MSI X99S Gaming 9 AC Motherboard Review - Product Showcase

X99 will bring a whopping 10-port SATA 6 Gb/s storage controller supporting RAID RST and SRT and SSD TRIM on RAID 0 configurations. SATA Express is supported. Interesting to see is the M.2. PCI Express slot, this received an upgrade from 1x PCI Express lane towards x4, giving the port not 10 GB/sec but 32 GB/sec performance! Mind you that it is a shared slot, so if you use M.2. then SATA port 5 and 6 will render themselves inactive as M.2. uses these.

You will receive a WIFI module in this kit. This unit will offer you support of 802.11 ac/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and even Intel WiDi (Wireless Display) and by using a WiDi receiver (not included) you can watch movies on your TV without the need for any cables. You pop on the module and screw it secure. 802.11 ac/b/g/n is great though. With the right router you could achieve 867 Mbps. That's more theoretical though, still you'll have plenty of bandwidth available if you got your WIFI network up and running properly with the right gear. MSI really needs to redesign/overhaul the the installation procedure of this WIFI module as it is such a nag.

Make note of all the USB lovin' you will receive. There are 6x USB 3.0 and 6x USB 2.0 ports available though internal connectors motherboard connectors delivered by the Intel chipset. Then an Asmedia ASM 1042AE controller adds another two USB 3.0 ports to the back panel and then a VIA VL805 ads 4x USB 3.0 ports to the back panel as well. So all the red colored USB 3.0 ports are using custom 3rd party chips. 

MSI will deliver power and reset buttons on-board. There are voltage monitoring points as well so that you can monitor critical control points with a Digital multimeter. The OC genie button will allow for a small default overclock.

The board comes with diagnostic LEDs and voltage measurement points. You will get eight DIMM slots offer support for quad-channel DDR4 memory up to even 3300 MHz (OC). You can install a maximum of 128 GB in total. XMP 2.0 must be supported, we'll show you this petit setup running at 2133 / 2400 and even 3000 MHz.

MSI applied their Military Class IV components on the motherboard with updated DrMOS MosFETs and aluminum colored dark caps that are not only going to increase the motherboards lifespan, they look magnificent on this motherboard as well.  

To the right you can see a Diagnostic post LED, it will display the status/post code. Once you have booted into Windows it will display the package temperature of your processor.