MSI X99S XPower AC Motherboard Review - Introduction

MSI X99S XPower AC motherboard - Daaaaaum !

Ever since Haswell-E processors launched a short while ago, we have been testing the most luxurious Intel X99 motherboards. Face it, what candy is to kids, this platform is for enthusiast PC gamers. As expensive as this upgrade is, we all like it, love it and if possible would buy it. The motherboard manufacturers know this, and as such they developed some X99 motherboards that are almost ridiculous in design. 

This year with the X99 releases the motherboard manufacturers went berserk, and MSI is offering among the best looking and feature rich motherboards I have seen ever. The Gaming series was just gorgeous, but there is that flagship motherboard series, the XPower. And that's what we'll be testing today as we review the MSI X99S XPower AC motherboard, the most high-end and quite frankly gorgeous looking X99 motherboards available on the X99 market. MSI took the X99 chipset and then started adding, adding and adding features. This results in a motherboard that has SLI/Crossfire support, AC WIFI, heaps of SATA3 connectors, M.2., SATA Express, intense overclock features,  a very nice audio solution and yeah, so much more. Join us in the MSI X99S XPower AC review, a product that is bound to please the enthusiast PC gamer.

The Intel Core i7-5960X and other Haswell-E chips have been released on the market September 2014 and based on a new socket LGA2011-V3 infrastructure and DDR4 quad channel memory. The new Haswell-E series being released feature three models, two 6-core and one 8 core processor series intended for the most high-end desktops anno 2014. For Intel it is the first 8 core desktop CPU for consumers. However Intel has been offering 8 and even 12 core processors in their Xeon server line for quite some time now to the business channel. With the new Haswell-E processor comes a new chipset and slightly revised processor socket. Intel still uses Socket 2011, but it's a revision 3 socket, meaning that the older Socket 2011 will not work on the new X99 chipset motherboards. That of course goes both ways, you cannot use Haswell-E on say an X79 motherboard. Interesting is a first introduction towards DDR4 memory. The new memory allows for lower voltage memory modules, this memory defaults towards 2133 MHz at 1.2 Volts. However the memory controller is quad-channel compatible. As a result with overclocked memory at roughly 3 GHz, you can reach 70 maybe 80 GB/sec on your memory bandwidth, which are insane numbers. In this article we'll have a chat about a X99 motherboard in terms of the chipset and then will throw a decent photo-shoot and a benchmark suite at the products and get an indication what performance is like with the Intel Core i7-5960X and X99 Platform.

Now back to MSI. The XPower series really are the MSI flagship products, this is enthusiast class alright. This MSI X99S XPower 9 AC will come with nice PC options like 8-pin EPS connectors, a digital phase VRM design for the processor and memory, five PCI-Express x16 slots . There is an extra EMI shield that covers the rear-panel I/O on-board, and audio is shielded as well. The board comes with an Intel Gigabit NICs and super fast 802.11 AC Wireless LAN. Storage wise you will get ten SATA 6 Gb/s and of course an M.2 slot (PCIe x4 linked this HEAPS of bandwidth). Overclocking features include voltage measurement points, and a diagnostic POST LED display. Other keywords for this product are V-Check Points 2, OC Engine, Military Class IV components, SATA Express and M.2 interface and intricate Audio Boost 2 technology. The XPower series is aesthetically pleasing with the black yellow design. 

Chaps, this motherboard offers it all, so join Guru3D in an extensive review and overview of what MSI has to offer with the MSI X99S XPower 9 AC motherboard. Next page please, but have a quick peek first. Yummy eh ?