Msi x299 creator review in Spanish (full analysis)

We continue to fill with the new batch of motherboards for the enthusiastic platform from Intel and today we are going to analyze the MSI X299 Creator. It is the manufacturer's highest bet so that your Core i9-10980XE does not lack anything, with an exquisite exterior design and the latest in connectivity. It has 3 M.2 slots, capacity to install up to 4 graphics cards in parallel, Wi-Fi ax connectivity and a 10 Gbps link. It incorporates a USB-C link at 20 Gbps widely used today.

And it is that next to it is included a pack aimed at content creators, with nothing less than a PCIe 3.0 x4 expansion card with two DisplayPort outputs and another two Thunderbolt 3, and a second x16 with 4 M.2 slots to expand the storage.

But before starting this review, we must thank MSI for always trusting us and giving us this motherboard for our review.

MSI X299 Creator technical features

Unboxing

Let's start this review of the MSI X299 Creator as always by its Unboxing. And this time MSI shows off its Creator brand and provides us with the plate in a thick cardboard box in pure white color with impeccable aesthetics and a carrying handle. In the back is where we find the thickness of the information and news that this hardware brings.

Now we will open the box in the traditional way to find the two corresponding floors that are responsible for keeping all the components. In the first, we have as always the plate very well protected, while in the second we have everything else, mostly tucked inside plastic bags.

This bundle is made up of the following elements:

• MSI X299 Creator Board User Manual and Quick Installation Guide USB Drive with required drivers and drivers 4x SATA 6Gbps cables2x RGB and A-RGB Corsair cables together with a Y-splitter1x temperature thermistor1x Thunderbolt 3 cableAntenna Wi-FiStickers for signaling cables3x Mounting screws of the M.2 M.2 Expander-AERO GEN4 card Thunderbolt 3 card

MSI always provides us with very complete bundles for its range top plates, and this is the clear example. In addition, it has expansion cards as useful as storage and Thunderbolt to expand connectivity and at a competitive price.

Design and Features

Let's focus first of all on the design of the MSI X299 Creator, a board with a great job behind, but in a way, not at the level of excellence of its top-of-the-line rivals for being a board without a rear blackplate and less forceful heatsinks.

Starting with the main face, we have something that we really liked, and it is a heatsink that occupies chipset and M.2 slots called Shield FROZR, but not in an integral block. Thanks to this we will avoid disassembling half a plate to install a simple M.2, since the three aluminum heatsinks are fixed with two screws. In them, there is also a corresponding silicone thermal pad.

In this case we do not have any type of active cooling for VRM or Chipset, later we will see if it has been successful or not from the manufacturer with its 12 phases of 90A. In fact, the VRM's heatsink is a not too big block of aluminum, although it is connected by heatpipe to another one under the EMI protector of the I / O panel.

And of course, we must talk about lighting, because this MSI X299 Creator has a total of three available zones, being one part of the chipset heatsink, another in the EMI protector and under the aluminum plate of the sound card. The first two are compatible with Mystic Light and its management through software. It is not a backlit back plate, unlike the manufacturer's other X299 models.

As for interesting solutions of each to the refrigeration and management we have enough. For example, a head to measure water flow, 8 head to connect fans, 7 temperature sensors and a head to a temperature thermistor. All this will be controlled through the BIOS, with hysteresis, DC or PWM functions to always control your RPM intelligently.

There is also no lack of support solutions for the state of the board, such as the Debug LED for the BIOS to post its status, and the EZ Debug LED panel to indicate the boot steps in the different devices. On the back panel we have the corresponding button for the Flash BIOS function that is capable of updating the BIOS from USB without even having the CPU or RAM memory mounted.

And if we finally go to the back area we will see that there is no protection in the form of aluminum or metal plates. This we can consider a small disadvantage in the face of the extra protection that these elements give us, and in a plate as expensive as these we believe that it would have been consistent. Instead, we have the typical protective coating to prevent contact with electrical tracks.

Expansion cards

First of all, we have a card to expand the storage connectivity in 4 extra M.2 slots. This M .2 Expander-AERO GEN4 features a PCIe 3.0 x16 interface (4 lanes for each M.2 slot).

In addition, it is compatible with the Intel VROC connector, which basically allows creating RAID configurations without the need to connect dedicated controllers. This is a solution of Intel's own, which, together with Intel Optane Memory, can achieve truly high data transfers.

