Aimed at gamers and enthusiasts, the X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC offers features which blend together both worlds, providing performance and functionality!
Product on Review: X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC
Manufacturer & Sponsor: MSI
Street Price: £330 GBP / $358 USD
As we enter the Summer months, the heat is rising and we’re referring to the CPU/motherboard market. Today marks the release of Intel’s new Core X-Series processors and the introduction of a brand new socket/chipset – LGA2066 – X299. As a direct successor to the now retiring X99 platform, X299 will serve enthusiasts and overclockers looking to maximise productivity and optimise workflow. Among the motherboard manufacturers, in this review we’ll be turning to MSI to carefully analyse the fruits of their labours in the X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC.
The X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC is a mid-high end motherboard found within the HEDT platform. MSI has kitted this board out with features which should satisfy both gamers and enthusiasts. For storage needs this board utilises U.2, M.2 and SATA 3 6GB/s. In the USB department USB 3.1 features heavily on the back panel and we even get a new USB 3.1 header for the front panel connectivity.
Throughout this review we’ll be testing X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC against other X299 motherboards and weighing up whether or not you should pick it up with a new Core X-Series CPU.
MSI in their own words
As a world leading gaming brand, MSI is the most trusted name in gaming and eSports. We’ve dedicated countless hours and committed numerous resources to the eSports community to support the world’s most aspiring and best gamers and use their knowledge and expertise in our products in return. MSI integrated all gamers’ aspirational functions in its gaming rigs, eliminating the tedious trial and error by themselves and pushing the performance beyond limits. The determination to surpass past achievements has made MSI a ‘True Gaming’ brand with gaming spirit throughout the industry!
Technical Specifications
Below are the technical specifications concerning the X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC:CPU
Support for Intel® Core™ X series processors in the LGA2066 packageL3 cache varies with CPU
Intel® X299 Express Chipset
MEMORY
8 x DDR4 DIMM sockets supporting up to 128 GB of system memory.* Support for up to 512 GB of system memory when using Registered DIMMs.
* Supported when using a 44-lane or 28-lane CPU.
4 x DDR4 DIMM sockets supporting up to 64 GB of system memory.
* Supported when using a 16-lane CPU.
4 channel memory architecture.
* Supported when using a 44-lane or 28-lane CPU.
Dual channel memory architecture.
Supported when using a 16-lane CPU.
Support for DDR4 4266+(OC)/ 4133(OC)/ 4000(OC)/ 3866 (OC)/ 3733(OC)/ 3600(OC)/ 3466(OC)/ 3400(OC)/ 3333(OC)/ 3300(OC)/ 3200(OC)/ 3000(OC)/ 2800(OC)/ 2666/ 2400/ 2133 MHz memory modules
Support for non-ECC Un-buffered DIMM memory modules
Support for Registered DIMM 1Rx8/2Rx8/1Rx4/2Rx4 memory modules (operate in non-ECC mode)
Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules
AUDIO
Realtek® ALC1220 codecHigh Definition Audio 7.1-channel
Support for S/PDIF Out
LAN
Intel® i219V Gigabit LAN (10/100/1000 Mbit)WIRELESS & BLUETOOTH
• Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265 module (optional)– The Wireless module is pre-install in the M2_3 (Key-E) slot.
– Supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual band (2.4GHz, 5GHz) up to 867 Mbps speed.
– Supports Dual Mode Bluetooth® 2.1, 2.1+EDR, 3.0, 4.0, BLE, 4.2
EXPANSION SLOTS
4 x PCI Express x16 slots Gen 3– Support x16/ x4/ x16/ x8 mode with the 44-lane CPU.
– Support x16/ x4/ x8/ x0,x8/ x4/ x8/ x8 modes with the 28-lane CPU.
– Support x8/ x0/ x8/ x0, x8/ x4/ x4/ x0 modes with the 16-lane CPU.
