 Gbps Ethernet, where the ASUS carries 17 power stages at 80A each for the heaviest processors. Take the ASUS for a 16-core Ryzen, and the MSI for everything up to a Ryzen 7 with fast external storage attached. ## Specification | Field | Value | |---|---| | Listing title | MSI X870E GAMING PLUS WIFI Motherboard, ATX-Ryzen 9000/8000/7000, AM5, DDR5 | | Brand | MSI | | CPU socket | Socket AM5 | | Compatible devices | Personal Computer | | RAM memory technology | DDR5 | | Compatible processors | AMD Ryzen 9000, 8000, 7000 | | Chipset type | AMD X870E | | Memory clock speed | 8200 MHz | | Platform | Windows | | Model name | X870E GAMING PLUS WIFI | | CPU model | AMD Ryzen 7 | | Processor Socket | Socket AM5 | | Memory Storage Capacity | 256 GB | | Ram Memory Maximum Size | 256 MB | | Main Power Connector Type | 24-Pin | | Graphics Card Interface | PCI Express | | Available Memory Slots | 4 | | Number of Ports | 4 | | System Bus Standard Supported | SATA 3 | | Total SATA Ports | 6 | | Total USB Ports | 14 | | Number of Ethernet Ports | 1 | | Total PCIe Ports | 1 | | Chipset Family | AMD X870E | | Model Number | 10876985 | | Manufacturer | MSI Computer | | Item Weight | 1 kg | | Manufacturer Part Number | 10876985 | | Product Warranty | 3 year manufacturer | | Item Dimensions L x W x H | 15L x 15W x 10H centimetres | ## Questions people ask **Does the MSI X870E Gaming Plus WiFi work with Ryzen 9000?** Yes. It uses the AM5 socket and takes Ryzen 9000, 8000 and 7000 series processors. It needs DDR5 memory, not the DDR4 that AM4 boards use. **How much memory can the MSI X870E Gaming Plus WiFi take?** 256 GB of DDR5 across four SMT slots, with memory overclocking to 8,200+ MT/s. Four 64 GB modules fill it. **How many drives can the MSI X870E Gaming Plus WiFi hold?** Three M.2 drives, one at Gen5 x4 128 Gbps and two at Gen4 x4 64 Gbps. Six SATA 3 ports take the 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drives on top of those. **How much does the MSI X870E Gaming Plus WiFi weigh?** 1 kg on its own, before the processor, cooler and memory go on. That is light enough that the board lifts out of the box one-handed. **What warranty comes with the MSI X870E Gaming Plus WiFi?** A 3-year manufacturer warranty from MSI. That covers the board itself, not the processor or memory you fit to it. **Does the MSI X870E Gaming Plus WiFi have USB4?** Yes, a rear USB4 Type-C port running at 40 Gbps with display output. It is one of 14 USB ports on the board.