MSI X99A XPOWER AC Motherboard Review

1. Introduction2. MSI X99A XPOWER AC: Packaging and Bundle3. MSI X99A XPOWER AC: Board Layout and Features4. MSI X99 UEFI5. MSI X99 Software6. Testing Methodology7. Tests: System-related8. Tests: Processor-related9. Tests: Gaming-related10. Tests: Motherboard-related11. Overclocking: Frequencies12. Overclocking: General Performance13. Overclocking: OC Cache/Ring & 3GHz Memory Performance14. Technical: Power Consumption15. Closing Thoughts16. View All Pages

We will outline the performance increases that can be obtained from using the MSI X99A XPOWER AC motherboard to overclock our system. Our overclocked processor frequency was 4.4GHz and memory speed was 2666MHz.

As a performance comparison, we have included the overclocked results from eight other X99 motherboards. The maximum overclocked configuration achieved with each board was a 4.4GHz processor frequency and 2666MHz memory speed (2400MHz for ASRock’s X99E-ITX/ac).

MSI's X99A XPOWER AC delivers solid overclocked performance where raw CPU-only results are concerned.

The anomalous issue that we have observed on some of MSI's other X99 boards returned with the X99A XPOWER AC. Results relating to GPU-intensive workloads take a performance hit using our overclocked settings. Whilst this could be related to our overclocking procedure, it is a slightly concerning issue to users wanting to run GPU-intensive benchmarks.

Further tweaking in the BIOS would likely reveal a fix as there is no sign that the issue is a permanent, hardware-based one (it doesn't occur at stock speeds on the same hardware).

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