MSI X99S XPOWER AC (LGA 2011-3) Motherboard Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing (accurate at the time of writing)

MSI’s X99S XPOWER AC motherboard costs $399.99 in the USA at Newegg and Amazon. In the UK it can be had for £279.99 at Overclockers. MSI provide a 3 year warranty with this product.

Summary

While it might be cool to market the X99S XPOWER AC as a motherboard built from the ground up for extreme overclocking – that’s not really realistic or useful. Most buyers who will be interested in this won’t have those things in mind and I think MSI know this when you consider how many consumer friendly features the board offers. I am a great fan of the unique yellow and black colour scheme and I think that will continue to be a big selling point this time around. MSI have taken a lot of time on the styling and it shows. The connectivity is also mind blowing: the amount of USB 3.0, the WiFi and Bluetooth, the Dual Gigabit NICs….this board has so much connectivity.

It’s hard to frame this board as a pure overclocking board because ALL X99 boards are overclocking boards in some way. MSI have done a good job of giving users a range of options when overclocking: LN2 pots, delidding, additional fan mounts, multiple buttons, diagnostics, advanced voltage controls and monitoring, etc. That is where this board shines as an overclocking board, but at the same time if you choose to disregard all those overclocking options this board still has plenty to offer. We’ve already mentioned the overclocking but let’s also consider the high quality audio which performed incredibly well in our testing and the ultra-fast M.2 port which offers a lot more bandwidth than normal M.2 ports.

MSI’s X99S XPOWER AC is a pricey motherboard considering how affordable something like the MSI X99S SLI PLUS is, for reference the MSI X99S SLI PLUS can be had for $230 at the time of writing which is about 40% less than this board. This board does offer you a lot more but it’s about weighing up your options and what you really need. The MSI X99S XPOWER AC is worth paying more for if you have demanding storage, networking and peripheral needs. Or if you need to push your CPU to its clock-speed limits because every extra MHz makes a difference to your particular usage scenario, and you want to do it with the greatest stability. The XPOWER AC is also more feature rich and built from higher quality components. The MSI X99S XPOWER AC is a luxury product and so it’s appeal is limited, but just like the Z97 MPOWER MAX AC we reviewed a while ago this board does so much so well that it truly is an outstanding product.

Pros

• Great performance
• Staggering accessory package
• Amazing range of connectivity
• Dual Gigabit
• Attractive design

Cons

• BIOS and software feel recycled from Z97
• Pricey

“Outstanding performance, abundant connectivity options and a rich feature set make MSI’s X99S XPOWER AC motherboard a brilliant choice for a high performance Haswell-E system. It’s niche, but it’s done well.”

Thank you to MSI for providing this review sample.