msi Codex ZS 3-002BUS, B550M Barebones Tower

I looked hard at this barebones system six months ago for another project, I liked the value, but really just needed a motherboard, so I went another route.

A couple of weeks ago I was looking into a budget/parts bin build. I didn’t have much to start with, a Ryzen 3 3100, a awful case with some dents, and a questionable Corsair 550w PSU.

I can across this barebones again, at a much lower price, low enough that the motherboard by itself would have been a bargain. I pulled the trigger and am happy I did.

The kit came in a typical MSI retail box, well packaged. The motherboard and PSU were installed, but not wired. The kit came with the standard bag of accessories (power cable and wifi antennas) on the outside of the case, and another bag with the motherboard and case hardware zip ties to a rail inside the case. I was surprised that the kit included all of the hardware you expect when buying a better case and motherboard, I didn’t have to scrounge my parts bin for anything, it even came with enough zip ties for a decent job of cable management.

The example I got had a standard BIOS installed, not a prebuilt variant. I was using a R3 3100, so that wasn’t really a problem anyway. The kit didn’t come with a printed MB manual, just a QR code that linked to the digital version. The ARGB controller can be wired to the MB and the MSI software works well with it. The cooler bracket preinstalled was the clip on type I have used with Wraith Prism coolers before, I was using a Wraith Stealth this time, so I removed the top brackets and screwed it into the bottom bracket.

The case is smaller than I expected, if you are going to use a large GPU and water cooling, you will need to mount the radiator on the top. This is only an issue for large cards, like an RX 6900 or RTX 3080. On this build I used a RX 6500 XT, so it wasn’t an issue at all.

With this MB PCIE 4.0 is supported, however if you are using a Ryzen APU (any CPU with onboard graphics) you will only get PCIE 3.0, many of the non graphics Ryzen CPUs released in the last two years don’t support PCIE 4.0, the R5 5500 for instance. This is an issue for those wanting to use a 4 lane graphics card such as the RX 6400 and 6500, they will work at PCIE 3.0, but at a lower performance level. This is an AMD issue, not unique to this MSI system.

The PSU is the weak point here, it seems decent, but just that. If I was building a higher end system I would have replaced it with a higher quality PSU, an EVGA perhaps.

The case is a bit light, but was nice to build in. It has a two slot HDD cage with removable brackets in the bottom, which can be removed. It has mounts for SATA SSD drives on the back of the MB tray, and the MB has two M2 slots, so storage options are great. The pass throughs for cable management aren’t perfect, but on the back side there are lots of loops for zip ties and sufficient space for routing cables. I had plenty of room in the basement to bundle tuck away the unused wires from the PSU, as it isn’t modular, without having to remove the HDD cage.

Overall, for the price I paid I got a great deal. A similar quality case with ARGB/fan hub, three ARGB fans and good airflow would have been $70 or more, the PSU I wouldn’t have paid much more than $30 for, which basically makes the Motherboard free, and it is a nice Motherboard for a entry to mid level build.

Another way to put it is, if you want to build a cheap gaming system, this is a great start, and for the price of an “Optiplex and a GPU” which is likely to have a 6th or 7th Gen i5, you can put together something that will run current AAA games at decent settings at 60FPS.

The bios won’t allow secure boot and all update attempts to the bios fail
Also the glass side panel exploded

I’m currently hoping to get support from the seller
Will hopefully update when it’s fixed

I bought two of these. One of them was fine. The second one had dents and a hole in the side of the box. The one with the dents and hole in the box had a broken/shattered tempered glass panel and glass fragments in the box. I returned the damaged one. After that, I received a replacement which was used item that was previously opened and was missing parts. How difficult is it to receive to new undamaged items when you order two new items?

Pros:
Good value.
Cost of items separately is more than the cost of the “bundle.”
Two RGB fans.

Cons:
Generic power supply that has very poor ratings elsewhere.
High chance of receiving a used item.
Packaging can allow the case to get damaged. Other cases with tempered glass panels ship with foam between the glass and side of the box.
Motherboard uses the prebuilt system BIOS and not the retail BIOS.
The prebuilt system BIOS is over a year behind the retail BIOS in updates and can lack support for newer processors.
You need special software from AMI or MSI to attempt to reflash the BIOS with the retail BIOS.
The case is flimsy and cheap.

I’m super happy with this product but keep in mind it is not plug-n-play. The BIOS on the MSI site will not, I repeat, will not be able to be used to flash this motherboard. Booting to the bios and attempting to update it there will also not work (hence the bad reviews saying they cannot update the bios). It CAN be done, though. It requires a special tool MSI called “UEFI Shell Flash tool” makes for forcing a bios onto a MB, you MUST Have an old processor (I used a Ryzen 3600) because it will work on the motherboard without a bios update. Then use the UEFI Shell Flash tool and the old processor to update the bios, which required two steps, using a newer bios than the MB had but not the newest, then doing again with the newest. Then the bios did update and the Ryzen 5600G worked. If you search for the UEFI Shell Flash tool you can learn more. It’s really not hard. If you’re up for it, this package is a great deal. You could always go with a Ryzen 3600 and not bother updating the bios. You would only need to update to go with a newer chip like the 5600. Nice case, great RGB, good motherboard, decent power supply.