Power Consumption

We measure CPU power consumption since one of our first tasks is to truly verify system stability. I isolate the power coming through the 8-pin ATX connector using an in-line meter that provides voltage and current readings, and total wattage passed through. While this may not prove to isolate the CPU power draw in all instances, it does serve as a good indicator of board efficiency and effective VRM design. Total system power consumption is no longer reported as this figure can change depending on what VGA is installed. The sole board-only power measurements possible without physically modifying a motherboard are those taken via the 8-pin CPU connector, making it the only figure of value worth reporting. I use wPrime with eight threads selected in the options since it provides a consistently high workload throughout the full length of the test and runs long enough for the VRM and CPU to produce a fair bit of heat. Most average workloads will draw far less than that, although distributed computing applications are quite similar. This is not supposed to test stability since I use several other applications to do so, but merely serves to provide repeatable power draw numbers anyone can replicate. The meter used is an off-the-shelf Zalman unit that has been on the market for some time. It provides similar results in my test environment when compared with a FLUKE 337 clamp meter.


The MSI X99S GAMING 7 produced decent power consumption results in both idle and load. With the board a GAMING product for what even Intel states to be an enthusiast platform, the clock speeds at load seemed to keep all cores in sync—even at stock. While overclock testing only saw cores that were in use increase in clock speed, with the others in their low-power state, all cores clocked up once given the load, which I found pretty impressive because it helps keep power consumption and temperature in check, allowing the maximum frequency of each individual CPU to easily be attained. Only pulling 100W at stock, I apparently also received a fairly good retail CPU.

Fan Control

Fan control on the MSI X99S GAMING 7 is pretty ingenious all on its own. There is a fairly easy-to-understand and simple-to-configure interface right in the BIOS itself, although similar adjustment possibilities can be found within the provided software as well. With a minimum of 12.5%, which should allow most fans to run silently, adjustments did not allow fans to be turned off completely and back on again.


One of the nice parts about the MSI X99S GAMING 7 BIOS is that there is a "system viewer". It will show you every populated plug or port, so you can quickly figure out where you plugged a device in, and of what type it is. It even shows you which fans are plugged in, and which USB ports on the back panel are in use. Nice!