MSI X299 GAMING PRO Carbon AC Review
MSI a well known motherboard manufacture, best known to provide great motherboard options to satisfying every segment of PC market, solution for low budget build to ultra high end feature packed end users needs. Following the same line and aimed at the Intel's LGA 2066 socket family processors the MSI introduced new X299 line-up of motherboards including a range of features from updated I/O connectivity to the latest storage solutions
So today we are reviewing MSI X299 GAMING PRO Carbon AC motherboard, MSI's top of the line solution for X299 gaming and enthusiast build.
Now let's see what this MSI board have for us.
Features
Supports New Intel® Core™ X-series Processor Family for LGA 2066 socket
Support Quad Channel DDR4-4133(OC)+, Dual Channel DDR4-4500(OC)+
MYSTIC LIGHT: 16.8 million colors / 17 effects controlled in one click with MYSTIC LIGHT APP or mobile devices.
3D Printing Support: exchangeable cover and 3D X-MOUNTING screws.
Designed for Extreme Performance: TURBO SOCKET with GAME BOOST, DIGITALL POWER Design
Lightning Fast Game experience: TWIN TURBO M.2 with M.2 Shield and Intel Optane Memory Ready, Turbo U.2, LIGHTNING USB 3.1 GEN2
VR READY and VR BOOST: Best virtual reality game experience without latency, reduces motion sickness. Supports Nahimic VR & TriDef VR.
AUDIO BOOST 4 with NAHIMIC 2+: Reward your ears with studio grade sound quality for the most immersive gaming experience
DDR4 BOOST with STEEL ARMOR: Give your DDR4 memory a performance boost
GAMING LAN and Wireless support, powered by Intel®: The best online gaming experience with lowest latency and bandwidth management.
MULTI-GPU: With STEEL ARMOR PCI-E slots. Supports 3-Way NVIDIA SLI™ & AMD Crossfire™
SYSTEM SAVER: 3 easy to use options to successfully boot your system again.
In-Game Weapons: GAME BOOST, GAMING HOTKEY, X-BOOST, XSPLIT GAMECASTER, APP MANAGER
GAMING CERTIFIED: 24-hour on- and offline game and motherboard testing by eSports players
Click BIOS 5: Award-winning BIOS with high resolution scalable font, favorites and search function
WHQL certified for Windows 10
Specifications
Package
Looking at the front of the box, we see MSI logo with motherboard model no. At the rear of the box, we find that MSI goes into great detail on the specifications of the motherboard.
Inside the box
Looks
Board is a solid build in the mate black colour theme.
Layout
Detailed layout of board.
1. New Intel LGA 2066 Socket Supports New Intel Core X-series Processor Family
2. 8 x DDR4 memory slots, support up to 128GB. Quad channel memory architecture with the CPU that supports up to 4-channels DDR4
Featuring DDR4 Boost with Steel armor, Optimized traces and isolated memory circuitry.
3. ATX Power connector (24-pin EATXPWR)
4. ATX CPU Power Connector (8-pin + 4 Pin ATX12V).
5. Back I/O ports : Clear CMOS button, BIOS FLASHBACK+ button, PS/2 keyboard/ mouse combo port, 3 x USB 2.0 Type-A ports, 2 x Wi-Fi Antenna connectors (optional), 4 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A ports, LAN (RJ45) port, USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A port, USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port, Optical S/PDIF OUT connector, 5 x OFC audio jacks
6. Fan Connectors : 1 x CPU Fan, 1 x Water Pump, 4 x System Fans
7. EZ Debug LED and Post code display.
8. 9.Front 2 X USB 3.1 Gen1 connectors and USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port.
10.8 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors.
11. GAME BOOST / OC knob
12. Power button, Reset button, Multi-BIOS switch and Virtual RAID on CPU connector (VRAID1)
13. 2 x USB 2.0 Connectors
14. 15. Front Panel Connector and TPM Connector
16. 17.RGB LED connector and Front panel audio connector
18. Expansion Slots : 4 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots - Support x16/ x4/ x16/ x8 mode with the 44-lane CPU. - Support x16/ x4/ x8/ x0,x8/ x4/ x8/ x8 modes with the 28-lane CPU. - Support x8/ x0/ x8/ x0, x8/ x4/ x4/ x0 modes with the 16-lane CPU.
,2 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slots
M2_1 slot supports 2242/ 2260 /2280 storage devices, M2_2 slot supports 2242/ 2260 /2280/ 22110 storage devices. Intel® Optane™ Memory Ready
Removing Heat-sinks
MSI used aluminum heatsink in this board with plastic cover over it and RGB LED installed inside. This reduces the total heatsink's air contact surface area making overall heatsink more insufficient especially for VRM cooling. The base of heatsink is having thermal pad installed.
