Review

MSI X470 Gaming Pro Carbon AC Review

Today we are reviewing an MSI motherboard made for second generation of AMD Ryzen processors, the MSI X470 Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard. The motherboard is built on the latest AMD X470 chipset, supporting AMD Ryzen series and A-Series/Athlon processors with an AM4 socket. Board offers four DDR4 slots that can hold up to 64GB of dual-channel RAM at speeds of up to 3466 MHz when overclocked. This board is featured packed for every gamer or enthusiast build, from eight SATA III ports and two M.2 slots, to Realtek ALC1220 7.1-channel HD audio, Intel I211AT Gigabit LAN, 802.1ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, MSI Mystic Light RGB lighting and more

Now let's see what this new AMD X470 chipset based MSI gaming board have for us.

Features

• Supports AMD^® Ryzen™ 1st and 2nd Generation / Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics Processors and AMD^® A-series / Athlon™ Processors for Socket AM4
• Supports DDR4-3466+(OC) Memory
• DDR4 Boost with Steel Armor: Give your DDR4 memory a performance boost
• Mystic Light and Mystic Light Sync: 16.8 million colors / 17 effects in one click. Synchronize RGB/RAINBOW strips and other RGB solutions for customization. 
• Lightning Fast Game experience: TURBO M.2 with M.2 Shield, StoreMI, AMD Turbo USB 3.1 GEN2
• Audio Boost 4 with Nahimic: Reward your ears with studio grade sound quality for the most immersive gaming experience
• GAMING LAN and Wireless support, powered by Intel^®: The best online gaming experience with lowest latency and bandwidth management.
• Core Boost: With premium layout and fully digital power design to support more cores and provide better performance.
• MULTI-GPU: With STEEL ARMOR PCI-E slots. Supports 2-Way NVIDIA SLI™ & 3-Way AMD Crossfire™
• VR Ready: Automatically optimizes your system for VR usage, pushing for maximum performance.
• In-Game Weapons: Game Boost, GAMING Hotkey, X-Boost
• EZ Debug LED: Easiest way to troubleshoot
• Click BIOS 5: Award-winning BIOS with high resolution scalable font, favorites and search function
• GAMING CERTIFIED: 24-hour on and offline game and motherboard testing by eSports players

Specifications

Package

Looking at the front of the box, we see MSI logo with motherboard model no. in big at center of the box. At the rear of the box, we find that MSI goes into detail on the specifications of the motherboard

Inside the box

Looks

Board is a solid build on a black PCB with white line graphics over the PCB and heatsink, giving whole board a great appearance and wild look. I like the whole theme very attractive.

Layout

Detailed layout of board.

1. AMD AM4 socket, supporting New AMD Ryzen 2nd Gen CPU.

2. 4 DIMM Dual channel DDR4 memory slots with full Steel Armor supporting max. 64GB at 2133MHz in normal and up to 3466MHz when OC.

3. ATX Power connector (24-pin EATXPWR) along with EZ Debug LED

4. ATX CPU Power Connector (8-pin ATX12V).

5. Back Panel Connectors : PS/2 keyboard/ mouse combo port, 2 x USB 2.0 Type-A ports, DVI-D port, HDMIâ„¢ port, 4 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A ports, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, LAN (RJ45) port, USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A port, USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port, 5 x OFC audio jacks, Optical S/PDIF OUT connector

6. 7. 14.CPU fan connector, Water-pump-fan connector and 4 x system fan connectors

8. Two front USB 3 Port.

9.

10. System Front panel Connector

11. 2 x USB 2.0 Connectors

12. 13. RGB LED strip extension cable headers and TPM connector

15. Front panel Audio connector

16. 17. Dual PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 connector

18. Expansion Slots : 2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots (PCIE_2, PCIE_4)- RYZEN series processors support x16/x0, x8/x8 mode, 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 slot (PCIE_6, supports x4 mode), 3 x PCIe 2.0 x1 slots

Removing Heat-sinks

MSI used dense aluminum heatsink in this board. VRM heatsink are secured in place using screws and spacers. Heatsinks base is having very small thermal pad installed mostly only covering 80% of MOSFETs area for VRM cooling. Wont effect in normal operations but may result in system stability under higher overclocks.

Component Layout

Let's now see what all components MSI have planned for this board.

1. 2. 10 + 2stage CPU voltage regulator circuit uses pair of ON Semiconductor NTMFS 4C029 and 4C024 Power MOSFETS with combined rating of 50A controlled by IR35201 PWM Controller.

3. Single-Phase digital memory power supply section for DDR4 memories

4. USB 3.1 PCIe lan switch chip.

5. Intel Gigabit LAN and 802.1ac Wi-Fi solution.

6. The nuvoTon NCT 6795D chip provides the super I/O functions, such as fan control and system monitoring

8. MSI equipped this board with Audio boost 4 audio solution with ALC 1220 120dB SNR HD Audio codec at the heart.

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 licensing 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. AMD X470 Chipset.

10. MSI uses MXIC MX 2SL12873F a capacity of 128 Mb for storing UEFI BIOS.

11. Asmedia ASM1480 PCIe lan switch chips.

Testing

BIOS

Bundled Softwares

Benchmarks

Overclocking

Power Consumption

Wattage reading as per displayed by APC Pro 1000VA (Model no. BR1000G-IN) UPS.

Pros

• Nice Price
• Great Looks
• On Board Intel WiFi / Bluetooth
• Lot of bundled Software
• High Quality Audio
• RGB header

Cons

• VRM Heatsink have very small thermal pad installed, only cover 80% of MOSFETs

Conclusion

At a price tag of Rs.14500(approx.), the MSI X470 Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboards offers more than any other product in the AMD AM4 motherboard segment. This board with on-board intel Wi-Fi/Bluetooth along with quality components, improved power phases, offers a great gaming experience and a very good overclocking capability. Only down side is that the VRM Heatsink on this motherboard have very small thermal pad installed which only cover 80% of MOSFETs area for VRM Cooling although it don't effects much in normal operations but good to have proper sized thermal pads for proper cooling and product longevity.

Manufacturers Info

Thanks.

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