2 x PCI Express x1 slots Gen 3
STORAGE INTERFACE
Chipset:1 x M.2 connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280 SATA and PCIe x4/x2 SSD support)
1 x M.2 connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2260/2280/22110 SATA and PCIe x4/x2 SSD support)
8 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
1 x U.2 port
Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10
MULTI-GRAPHICS TECHNOLOGY
• Supports 3-Way AMD® CrossFire™ Technology• Supports 3-Way NVIDIA® SLI™ Technology
h2]USB• ASMedia® ASM3142 Chipset
– 1x USB 3.1 Gen2 (SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps) Type-A port on the back panel
– 2x USB 3.1 Gen2 (Super Speed USB 10Gbps) Type-C ports(1 port on the back panel, 1 port available through the internal USB connector)
• ASMedia® ASM1074 Chipset
– 3x USB 3.1 Gen1 (SuperSpeed USB) Type-A ports on theback panel
• Intel® X299 Chipsett
– 5x USB 3.1 Gen1 (SuperSpeed USB) ports (1 port on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB connectors)
– 7x USB 2.0 (High-speed USB) ports (3 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB connectors)
INTERNAL I/O CONNECTORS
– 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector– 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector
– 1 x 4-pin ATX 12V power connector
– 8 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
– 3 x M.2 slots (Key M x2, Key E x1)
– 1 x U.2 port
– 2 x USB 2.0 connectors (supports additional 4 USB 2.0 ports)
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 connectors (supports additional 4 USB 3.1 Gen1 ports)
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port
– 1 x 4-pin CPU fan connector
– 1 x 4-pin Water Pump connector
– 4 x 4-pin system fan connectors
– 1 x Front panel audio connector
– 2 x Front panel connectors
– 1 x TPM module connector
– 1 x Chassis Intrusion connector
– 1 x Clear CMOS jumper
– 1 x Slow mode booting jumper
– 1 x GAME BOOST knob
– 1 x Power button
– 1 x Reset button
– 1 x Multi-BIOS switch
– 1 x RGB LED connector
– 1 x Virtual RAID on CPU connector (VRAID1)
BACK PANEL CONNECTORS
– 1 x Clear CMOS button– 1 x BIOS FLASHBACK+ button
– 1 x PS/2 keyboard/ mouse combo port
– 3 x USB 2.0 Type-A ports
– 2 x Wi-Fi Antenna connectors (optional)
– 4 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A ports
– 1 x LAN (RJ45) port
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A port
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port
– 1 x Optical S/PDIF OUT connector
– 5 x OFC audio jacks
h2]BIOS 2 x 128 Mbit flash
Use of licensed AMI UEFI BIOS
Support for DualBIOS™
PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.7, WfM 2.0, SM BIOS 2.7, ACPI 5.0
OPERATING SYSTEM
Support for Windows 10 64-bitFORM FACTOR
• 12 in. x 9.6 in. (30.5 cm x 24.4 cm)• ATX Form Factor
Unboxing & Closer Look Video
For this review we’ve produced a video showcasing the items included in the box and a detailed rundown of the included features on this motherboard. Please click on this link or watch the video below:
Test Setup, Methodology & Overclocking
TEST SETUP
Cooling NZXT Kraken X62
Motherboard MSI GAMING PRO CARBON AC
Memory 32GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz
Graphics Radeon RX 480 8GB
Storage Kingston HyperX 240GB
PSU Corsair RM 1000 80 Plus Gold Certified PSU
Monitor AOC U2879VF
Capture Device Epiphan AV.iO 4K
BENCHMARKS
Cinebench R15 – CPU/OpenGL Scorex264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA – CPU & Memory benchmarks
POV-RAY – CPU benchmarks
TrueCrypt – CPU benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks & Memory
PCMark 8 – Home Suite & Photoshop
3DMark FireStrike – 3D Benchmark
Games – Rise of the Tomb Raider & Total War: WARHAMMER
OTHER SOFTWARE
Temperature Analysis: RealTempStress Testing Software: AIDA64 Stability Test
CPU Specification Monitoring: CPU-Z
Performance Monitoring: MSI Afterburner
OVERCLOCKING
Much like previous generations of Intel platforms, the X299/LGA2066 allows us to apply overclocks to unlocked processors easily. Many variables can be adjusted including BCLK and ratios.Our current record for the best overclock with Core i7-7740X is 5.2GHz. Unfortunately, our MSI motherboard wasn’t able to climb up to this great achievement – instead we settled at 5GHz. To achieve this we had to set the CPU voltage to 1.35v. Increasing the voltage beyond this to allow for an overclock beyond 5GHz simply wasn’t an option as the temperatures were already peaking out at 90C. Nevertheless, this is still a good result!
