MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon Targets Broadwell-E

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MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon Targets Broadwell-E

By Steve Burke Published May 13, 2016 at 12:05 am

Hardware

MSI today announced its refreshed motherboard lineup for Broadwell-E, featuring a carbon fiber paint-job (not actually carbon fiber, of course) and RGB LED lighting across the board. The motherboard is part of MSI's “Carbon” lineup, identifiable by the Mystic Lights and carbon aesthetic, and is slated for use with Broadwell-E. As with all BW-E motherboards, the X99A Gaming Pro Carbon will host an X99 Extreme Series chipset from Intel.

The visual refresh is the main selling point of the board, though a few hard features also exist – we'll get to those momentarily. MSI's “Mystic Lights” RGB LEDs are positioned around the chipset, under the IO shield, under the VRM heatsink, and within the audio chipset's steel shield.

In terms of hard features, the board is outfitted with the new-ish USB3.1 Type-C connector (capable of 10Gbps throughput), signified by the “A” naming suffix. Other HSIO improvements include the on-board “Turbo” M.2 port; Turbo M.2 enables throughput upwards of 32Gbps, though finding a device capable of saturating that throughput is effectively impossible.

A total of four PCI-e x16-length slots are present, with two additional PCI-e x4 slots. We are presently unsure of the electrical wiring to each x16 slot.

Buttons along the bottom of the motherboard offer instant overclock and power/reset functions, making troubleshooting and setup a little easier. Troubleshooting is further aided by an on-board debug LED with seven segment output. MSRP is $330 for the X99A Gaming Pro Carbon.

Read more about the X99A Gaming Pro Carbon over here: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/X99A-GAMING-PRO-CARBON.html

- Steve “Lelldorianx” Burke.

Last modified on May 12, 2016 at 12:05 am

Steve Burke

Steve started GamersNexus back when it was just a cool name, and now it's grown into an expansive website with an overwhelming amount of features. He recalls his first difficult decision with GN's direction: "I didn't know whether or not I wanted 'Gamers' to have a possessive apostrophe -- I mean, grammatically it should, but I didn't like it in the name. It was ugly. I also had people who were typing apostrophes into the address bar - sigh. It made sense to just leave it as 'Gamers.'"

First world problems, Steve. First world problems.