I/O cover is having a separate RGB LED pcb mounted..
Component Layout
Let's now see what all components MSI have planned for this board.
1. 2. 11-phase digital power controlled via IR35201 is IR (International Rectifier) PWM Controller IC and IR3555M (Integrated PowIRstage) is a synchronous buck gate driver co-packed with a control MOSFET and a synchronous MOSFET with integrated Schottky diode with output current capability of 60A DC each.
3. Two 2-Phase digital memory power supply section
4. ASMedia ASM1074 a four downstream ports USB3.0 HUB Controller
5. 10. ASMedia ASM3142 a USB3.1 Controller
6. Intel i219v one Gigabit Ethernet controller chip.
7. nuvoTon NCT6795D SuperIO chip monitors temperatures, voltages and other key metrics for normal operation
8. MSI Audio is powered by Realtek ALC 1220 120dB SNR HD Audio - The ALC1220 is a high-performance multi-channel High Definition Audio Codec with up to 120dB SNR for crystal clear audio along with premium quality CHEMI-CON audio capacitors for a warmer sound and OP1652 op-amp as buffer.
A semi-transparent line on motherboard separates the whole audio section from the rest of the board in order to minimize interference. So listening under Stereo mode produces high audio quality with excellent dynamic range.
RightMark Audio Analyzer (RMAA) suite is used for testing MSI High Definition audio against Asus Xonar U7 External Sound card. You can see clearly the difference between Noise level, dynamic rang and Total harmonic distortion percentage produced by MSI High Definition audio
RMAA Asus Xonar U7
RMAA MSI Audio
9. Intel X299 Chipset
10. MSI uses two SPI chip labeled MXIC MX 2SL12873F a capacity of 128 Mb for storing UEFI BIOS.
Testing
For reviewing MSI X299 GAMING PRO Carbon AC motherboard, we were provided a sample Intel Core i7 7820X CPU along, which is a 8-Cores 16-Threads chip. To give a fare idea about the CPU performance we compared it with AMD Ryzen 7 1700 CPU which is also a 8-Cores 16-Threads chip.
AMD Ryzen is also a new platform so straight comparison was must. We tested both CPUs at stock settings and also at a 3.6GHz stable overclock.
Intel Test setup
| CPU | Intel Core i7 7820X CPU |
| Board | MSI X299 GAMING PRO Carbon AC |
| RAM | 4 X 4GB Corsair DDR4 |
| SSD | Kingston SV300 120GB |
| Cooler | CM MasterLiquid 280 Pro |
| GFX | ASUS STRIX GTX 950 |
| PSU | Cooler Master V1200 |
| Display | Acer S220HQL |
| OS | Windows 10 |
AMD Test setup
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 1700 |
| Board | MSI X370 GAMING PRO Carbon |
| RAM | 2 X 8GB ADATA DDR4 |
| SSD | Kingston SV300 120GB |
| Cooler | CM MasterLiquid 280 Pro |
| GFX | ASUS STRIX GTX 950 |
| PSU | Cooler Master V1200 |
| Display | Acer S220HQL |
| OS | Windows 10 |
BIOS
Bundled Softwares
Benchmarks
Overclocking
Power Consumption
Wattage reading as per displayed by APC Pro 1000VA (Model no. BR1000G-IN) UPS. Running Cinebench R15
Price to Performance
To get the Price to Performance score we took the Cinebench R15 scores of both CPUs at stock and divide them with Newegg.com price of both as listed on the publication date of this review. (i.e. i7-7820X = $605.50 and Ryzen 1700 = $309.99)
Pros
- RGB LED with headers
- Nice Audio
- AC WIFI onboard
- Thermal shield for M.2
- Great OC
Cons
- Very small sized VRM heatsink
Conclusion
Intel X299 is the latest platform from Intel and MSI has done a good job with MSI X299 GAMING PRO Carbon AC motherboard in the look and performance section with tones of features and connectivity option to offer.
The audio, WIFI and overclocking capability could have made this board the best X299 option… but, as reported by our overclocker friend “der8auer", all X299 boards have VRM heating/heatsink issues. So we tested but not as aggressive in loads and setting as der8auer did, but we kept all setting at stock provided by the manufacturer and concluded that the VRM heatsink on this MSI motherboard is very small in height when compared with other x299 brands motherboards and more the MSI VRM heatsink is having a plastic cover with RGB lighting further insulating the heat and above all NO back-plate on the VRM MOSFETs too. This results in a very high VRM temperature when compared with AORUS x299 and ASUS Stix x299 (i.e. approx 77C) running OCCT stress test at stock. Being the top of the line board and with a premium price tag, we could expect a bigger or better VRM heatsink with proper back plate from MSI.
Manufacturers Info
Site Link
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