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MSI X99A XPOWER AC Motherboard Review

CPU Cache/Ring Overclocking Performance

We examine the performance gains that can be had when overclocking the CPU cache/ring, in addition to the CPU core.

OC and cache cine
Overclocking the CPU cache/ring frequency to 4.2GHz delivered a strong performance boost in the CPU-intensive Cinebench test.

Temperature levels for the CPU did not show a noticeable increase despite there being a ~20W increase in system-wide power consumption.

3GHz Memory Performance

While XMP dictates the memory operating frequency, voltage, and primary timings, the secondary and tertiary timings are set at the motherboard vendor’s discretion. That can lead to performance differences in memory-intensive workloads.

We used G.Skill’s Ripjaws4 modules set to their 3GHz XMP frequency to test memory bandwidth and latency numbers.

3GHz mem band

3GHz mem latency
MSI's 3GHz XMP settings are clearly biased towards lower latencies. This is good for users whose benchmarks like low latency memory, although could be considered a negative for bandwidth-intensive tests.

Manually tweaking the memory timings will change the performance levels, so there is no cause for concern at the X99A XPOWER AC motherboard's preference towards lower latency operation.

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