For a look at the MSI BIOS, please check out the next page for a video tour of the interface.
Video Tour: BIOS
To demonstrate the options and navigation across the MSI BIOS, we’ve captured usage with the Epiphan AV.iO 4K. To view the video simply click on this link or click on the video below:
Benchmarks: Power Consumption
It’s interesting to note the power consumption across all motherboards. Although they are using the X299 chipset, energy results can fluctuate between manufacturers due to the features and specifications that are integrated. First of all, for the idle tests the system is cold booted into Windows and no additional applications are executed – the watts are noted on the external energy monitor we use and then the system is loaded with 3DMark FireStrike – watts are again monitored for the duration of the test and the highest rated wattage result is then noted down. Below are the results of this energy test.
Benchmarks: Cinebench R15
CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Iron Man 3, Oblivion, Life of Pi or Prometheus and many more.
Benchmarks: X264 HD
Simply put, this test measures how fast your machine can encode a short, DVD quality MPEG-2 video clip into a high-quality x264 video clip. What’s x264, you ask? It’s more or less the next-generation Xvid/DivX codec. I think it’s ideal for a benchmark because the application (x264.exe) reports fairly accurate compression results (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encoding process, and it uses multi-core processors very efficiently.
Benchmarks: SiSoftware SANDRA
SANDRA isn’t always a benchmark that is included in hardware reviews but we believe it shouldn’t be ignored. SANDRA provides a vigorous package that tests your system in a rather large array of benchmarks. There are many aspects of benchmark that can be executed. We will be considering – CPU and memory tests.
Benchmarks: POV-RAY
Persistence of Vision Raytracer’s PovRay is a free and open source 3D animator application with versions for computers with different operating systems.
This product allows users to build their custom 3D worlds with excellent quality despite their computer’s hardware. It has adjustable options for levels of radiance, refraction, and reflection. Calculation time may vary depending on the computer model, but PovRay can adapt to many computer builds, and is supported by the open source community.
This product allows users to build their custom 3D worlds with excellent quality despite their computer’s hardware. It has adjustable options for levels of radiance, refraction, and reflection. Calculation time may vary depending on the computer model, but PovRay can adapt to many computer builds, and is supported by the open source community.
Benchmarks: TrueCrypt
TrueCrypt is a discontinued source-available freeware utility used for on-the-fly encryption (OTFE). It can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file or encrypt a partition or (under Microsoft Windows except Windows 8 with GPT) the entire storage device (pre-boot authentication).
Benchmarks: AIDA64
AIDA64 Product PageThis simple integer benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and the misprediction penalties of the CPU. It finds the solutions for the classic “Queens problem” on a 10 by 10 sized chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores. For example — with HyperThreading disabled — the Intel Northwood core processors get higher scores than the Intel Prescott core based ones due to the 20-step vs 31-step long pipeline. CPU Queen test uses integer MMX, SSE2 and SSSE3 optimizations.
Benchmarks: PCMark 8
PCMark 8 combines performance benchmarking with battery life measurement and includes tests based on popular Adobe and Microsoft applications. Whether you are looking for long battery life, or maximum power, PCMark 8 will help you find the devices that offer the perfect combination of efficiency and performance for your needs. It’s the complete PC performance benchmark for home and business.
