MSI X99A GAMING PRO CARBON (with Broadwell-E)

[cadaveca]

MSI delivered us a new X99 motherboard, the X99A-GAMING PRO CARBON, a stealthy all-black motherboard with some RGB Mystic Light goodness. Designed for those new multiple GPUs you just bought, the MSI X99A GAMING PRO CARBON is ready to take your VGAs, your memory and your new Broadwell-E CPU to the limits to then stay there!

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[springs113]

Thank you Dave, I've been feeling empty lately now my plate is full. On to the reading.

 

[SimpleTECH]

Any Uncore OC? Just curious considering the extra CPU socket pins.

 

[cadaveca]

Any Uncore OC? Just curious considering the extra CPU socket pins.

honestly, I totally forgot to try! 5930K did what it does on almost every board, as did 6950X, if that helps.

 

[Caring1]

I don't see the lack of Wi-Fi as a negative, on the contrary I see it as a positive as USB adapters are available in basically whatever speed and price range you want, if it is needed at all.

 

[Dammeron]

Gotta love that "carbon", it definately reduces weight and increases siffness etc.

Wait, oh, yeah... ...useless...

 

[ShockG]

Any Uncore OC? Just curious considering the extra CPU socket pins.

There is no uncore differences with board on BD-E, no need for OC-socket or anything of the sort. All the CPUs I've tested have identical limits across a number of boards.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Even RMAA tests, all hail to cadaveca.

Seriously a good looking board.

 

[springs113]

I don't see the lack of Wi-Fi as a negative, on the contrary I see it as a positive as USB adapters are available in basically whatever speed and price range you want, if it is needed at all.

If it weren't for the lack of those features I would've bought this board, the point is to limit adapters...I don't need another middle man so to speak. Of course there are other factors that played into me not purchasing this board but not having wifi is definitely a part of it.

Hey Dave, Isn't this the same board?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...=msi_gaming_pro_carbon-_-13-130-934-_-Product

 

[cadaveca]

Yep. same board; seems like a steal at that price.

 

[dalekdukesboy]

Nice review....but am I missing something or are there absolutely no references to load temps of the cpu? I realize it's the board being tested I see vrm temps etc but other than a scant reference to 5.1 ghz OC with your other cpu (very nice result btw) there are no references to how this clocks the 1700$ beast that is in the board and temps. Anyway I am asking because I admit I didn't look at every picture of bios etc but nothing I found in temp sections or performance etc where I'd expect to see it.

 

[cadaveca]

Nice review....but am I missing something or are there absolutely no references to load temps of the cpu? I realize it's the board being tested I see vrm temps etc but other than a scant reference to 5.1 ghz OC with your other cpu (very nice result btw) there are no references to how this clocks the 1700$ beast that is in the board and temps. Anyway I am asking because I admit I didn't look at every picture of bios etc but nothing I found in temp sections or performance etc where I'd expect to see it.

I'm not reviewing the CPU, so yeah, little info about it directly.

I had the chip from Gigabyte, retail, first. Now I have this second retail and an ES chip to play with. I'm still testing. I have to have these chips in multiple boards before I can mention anything about them with any confidence in a review. But I can still share my experiences so far...

So, uh, load temps of WHICH CPU, and under what condition? (I have 5930K in both retail and ES as well, its the ES that clocks really well).

 

[dalekdukesboy]

I'm not reviewing the CPU, so yeah, little info about it directly.

I had the chip from Gigabyte, retail, first. Now I have this second retail and an ES chip to play with. I'm still testing. I have to have these chips in multiple boards before I can mention anything about them with any confidence in a review. But I can still share my experiences so far...

So, uh, load temps of WHICH CPU, and under what condition? (I have 5930K in both retail and ES as well, its the ES that clocks really well).

