BIOS
Rather than have stacks of pictures I put together a basic video that just goes through and clicks on each menu option in the BIOS so if there is anything you want to check out you can see it and pause when needed. The BIOS for the X870E Carbon Wifi starts off in MSIs EZ Mode. On the right side, this shows what CPU you are running, the memory used along with its speeds and slot it is installed in, your installed storage, and all of your fan speeds. They have a few options here like fTPM, lighting controls, and turning on EXPO for your memory or game boost for the CPU. You can also drag and drop your boot order down along the bottom edge.
Once you switch to advanced mode up top you land on the system status page. This shows the system time, installed devices, and other information. All of the advanced mode pages have your CPU clock speeds, memory speeds, temperature, and voltages over on the right. Where a lot of boards have their overclocking section right at the start, MSI has the advanced section first. This has all of the system and board options in one location with pages for each sub-system. This is also where you will find the AMD overclocking menu. I don’t know why this isn’t in the overclocking menu, however. Funny enough, the overclocking menu does have an AMD Overclocking page as well inside of the advanced CPU Configuration page. Alongside that, you have the AMD CBS menu, I am happy to see that inside of the overclocking section, Gigabyte and Asus both don’t have it in their overclocking sections. Beyond that, though the overclocking menu has your BLK settings, memory speeds, lots of RAM configuration, voltage controls, and anything else you might look for when overclocking.
Next up is the security menu, this is where you can set up admin or user passwords or set up a U key. Chassis intrusion settings are here, trusted computing, and secure boot as well. The last menu option is the boot menu. This has startup options like if the logo is displayed or the post beep. You can also change all of the boot priority around here but that is still a lot easier in the EZ Mode where you can drag and drop. Up along the top, there are icons on each page for a few options. One of those is M-Flash, the BIOS update tool. You also have a gauge icon that lets you quickly change the PBO setting from enabled or Auto. The smart button options from the rear I/O and for the front panel reset button are here. You can have the buttons do the rest, turn the LEDs on or off, go right to safe boot, or turbo the fan. The turbo fan mode is a great use for this or if you are constantly fighting with issues the safe boot is interesting. You can save and load BIOS profiles, this can be useful when overclocking especially if you want to save a known good profile or have profiles depending on the time of the year (lower overclock when it's going to be warmer in your house). The hardware monitor page shows all of the temperatures and is also where you can set up your fan profiles. You can pick different temperature sources as well. The fan profiles have four points total which is lower than the 8 that Asus has on their boards this generation. I don’t know if 8 is needed, but I would like more than the 4 that you get here. It’s fine for a basic profile but if you are like me and try to fine-tune your fans to keep things cool and quiet it will be harder without as much control.
