MSI Z7901 Edge Wi-Fi mini-ITX

The best mobo for your small form factor PC?

- SAM LEWIS

TO CALL ANYTHING the best is a strong opinion, to say the least. Of course, it’s a very subjective thing to say, and will vary depending on your personal preferences, but if you’re looking for a mini motherboard, this one has plenty of tricks up its sleeve. With a mobo, you must consider an element of futureproofing too, as it’s the most awkward component to swap out for obvious reasons. You can trust us on that one too—we’ve taken a fair few mobos out of builds in our time! Selecting a dependable one for your system is vital—you need to pick the right backbone for your PC to ensure your components work in harmony with one another. This MSI Z790I Edge may be one of the best to choose from if you want to build using the latest Intel chips, but in a small case.

Kicking things off with the aesthetics of the board, MSI has nailed it here with the silver/white color scheme. The mini-ITX design helps, as it means that most of the PCB has been cut off and the majority of the remaining board consists of heatsinks and panels. There also isn’t too much gamer-inspired design—just the MSI logo and the MPG and Edge branding. It could certainly be used in a more productivity-based system. We’ve featured this motherboard in our cover build found on page 16—unfortunately for us though, its design was hidden away underneath our case, but as it goes, this is a good-looking mobo!