First of all, you suck lol I'm envious all that hardware you get to play with that I'd almost kill to deal with...and it's safe to say you make money doing it. (not asking or probing with that just me being a jealous novice techie who has to empty his wallet to even use any hardware at all, so kudos to you doing something you love AND yes it is work and effort doing all the benchies and disseminating them to us the audience so thank you for that! Anyway that was just an aside and yeah hate to be greedy but all of the above I'd be interested in just voltages/temps/speed. That's really all I'm curious about and please and thank you for whatever you can provide!

 

[dalekdukesboy]

Also I can attest to the power of ES versus retail...I myself had a rampage iv board that had a couple bent pins when I got it and due to my own oopsie when I mounted the cooler on it (notcua dh-14) I had a backplate overlapping the main metal blackplate of the cooler so it wasn't flush but at an angle...so needless to say everytime I took the cooler on and off last couple years I was crushing more pins slowly and not realizing it (I believe anyway). It was only slightly crooked so no way to realize my error on initial installation till I took board out of the case after it stopped working and looked at the back and said...well you can imagine. So I got a used rampage iv that came with a 3930k and it was roughly same price I saw the board at by itself anywhere used or new so was good deal and I got a retail cpu too. The retail cpu so far cries for mercy and bluescreens instantly when I click start on intel burntest at 4. 6 ghz no matter what I did...I put the ES I already had from original board back in and it didn't bluescreen or even freeze in windows till I really had memory set at totally unstable settings. So the ES I have which is equivalent to a 3960x which is slightly better than the retail 3930k so far seems much more cooperative when I overclock it. I haven't plopped the 3930k in since I dialed in my OC settings with the also new memory I got but just from the brief experience comparing the cpus the ES seems considerably stronger with mhz as well as memory overclocking and also needs less voltage.

 

[dalekdukesboy]

First of all, you suck lol I'm envious all that hardware you get to play with that I'd almost kill to deal with...and it's safe to say you make money doing it. (not asking or probing with that just me being a jealous novice techie who has to empty his wallet to even use any hardware at all, so kudos to you doing something you love AND yes it is work and effort doing all the benchies and disseminating them to us the audience so thank you for that! Anyway that was just an aside and yeah hate to be greedy but all of the above I'd be interested in just voltages/temps/speed. That's really all I'm curious about and please and thank you for whatever you can provide!

Oh sorry I only care about the OC settings that were stable'ish. Least of concern to me is stock temps, I never run anything at such so other than for comparison sake to other coolers/boards etc fairly useless to me.

 

[cadaveca]

5930K 1.45V, high load temps In the 90's, gaming temps ~77c. I don't care too much for anything other than power draw though; it's near 300W and keeping that cool isn't easy.

 

[dalekdukesboy]

Nice, so 1.45 volts got you 5.1 ghz?

 

[cadaveca]

Nice, so 1.45 volts got you 5.1 ghz?

yes. my other chip does 4.6 GHz @ 1.325V. It just won't budge any higher.

 

[dalekdukesboy]

Wow, so is the "other" chip the non ES or is it the 6950? I would expect the 6950 to be limited due to how many cores/heat etc that it would have. Not sure anyone cares about x79 anymore but now that I figured out why my board was so flakey before I'm tempted to start a new thread with temps/OC/etc, I'm amazed the high end boards for x79 still go for 300-400$ if you can even find them on ebay etc...I guess it's due to the fact it still has very good performance for its' age and x99 is simply newer generation and is better but other than for benches etc if you game/multitask/even encoding etc you'd be hardpressed to even notice the difference between the two without actually seeing benchmarks.

 

[cadaveca]

X99 adds better connectivity features. Cache performance is also improved. CPU core design hasn't changed much in a long time; it's everything around it that changes. 3960X to 6950X is a pretty large leap from where I sit. My oldest son games on a 4960X.

The other chip is a retail. I generally get one good retail and one excellent ES chip to do reviews with. The ES chips are hand-picked, and retail is surely not the worst ever either.