Secondly, we have a PCIe 3.0 x4 expansion card to integrate Thunderbolt 3 connectivity to our MSI X299 Creator. You just need to connect the card to the slot and the 4-pin J1 connector to the board. This card has two USB Type-C 3.2 Gen2 connectors with Thunderbolt 3 at 40 Gbps and DisplayPort 1.4.

VRM and power phases

Now we enter fully into what components and characteristics of this MSI X299 Creator board are concerned. And of course we start with the VRM, which this time is made up of a total of 12 + 1 power phases, 12 for the V_Core and 1 for SoC together with different MOSFETS that are distributed for the memory banks.

As a primary stage for power, we have 13 Renesas ISL99390 90A DC-DC converters that this time will be directly managed by an EPU with digital PWM control. No signal doublers have been used, so they are real phases capable of giving a theoretical total intensity of 1170 A. In this way we will be able to overclock the new Intel X and XE whose capacity is very broad in this regard.

In the second stage we have 90A chokes built in titanium in the same amount of MOSFETS. And finally the corresponding solid capacitors for the smoothing of the signal that will finally enter the CPU. We also see the presence of SP capacitors to provide an extra signal enhancement, a solution so far little visible on the boards.

And for the power input, MSI has installed no less than 3 8-pin CPU connectors and a MOLEX connector at the bottom to give extra stability to the PCIe slots in case we put several GPUs in parallel. Consider then that we will need a presumably modular power supply to meet the demands of the board. In any case, it would not be strictly necessary to use all 3, with two there would be enough, although the link would be more limited, generating more temperature and providing less stability in the connection in case of overclocking, especially.

Socket, chipset and RAM memory

Let's now focus on what this MSI X299 Creator brings in terms of platform news, which are not too many either.

Starting with the socket, we have no change regarding its configuration for previous processors, something that is appreciated whenever there is an architecture update. It is still the traditional LGA 2066 implemented from the Skylake-X architecture. Let's keep in mind that these 10th generation Intel processors are yet another iteration with revised 14nm transistors optimized for the new Cascade Lake-X or CL-X architecture. In fact, something that would have been consistent is to already implement the PCIe 4.0 standard in these processors and boards, but it seems that Intel has not wanted to take the step, surely due to limitations in the internal bus of its processors.

Its objective is none other than to compete with the AMD workstation platform or in the first instance, with the 3900X and 3950X. And it will not be precisely in gross power except the top of the range, although its PCIe lanes increase to 48. But they will compete in price, with an impressive drop in prices compared to the very expensive Kaby Lake-R, placing for example the 10980XE, the best of all, at around 1099 euros.

The RAM capacity has also been improved, now fully supporting 256 GB of DDR4 memory thanks to the 8 288-pin DIMM slots with support for Quad Channel configurations. In addition, the compatibility with XMP profiles causes the supported frequencies to increase to 4266 MHz for both the Intel Core i9 10000 X-Series and the Intel Core 9000 and 7000 X-Series.

The chipset continues to be the Intel X299, with its same 24 PCIe lanes. What has changed is the space for microcode inside, something that has been necessary to provide compatibility with the new 10th generation processors. On other models calling it X299X, but it really is the same with such optimization. Something that in many cases has not been possible to do on the boards already commercialized due to having space problems and losing compatibility with previous platforms.

Storage and PCIe slots

Let's now look at the high-speed expansion and storage connectivity that we have in the MSI X299 Creator, as well as the distribution of PCIe lines in each case.

Starting with the slots, we have a total of 4 PCIe 3.0 x16 slots on this board, and none of lower capacity like x1 or x4. All of them offer us support for AMD CrossFireX 4-way and Nvidia Quad GPU SLI 4-way.

• The 4 PCIe 3.0 x16 slots will be directly connected to the CPU. Although the PCI_E4 slot shares a bus with the M.2_3 slot. When we install a 48 lane CPU (case of the i9-10000) they will work at x16 / x0 / x16 / x8 or x8 / x8 / x16 / x8. If we install a 44 lane CPU (case of the i9-9000) they will work at x16 / x0 / x16 / x8 or x8 / x8 / x16 / x8. When it is busy M.2_3 PCI_E4 will go to x4 And when we install a 28 lane CPU (case of the i9-7800) they will work at x8 / x8 / x8 / x0 or x16 / x0 / x8 / x0. So directly PCI_E4 will be disabled.

