Final Thoughts
We are big fans of MSI’s SLI Plus motherboards, as I mentioned we’ve previously reviewed MSI’s Z170A SLI Plus and their Z270 SLI Plus motherboards. It is really great that MSI can bring out these boards with all of the essential features and you don’t feel like you are missing anything or you are getting cheated out of anything. The X299 SLI Plus is no exception. You have a fully-features X299 motherboard with support for dual graphics cards, two turbo M.2 slots, U.2 support, USB 3.1, RGB LEDs and header, and much more.
Now if we compare this board to more expensive boards out there maybe this board is missing some things, but do you really need them? Many high-end X299 boards have 3+ M.2 slots, we only have two here. They have very elaborate audio solutions, the one here is good, but not as good as those. They have 10 GbE Ethernet, we only have dual Gigabit ports here. Finally other boards are loaded with RGB LEDs and multiple RGB headers, we have a small splash of RGB LEDs and a single RGB header. Now you have to ask yourself do you need those extras? Or more importantly do you want to put that extra money you would spend on a higher-end board towards something else like a better graphics card?
One thing that I really want to point out, which is probably not a big deal to most, but I am super happy that MSI did it. They have finally packaged all of their apps inside a central app. Before you had to download, install, and launch each app individually. Now you have the MSI App Manager where you can do all of that within the same app. It saves a lot of time. Also MSI uses the same Click BIOS 5 we saw on their Z170 and Z270 motherboards, it is solid and works great.
This motherboard is currently selling for $229.99 at our favorite online retailer, which makes it one of the most affordable X299 motherboards available. And we don’t consider this a budget board at all, it has all of the main features you would want in a X299 board. Overall ThinkComputers gives the X299 SLI Plus Motherboard a 9 out of 10 score and our Good Value Award!
Pros:
– Has all of the core X299 features you want
– Good overall performance
– Solid overclocking
– MSI App Manager
– Price
Cons:
– RGB LEDs really aren’t needed
– Command Center app has wrong readings for our memory
