Msi x99a gaming pro carbon review

MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon technical features

MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon unboxing and design

The MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon is presented in a black and gray box. Where we see a sports car on its cover, in large letters the model and which has support for the RGB LED lighting system. While on the back they indicate all the most important technical characteristics of the plate.

Once we open the box we find the following bundle:

MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard.6 x Two-unit SATA cable set. Rear hood. Instruction manual and quick guide. CD with software. Disc and logo stickers. CrossFireX and SLI bridge. not Here ”.

The new PRO Carbon line is characterized by having the standard ATX format with dimensions of 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm for the LGA 2011-3 socket and incorporates the x99 chipset with support for both Haswell-E processors and the new 6-inch Broadwell-E processors., 8 and 10 cores.

The design of the MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon is minimalist, as it is completely black and with some silver details. It has been a detail that the PCB is matt black .

For the most curious hardware, a view of the back of the motherboard.

The refrigeration system is very efficient, we really found two key zones with refrigeration. The first and most evident is that of the supply phases, this is made up of 8 VRM phases and digital PWMs, signed by the Military Class technology that has given MSI such good performance in recent years.

The second and last zone is located in the X99 chipset, which, like every year that passes, has less relevance and its use is minimal, so the heatsink more than fulfills its task. What is new about this new heatsink? Well, we have small LEDs that allow us to customize in 16.8 million colors. So with its black design, will it fit with any box we buy?

View of the only auxiliary EPS 8 connector for the power supply.

And the main 24-pin connection and the front USB 3.0.

The board incorporates a total of 8 128 GB compatible DDR4 RAM memory sockets with frequencies from 2400 MHz to 3466 MHz in Quad Channel and is compatible with the XMP 2.0 profile. Note: each memory slot incorporates a reinforcement on its pins. Slam MSI!

The MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon has a really good layout on its PCI Express ports. It has four PCIe 3.0 to x16 slots and up to two normal PCIe to x1 to connect auxiliary cards: sound, TV grabber, etc…. The four PCI Express 3.0 to x16 have a shield that better cushions the graphics so heavy that are on the market today.

Does it allow us to perform SLI or CrossFireX? Clear! It would be less. It is exactly compatible with Nvidia and AMD graphics cards in 3 Way-SLI and 3 Way-CrossFireX. With the following configurations:

40 LANES processors:

1 Graphics card: x16 / x0 / x0 / x02 Graphics card: x16 / x16 / x0 / x03 Graphics card: x16 / x16 / x0 / x84 Graphics card: x8 / x16 / x8 / x8

28 LANES processors:

1 Graphics card: x16 / x0 / x0 / x0.2 Graphics card: x16 / x8 / x0 / x0.3 Graphics card: x8 / x8 / x8 / x0.4 Graphics card: x8 / x8 / x8 / x4.

A category motherboard like this MSI, has an M.2 connection to install any SSD with type 2242/2260/2280/22110 format (42/60/80 and 110 mm) with a bandwidth of 32 GB / s and an Ultra U2 connection to connect high speed SSD.

Regarding storage, it has ten 6 GB / s SATA III connections with RAID 0.1, 5 and 10 support and a SATA Express connection . To highlight the USB 3.1 Type-C connection near the 24-pin ATX connector. This allows us to connect it to front connections for a greater connection with our smartphone.

View of the main control panel, this allows us to: turn on, restart and activate the overclock option.

As a sound card with the ALC1150 chipset that is encapsulated by Audio Boost 3 technology with 7.1 channel compatibility and that pleasantly improves the final experience. After our tests we see no need to change to a dedicated one unless you are a music professional.

Finally we detail the rear connections are made up of:

1 x PS / 2.8 x USB 3.0 connector, Clear CMOS button, USB 3.1 Type C and Type A connector, 1 x Gigabit network card, 7.1 sound output.

Test bench and tests

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel Core i7-6900K
Base plate:	MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon
Memory:	4 × 8 32GB DDR4 @ 3200 MHZ Corsair Dominator Platinum
Heatsink	Corsair H100i V2.
HDD	Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB.
Graphic card	Nvidia GTX 980 Ti 6GB.
Power supply	EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2

WE RECOMMEND YOU MSI GS66 Stealth: Intel Core i9 "H", Nvidia RTX and a slim chassis

To check the stability of the i7-6900K processor at 4400 MHZ and the motherboard we have stressed with Prime 95 Custom and air cooling. The graphics we have used is an Nvidia GTX 980 Ti, without further delay, let's see the results obtained in our tests with a 1920 × 1080 monitor.

BIOS

The BIOS is the same as its older sisters. It has all the options and we can get to have a performance of a high-end motherboard. We are very happy with the armored result.

Final words and conclusion about MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon

MSI has done a great job with its new MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard as it meets all the requirements that can be asked of a motherboard in this category: aggressive design, great components and great overclocking capabilities. We really liked that its 8-phase design holds up well to overclocking with the i7-6900K and is capable of holding a total of 128GB DDR4.

On the storage we will not have any type of problem when incorporating 10 SATA III connections, a SATA Express connection (Shared with the SATA), an M.2 connection and the new U.2 Ultra that allows the connection of high-performance NVMe disks. Also highlight its Audio Boost 3 sound card and the Gigabit Gaming LAN network card designed to lower the latency between your router and the PC. Good job MSI!

We recommend reading our guide to the best motherboards on the market.

In our tests we have been able to overclock the 800 i7 6900K with a voltage of 1.3v and the performance is incredible. It takes a ring to the finger with this new generation of Broadwell-E processors. In games it has given a great performance, without a doubt it is a very complete motherboard.

We still do not have a sale price and availability, but it is not surprising that it will arrive in the next few days in the most important online stores in Spain.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ INCREDIBLE DESIGN.	- TWO GIGABIT LAN CONNECTIONS.
+ 8 FEEDING PHASES.
+ 10 SATA CONNECTIONS.
+ GIGABIT NETWORK AND IMPROVED AUDIO.
+ IMPROVED OVERCLOCK AND BIOS CAPABILITY.