We will only have the complete bus with the new 10th generation Intel processors, since this board is intended to be used with them. The rest of the lanes will be destined for the M.2 slots as we will now see.

So we come to the storage section, where we have a total of 3 M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 slots of which only one of them is also compatible with SATA drives. In addition, of them, we have a total of 8 SATA ports at 6 Gbps, and we have opted for another high-speed connection such as a U.2 port that supports PCIe 3.0 x4.

Let's see how their lanes are distributed

• The 1st M.2 PCIe x4 slot (M.2_1) is the one located at the top of the board. It supports sizes 2242, 2260, 2280 and 22110, and is connected to the chipset without sharing a bus with anyone. The 2nd M.2 PCIe x4 slot (M.2_2) is the one in the middle. Supports sizes 2242, 2260, 2280 and 22110, and is connected to the CPU, without sharing a bus with anyone. The 3rd slot M.2 PCIe x4 (M.2_3) Supports sizes 2242, 2260, 2280 and 22110, and is connected to the CPU. In this case it will remain disabled with 28-lane processors, and with 44-lane CPU it will limit the PCI_E4 bus to x8.

In all cases, both M.2 and SATA will have support for Intel Rapid Storage technology and RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 configurations. It also offers compatibility with Intel Optane Memory and with Intel's own VROC connector for RAID configurations. fast.

Wi-Fi 6 and LAN 10 Gbps connectivity

This has already become practically a standard on mid-range top plates on enthusiastic platforms from all manufacturers. This MSI X299 Creator could not be less, so let's see what it offers us.

As for network connectivity we have a triple connectivity for it. The most powerful wired link amounts to 10 Gbps thanks to an Aquantia AQC-107 chip directly soldered on board. The second link provides a 1000 Mbps bandwidth with the typical Intel I219-V chip. Finally, for wireless connectivity, the Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 chip has been installed, with a bandwidth of 2.4 Gbps at 5 GHz and 733 Mbps at 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth 5.0. Extremely complete and with the presence of high-speed links, and it is that it practically makes us strange and to see ports only 1 Gbps as the main on these boards.

Regarding the sound configuration, we have a Realtek ALC1220 codec, the Realtek reference chip. This provides us with a maximum sensitivity at the input of 108 dB SNR and up to 120 dB SNR at the output, with a capacity of 8 channels of high definition audio. In this way we have support for 32-bit audio playback at 192 kHz. In addition, a dedicated DAC has been installed, presumably a SABER that supports professional quality headphones up to 600Ω. The entire system can be managed thanks to Nahimic 3 software, a solution always used by the brand for its hardware and notebooks.

I / O ports and internal connections

And we are going to reach the final stretch of the features with all the peripheral connectivity that we have in the MSI X299 Creator.

Starting with the rear I / O panel we have:

• BIOS Flash button Clear CMOS button 2x Antenna outputs 1x PS / 2 port for keyboard or mouse 1x USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C7x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A2x USB 2.02x RJ-45 S / PDIF optical jack 3.5mm audio jack

In this case, it is striking that we do not have any USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A, as there is no space left supposedly due to that USB-C that gives us a bandwidth of 20 Gbps and that is managed by an ASMedia ASM3242 chip. In any case, we could connect a Hub to it and take out precisely two Type-A at 10 Gbps.

The 7 3.1 Gen1 ports will be managed by another ASMedia ASM1074 chip. Otherwise we have a very good connectivity, which will be completed with the included x4 card that gives us 2 DisplayPort and 2 Thunderbolt 3.

As internal connectivity we find:

• 2x USB 2.0 (up to 4 USB ports) 2x USB 3.2 Gen1 (up to 4 USB ports) 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C1x front audio panel 2x LED strip headers (1 ARGB and 1 RGB) 7x fan and water pump headers 1x header for water flow sensor 2x headers for temperature thermistors PTM1x header J1 for Thunderbolt 31x VROC

We have already mentioned at the beginning the good connectivity of this board in terms of lighting and ventilation, in addition the bundle brings with it those two temperature thermistors so that we can use them where we think appropriate.

