MSI X99S MPower Motherboard Review

Final Thoughts
As I said in my MSI Z97 MPower review I am very impressed with MSI’s Overclocking Series motherboards. While the X99S MPower and Z97 MPower are based off of different chipsets they are still very much a like and have many of the same features. Instead of just copying and pasting my conclusion about the Z97 MPower’s overclocking features here go ahead and read it. This board has all of those same features, which are very impressive and things that any overclocker would enjoy.

Now going over the main differences between this board and the Z97 MPower is that you first have a Turbo M.2 slot. Turbo M.2 is the successor to M.2 10 Gb/s, offering 3 times more performance up to 32 Gb/s using Gen3 x4. You also have a SATA Express port, something that the Z97 MPower was lacking. Also since you have more PCI-Express lanes this board would be better for multiple graphics card setups. You get a second USB 3.0 header and DDR4 support too.

MSI provides a very great software suite with the X99S MPower motherboard. The Command Center software allow you to easily tune your motherboard without having to go into the BIOS to do it. It also allows your to setup and tune your fans for the best performance. RAMDisk is a great addition to the software that allows you to create a RAMDisk out of available RAM in your system. Live Update makes it extremely easy to keep all of your drivers and software up to date. The BIOS itself works great and is extremely easy to navigate.

For some reason to me it seems like this board was put together fast, at least to me it feels like that. As far as looks go I do like the look of the Z97 MPower better. Both heatsinks on the Z97 MPower have “M” designs on them. The ones on the X99S MPower just seem boring. Also the cool yellow DEBUG LED that was on the Z97 MPower has been replaced by the normal red one on the X99S MPower. But honestly I can’t complain that much, this motherboard still looks great and is a great choice if you are looking for an X99 motherboard.

This is part of MSI’s overclocking series so how far were we able to push it? We took our Intel Core i7-5960X from its stock 3.0 GHz and brought it all the way up to 4.4 GHz, which seems to be the max for this chip, at least on our motherboard testing setup and our first two motherboards have not been able to get past 4.4 GHz. A 1.4 GHz overclock is not bad at all!

This motherboard is a little hard to find right now, but MSI let us know it will have an MSRP of $269.99 and will be available in stores as early as next week. Overall ThinkComputers gives the MSI X99S MPower Motherboard a 9 out of 10 score.

rating9 10 small

Pros:
– Lots of overclocking features
– Made with quality components
– Good overclocking
– Useful software suite
– Turbo M.2 and SATA Express
– Easy to navigate BIOS

Cons:
– The overall design seems to be lacking

About Author