Msi x299 gaming pro carbon review in Spanish (full analysis)

MSI X299 Gaming PRO Carbon technical features

Unboxing and design

The MSI X299 Gaming PRO Carbon AC It comes in a full color box. On its cover we find an image of the product and screen printed on the right side the model of the motherboard.

While on the back they indicate all the most outstanding specifications and technical characteristics.

Once we open the box we find the following bundle:

MSI X299 Gaming PRO Carbon AC motherboard. SATA cable set. Back hatch. SLI bridge. Instruction manual and quick guide. Software CD. Stickers to identify all wiring. Customized bezels. Two Wifi Antennas.

Detail of the plastic trims that allows us to exchange. How good would one have been with our MSI gentlemen logo… (Elbow, elbow, wink, wink).

As we can see, this is an ATX format board with dimensions of 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm for the LGA 2066 socket. The board has a very elegant design combining black / silver colors and a matte black PCB. As expected, it incorporates the top of the range X299 chipset that is compatible with all the new Intel Skylake-X and Intel Kaby Lake-X processors. Specifically, it supports both Intel Core i9, i7 and the less powerful i5.

Rear view of the motherboard, for those users who love to see every last detail.

The MSI X299 Gaming PRO Carbon AC features two zones with cooling: power phases and one for the X299 chipset. All its components are enhanced with Military Class technology. This means that it incorporates the best of the best in components: power phases, Japanese capacitors, chokes and a reinforced PCB.

Internally it has a total of 12 power phases that will give us the possibility to get the most out of our new enthusiastic processor. It is also important to know that it has an external generator that offers greater freedom in the settings of the BLCK: OC Engine and a PCB with several layers and optimized to isolate the traces of energy and signal that can interfere with the components.

We can see the important heatsink that covers the entire X299 chipset. The carbon vinyl design is great.

The board incorporates a total of 8 64 GB and 128 GB DDR4 compatible DDR4 RAM sockets with frequencies from 2666 MHz to 4266 MHz in Quad Channel being compatible with the XMP 2.0 profile. Although, keep in mind that with the i5-7640X and i7-7740X it only supports Dual Channel and we must install the memories in the 4 sockets on the right side.

The MSI X299 Gaming PRO Carbon AC presents a very interesting distribution of its PCI Express connections. It has four PCIe 3.0 slots at x16 and two other normal PCIe slots at x1. The PCI Express 3.0 to x16 come equipped with a small armature that improves the contact between the card and the slot, also helps to better cushion high-volume graphics without bending the PCB.

It is important to know that the MSI X299 Gaming PRO Carbon AC is compatible with Nvidia's 3 Way SLI and AMD's CrossfireX.

As expected, it incorporates up to two M.2 connections to install any NVMe SSD with 2242/2260/2280/22110 type format (42/60/80 and 110 mm) with a badna width of up to 32 GB / s. Obviously it is fully compatible with Intel Optane technology.

A few months ago we tested first hand the MSI Shield M.2 technology and we could see that it allowed us to improve up to -10ºC on M2 NVMe disk drives. We have also seen that this time they used a slightly thicker sheet metal and black in color to better dissipate each SSD. Point for MSI!

The integrated sound card incorporates Audio Boost 4 technology. Among its improvements we find the use of 8-channel premium quality audio components. Which will make us enjoy a more crystalline sound and with a high impedance headphone amplifier.

Regarding storage, it has six SATA III connections of 6 GB / s with support for RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10. and a SLOT U.2 . In the image we see only 4 SATA connections, but in the lower area of the board, we will find the other two connections.

RGB lighting takes on more importance in this new generation of motherboards. MSI specifically relies on Mystic Light technology with 16.8 million colors. The areas that benefit from lighting are both the area of the rear connections, the sound card and the heatsink of the motherboard chipset.

Finally we detail the rear connections of the MSI X299 Gaming PRO Carbon AC. They are made up of:

1 x BIOS Erase. 1 x BIOS Change. 8 x USB 3.0.1 x PS / 2.1 X USB 3.1 Type C.1 x Gigabit LAN. Wireless connection. 8-channel sound output.

Test bench and tests

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	i5-7640X
Base plate:	MSI X299 Gaming PRO Carbon
Memory:	Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR4
Heatsink	Corsair H100i V2
HDD	Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB.
Graphic card	Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti
Power supply	Corsair AX860i.

To check the stability of the i5-7640X processor at 4500 MHZ and the motherboard we have stressed with Prime 95 Custom and air cooling. The graphics that we have used is an Nvidia GTX1080 Ti, without further delay, let's see the results obtained in our tests with a 1920 x 1080 monitor.

BIOS

MSI has equipped its entire series with its classic BIOS, which has given us such good times on our test bench. It allows us to configure basic and advanced aspects: overclock, profiles, hardware monitoring, create our own ventilation curve and explore at all times what components we have installed in a hot graphic scheme. One of the great advantages of this series of BIOS is that to overclock we must touch very few options. Good job!

Final words and conclusion about MSI X299 Gaming PRO Carbon

The MSI X299 Gaming PRO Carbon is the current MSI flagship for the LGA 2066 platform. With 12 feeding phases, a very elegant design, customizable with a 3D printer and with great component quality.

In our tests we have used the new 4-core Intel Core i5-7640X and we have reached a stable frequency of 4500 MHz, although surely we can achieve a higher overclock 4.8 / 4.9 if we have a good unit. Also tell you that we have not had a problem putting the memories at 3200 MHz, but in Dual Channel, since these new i5 do not allow Quad Channel.

We recommend reading the best motherboards on the market.

We really liked its BIOS, it is still impeccable and with great stability. Many of our foreros have had MSI on previous platforms: X79, X99 and are super happy with their Military Class components and overclocking capabilities.

Its price in Spain is estimated at approximately 300 to 320 euros and will arrive from next week in the main Spanish stores. We believe that it will become, like its counterparts on other platforms, a TOP sales in the market. A 100% recommended product.