Benchmarks: PCMark 8 Photoshop
The PCMark 8 Applications benchmark measures system performance using popular applications from the Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office. You can choose which tests to run based on the applications installed on your system. Each test automatically steps through a series of actions such as opening, editing and saving a file. The results are used to calculate the PCMark 8 Applications scores for the system.
Benchmarks: 3DMark FireStrike
3DMark FireStrike Product PageFire Strike is our new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is our most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today. Fire Strike will only be available in the Windows editions of 3DMark initially.
Benchmarks: Tomb Raider & Total War: WARHAMMER
It’s important for us to perform a number of game benchmarks as well as the synthetic tests because gamers will want to know if there are any significant benefits. So here we have two recent gaming titles benchmarked with a Radeon RX 480 installed.
Conclusion
There is no shortage of models to choose from when you cast an eye over the new Intel X299 range. Choosing the right model may seem like quite a daunting task but hopefully we’ll point you in the right direction – for users looking for a good blend of gaming features and enthusiast-grade options then the MSI X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC is definitely one to pop onto the short list.
Along with the sleek, neutral design which this board is adorned with, MSI are placing lots of emphasis on a new feature to be implemented with this next-gen range of motherboards – swappable covers. The covers which sit over the heatsinks, rear IO and audio components can all be interchanged with the plastic fascias which are included in the packaging bundle. This also opens the door to more possibilities because if you own a 3D printer then different designs can be created for a modified and truly unique configuration. We’re actually surprised this type of feature hasn’t hit the market already!
To add further customisation to the motherboard, MSI has also kitted X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC with Mystic Light RGB LEDs and RGB headers for users to add in their own strips.
Across the motherboard there is no shortage of trademark MSI features – including the usual DDR4 Boost, Audio Boost 4, and VR READY/BOOST. Beyond this, we have functionality which is like to be of use by more advanced users such as LED Debug, OC buttons and dual-BIOS, since this is also aimed at gamers, overclocking tools like voltage checkpoints are reserved for models higher up in the product stack.
Storage is one particular aspect which is abundant – we get three different standards to choose from – U.2, M.2 and SATA 3 6GB/s. U.2 and M.2 both support PCI Express x4 Gen 3 which will allow you to maximise the storage bandwidth within your system. Not all vendors are offering U.2 at this price point so this is certainly something to watch out for if you do happen to be using such a drive.
In terms of performance, X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC offers consistently good performance – showing no signs of weakness. This motherboard is able to nudge up the performance of the CPU to an admirable level when overclocking even though overclocking isn’t really the intended forte.
For launch, this motherboard has been given a price-tag of £330 GBP / $358 USD which highlights just how expensive this platform is compared to Intel X99. We do get lots of customisation, a good helping of features but these figures are what we’d expect for a flagship model.
Armed with a multitude of features – including 802.11ac functionality, X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC offers great performance and the option to create a unique identity!
Pros
+ Desirable neutral theme
+ Features interchangeable heatsink covers
+ RGB customisation & headers
+ Excellent performance
+ Good overclocking features
+ Comes with 802.11ac WiFi
+ Arrives with USB 3.1 front header
+ U.2, M.2 and SATA storage
+ M.2 feature thermal shields
+ Uses strengthened PCI Express/memory slots
+ Advanced enthusiast features: LED Debug, OC button, dual BIOS
+ Good audio solution
Cons
– Expensive
– Sill hosting USB 2.0 ports
– Poor positioning of top M.2 slot
– Needs more fan headers
+ Desirable neutral theme
+ Features interchangeable heatsink covers
+ RGB customisation & headers
+ Excellent performance
+ Good overclocking features
+ Comes with 802.11ac WiFi
+ Arrives with USB 3.1 front header
+ U.2, M.2 and SATA storage
+ M.2 feature thermal shields
+ Uses strengthened PCI Express/memory slots
+ Advanced enthusiast features: LED Debug, OC button, dual BIOS
+ Good audio solution
Cons
– Expensive
– Sill hosting USB 2.0 ports
– Poor positioning of top M.2 slot
– Needs more fan headers
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
