MSI MPG B650I Edge Wifi AM5 ITX Motherboard

Looks nice, built in Wifi is very fast, two M.2 ports which imo is enough for a board this size. Price is questionable as is the price of the whole AM5 platform at the moment but a solid SFF option. Main drawback is that I found the post times to be very slow, usually around 20-30 seconds before a post, not sure if this can be solved with a bios update because I haven't done that yet

Cheapest AM5 itx board isn't cheap, has issues.

Onboard sound is great quality when something is actually playing, but at the start and end of any sound there's an audible "pop" of the chip turning on/off. A video of someone talking (with no other background noise) is completely littered with "pop-pop" noises for every pause for breath or break in the sentence. After a long time troubleshooting and searching online for fixed, I find that for whatever reason the front panel audio connection doesn't have the same popping noise on it.The RGB header is essentially uncontrollable. The only way of changing from the default rainbow mode is through the MSI software, and it doesn't even work properly. Most attempts to set a specific colour will only output red. I don't want red.Mashing keys on startup to get into the ... MoreOnboard sound is great quality when something is actually playing, but at the start and end of any sound there's an audible "pop" of the chip turning on/off. A video of someone talking (with no other background noise) is completely littered with "pop-pop" noises for every pause for breath or break in the sentence. After a long time troubleshooting and searching online for fixed, I find that for whatever reason the front panel audio connection doesn't have the same popping noise on it.The RGB header is essentially uncontrollable. The only way of changing from the default rainbow mode is through the MSI software, and it doesn't even work properly. Most attempts to set a specific colour will only output red. I don't want red.Mashing keys on startup to get into the bios seems to result in getting stuck on a black screen. Need to wait a few seconds for things to initialize before attempting to hit the bios interrupt.AMD Expo memory profiles are completely pointless/broken at the moment. I'm not even using a very fast kit but the system isn't at all stable with expo enabled. And even if it was stable it comes with a massive penalty to boot times. Long boot times make the aforementioned issue of hitting a key too soon and getting stuck on a black screen significantly worse.I think all of these issues are fixable with driver/bios updates so maybe in the future this board will be a better purchase, but who knows if/when those updates will happen.On the plus side I have not run into any really major problems, nothing showstopping. The board works. If you all you want is am5 in an itx form factor there's little reason to spend more money.

Flawless so far

Paired this with a Ryzen 7600 (non X) , and Gskill Flare X5 6000 CAS 32 memory. Booted up first try. Updated to the latest non-beta bios, enabled EXPO memory profile, PBO, and high efficiency mode, and have been stability testing for 3 days nonstop - all good.It's a physically small board with cable headers scattered all over. All of the cable headers converging in one place makes cable management harder.Negatives - I chose this board because early DDR 5 really seemed to suffer in 4 DIMM config. The fact it has only 2 slots and has 12 layer PCB should be good for memory overclocking, yet the memory QVL tops out 200mhz lower than some boards. Actually Hard Overclocking channel said the topology looks "wierd" and cramped meaning it doesn't have as good a memory ... MorePaired this with a Ryzen 7600 (non X) , and Gskill Flare X5 6000 CAS 32 memory. Booted up first try. Updated to the latest non-beta bios, enabled EXPO memory profile, PBO, and high efficiency mode, and have been stability testing for 3 days nonstop - all good.It's a physically small board with cable headers scattered all over. All of the cable headers converging in one place makes cable management harder.Negatives - I chose this board because early DDR 5 really seemed to suffer in 4 DIMM config. The fact it has only 2 slots and has 12 layer PCB should be good for memory overclocking, yet the memory QVL tops out 200mhz lower than some boards. Actually Hard Overclocking channel said the topology looks "wierd" and cramped meaning it doesn't have as good a memory topology as most 2 slot mini itx boards. We won't know for sure till new Ryzens appear with better memory controller. However I doubt anything does better at the price.

Great ITX Board for the AM5 Platform

The 2 x M.2 slots with a cooler on the front-end slot is a great feature especially for an ITX board at this price. BIOS is quite straight forward after spending a few minutes exploring. The in-built IO shield is also a great quality-of-life feature. The only downside right now is a lack of BIOS updates available due to the board being a very new release - which will of course change in the future. Typically a slower boot time with out-of-the-box BIOS version. Unfortunately the board had to be installed up-side-down in my Phanteks Evolv SHIFT XT due to the case design and as a result the power switch barely reaches the motherboard pins running straight across the entire board. For ITX Cases where you do not have to install motherboards up-side-down I doubt this ... MoreThe 2 x M.2 slots with a cooler on the front-end slot is a great feature especially for an ITX board at this price. BIOS is quite straight forward after spending a few minutes exploring. The in-built IO shield is also a great quality-of-life feature. The only downside right now is a lack of BIOS updates available due to the board being a very new release - which will of course change in the future. Typically a slower boot time with out-of-the-box BIOS version. Unfortunately the board had to be installed up-side-down in my Phanteks Evolv SHIFT XT due to the case design and as a result the power switch barely reaches the motherboard pins running straight across the entire board. For ITX Cases where you do not have to install motherboards up-side-down I doubt this would be an issue. For those who have this niche situation I recommend a 2-pin power switch internal header extension cable.Overall: Great purchase - lots of great features for the price.