6950X doesn't clock like I want it to. Performance is incredible with all those cores if you can use them though, and I do.

If I can find the time, I'll do a review of 6950X, 6700K, 5930K, 4960X, 4790K, 3960X. Pretty sure I have all those CPUs here... will take some time to build the systems, install OS, bench, etc.

 

[dalekdukesboy]

"If I can find the time, I'll do a review of 6950X, 6700K, 5930K, 4960X, 4790K, 3960X. Pretty sure I have all those CPUs here... will take some time to build the systems, install OS, bench, etc."

Yep, that right there confirms that you suck lol. I can't even imagine having that much hardware all at my disposal...I have an e8600/e8700 with a dead tpower i45 and 2 working evga core 2 duo mobos....you want to talk about truly ancient relatively speaking hardware! Also interesting what you say about the ES chips because from the couple I have found over time my experience definitely is they clock better than pretty much any retail version you get unless you get really lucky or bin a ton of chips. Also seriously though that'd be awesome if you do a quick review of those chips. I know there are improvements mainly on features etc on x99 versus x79 and obviously a die shrink and bit better per watt performance etc, but from the reviews I've seen comparing the two especially if it's just gaming and going online and maybe a bit of oc'ing fun etc this board and 6 core cpu is more than I really need...yeah I'd love to have x99 and chips etc but kinda not in my budget as I am job hunting.

 

[dalekdukesboy]

X99 adds better connectivity features. Cache performance is also improved. CPU core design hasn't changed much in a long time; it's everything around it that changes. 3960X to 6950X is a pretty large leap from where I sit. My oldest son games on a 4960X.

The other chip is a retail. I generally get one good retail and one excellent ES chip to do reviews with. The ES chips are hand-picked, and retail is surely not the worst ever either.

6950X doesn't clock like I want it to. Performance is incredible with all those cores if you can use them though, and I do.

If I can find the time, I'll do a review of 6950X, 6700K, 5930K, 4960X, 4790K, 3960X. Pretty sure I have all those CPUs here... will take some time to build the systems, install OS, bench, etc.

Hey, are you picking on my 3x series processor by pointing out even your "son" has a 4960x? SMH. I did catch that earlier just had other things to say figured I'd reply later like now.

 

[cadaveca]

Hey, are you picking on my 3x series processor by pointing out even your "son" has a 4960x? SMH. I did catch that earlier just had other things to say figured I'd reply later like now.

LoL. Actually, it's an ES chip he has. What do you do with ES chips you have? Can't sell 'em? Don't need to return them yet... So you put them in use. It also means that when I want to run some benches I have to kick him off his PC... Thankfully he's got a job this summer so I have clear access during weekdays. And now I'm feeling old, thinking about my son having a job...

 

[dalekdukesboy]

Probably not much older than me if at all, I'm old enough to have kids in college and my step-kids are both late teenagers and one is in college this year actually. I just was pushing my little ES and it's way better than I ever realized, due to the fact I had a mobo before that had a few issues when I got it and I totally borked it by how I attached the cooler I never could get it working quite right...got some great benchies but never read more than 2 sticks of memory at a time and that's when I took it out of the socket I could see why...amazing it worked for almost 3 years as it were. I just was fooling around with it most of today actually and with 16 gigs of nice ballistix low voltage ram I pushed it to see what I could do...here's the best so far check it out...

 

[dalekdukesboy]

2400 mhz with only 1.535 volts to the RAM at 11-11-11-33! I could post prior result but it was identical but was 11-12-11-33 and that only took 1.49 volts I think...This ram might even be better than the processor. But hard to complain about it either 4.5 ghz with 1.335 volts with 16 gigs @ 2400 mhz with very reasonable PLL voltage and vtt voltage as well, might even be able to work at lower just I knew 1.9 on pll and 1.2 volts on other 2 were stable so left it like that while I fiddle with memory timings/voltages etc as well as cpu voltages.