In this case we have an ASMedia ASM3142 driver for the internal 3.2 Gen2 Type-C header. The chipset is responsible for managing the two internal USB-A 3.2 Gen1 ports and all 2.0 ports that are installed internally and externally.

testing bench

To test this MSI X299 Creator, we have used the following configuration:

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel Core i9-10980XE
Base plate:	MSI X299 Creator
Memory:	32 GB G-Skill Royal X @ 3200 MHz
Heatsink	Corsair H100i V2
HDD	Samsung 860 EVO
Graphic card	Nvidia RTX 2060 FE
Power supply	Corsair RM1000

As we can see, we opted for a state-of-the-art test equipment. Of course we have assembled the Corsair H100 V2 liquid cooling system as in other cases, but for the overclocking test a more powerful system such as the Asus Riujin 360 has been necessary .

The chosen graphics card is the RTX 2060 in its reference version. We believe it is a good option since it is affordable for many mortals and is the one we use for all our tests. For 2020 we will choose to mount a higher graphic, to see if we get an RTX 2080 SUPER.

BIOS of the MSI X299 Creator

MSI always takes maximum care of the aesthetics of its components, especially those of the Creator and design range, which we see reflected in this BIOS with white elements on the usual Skin.

MSI is a very complete BIOS, one of the best in terms of advanced component management at the click of a button. With just one button we can activate the XMP of the memories, and with others we can overclock the CPU. We have complete control of lighting, ventilation and everything that has to do with the connections of the board. A true wonder.

VRM temperature test and overclocking in MSI X299 Creator

Now we will deal with stressing the set to see the VRM temperatures and then overclocking this CPU, which already has a few for the boards we are testing. If we had doubts about heating these 90A MOSFETS with a relatively small heatsink, MSI has clarified the doubts with just 46 ^o C which is great. What's more, in the thermal images we can observe the temperatures it reaches with an i9-10980XE turned up for 12 hours of stress. And the best thing is that everything is completely silent since it doesn't have a fan.

As far as overclocking is concerned, we've also gotten some sensational performance and live up to what's expected in the MSI X299 Creator. We have achieved a good stability of this CPU at 4.9 GHz with 1.3 V, being the same figure as that obtained on the Asus board. Let's keep in mind that if we go beyond 4.7 GHz, the CPU temperatures will skyrocket, and therefore we have opted for a 360 mm configuration. The capacity and endurance of these Intel processors is once again admirable, especially considering they are 18C / 36T.

Final words and conclusion about MSI X299 Creator

Without having an aesthetic as impressive as could be expected in a top range such as the MSI X299 Creator, we have a build quality that is top. The VRM consisting of 12 + 3 phases with 90A MOSFETS and without doublers, gives us a spectacular performance both in temperatures and in overclocking capacity. In addition, its cooling is very solvent without the need for fans, good work from MSI.

We are not facing a new platform, this is evident, but the X299 has added new code to work optimally with the new batch of Intel Core i9 Cascade-Lake processors. Without standing out these are in its excellent price, such as the 1000 euros of the 10980XE, and in its overclocking capacity and hardness, which we have managed to raise to 4.9 GHz @ 1.3V without major problems except its temperature.

We recommend our guide to the best boards on the market

As far as connectivity is concerned, we have each and every one of the PCIe lanes busy, for example with 4 PCIe x16s that support configurations of up to 4 GPUs in parallel with these new processors. Its 3 M.2 + 8 SATA + 1 U.2, or the two expansion cards that it includes, with 4 extra M.2 and Thunderbolt 3 connectivity. If we ask for more, we have it, because there can be no link to 10 Gigabit or Wi-Fi 6.

This plate will soon be available for the few who can afford it, although we do not yet know the price it will have in Spanish stores, but second that above 700 euros. It is a plaque aimed at an enthusiastic audience, content creators who make a living in this field or design on a large scale. For them and the gamer world, we have everything, only the price is the handicap.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION	- WITHOUT USB TYPE-A GEN2 IN I / O PANEL
+ POWERFUL VRM AND EXCELLENT TEMPERATURES
+ OVERCLOCKING CAPABILITY WITH RANGE STOPPER
+ 10G CONNECTIVITY, WIFI 6, THUNDERBOLT AND + 7 M.2
+ EXCELLENT BIOS AND CONNECTION MANAGEMENT

The Professional Review team awards him the platinum medal:

MSI X299 Creator

COMPONENTS - 93%

REFRIGERATION - 90%

BIOS - 89%

EXTRAS - 95%

PRICE - 87%

91%