MSI X99A Godlike Gaming Carbon Motherboard Review

Rating: 8.0.

MSI's Godlike Gaming X99 motherboard first made an appearance mid last year with a striking design and a brazen claim to X99 motherboard superiority. Positioned against the ASUS Rampage V Extreme, now the Rampage V Edition 10, the Godlike Gaming motherboard is MSI's no holds barred X99 implementation.

The refreshed version of the Godlike Gaming, the X99A Godlike Gaming Carbon, has taken onboard community feedback and revised the somewhat garish colour scheme of its sibling. Out goes the bright red and in it's place is a more refined black and white design, enhanced with a carbon fibre wrap.

However, styling aside there isn't much, if anything, fundamentally different between the new Carbon variant and the pre-existing red version which we presume will be sold alongside the Carbon.

The specification sheet is decidedly high-end with USB 3.1 (inc. Type-C), SATA Express, M.2, U.2 and support for 4-Way GPU configurations.

The networking aspect is well-addressed with dual Killer E2400 Gigabit LAN and Wireless Killer 1535, the trio of which can combine with software based teaming for a total theoretically network throughput of 2.87 Gbps.

Audio is covered with a Realtek ALC1150 codec backed by headphone amplifiers, amp switches, high-grade audio capacitors and a 6.35mm jack on the rear I/O for premium audiophile headphones.

Features:

• Supports New Intel Core i7 processors Extreme Edition in LGA 2011-3 socket
• Supports Quad Channel DDR4-3400+(OC) Memory
• Support lntel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0
• Mystic Light: Style your favourite color from now on
• 2X Faster USB 3.1: Delivering speeds up to 10Gb/s, USB 3.1 offers performance twice as fast as a regular USB 3.0 connection.
• DoubleShot-X3 PRO: Use Killer DoubleShot-X3 Pro to combine Killer WIFI with two Killer LANs for the best online gaming experience
• Turbo U.2 SSD Solution: Take advantage from the whole new storage solution up to 2.4GB/s read speed
• Turbo M.2 : Delivering next generation M.2 Gen3 x4 performance with transfer speeds up to 32 Gb/s
• SATA Express + USB 3.1 + SATA 6Gb/s
• Multi-GPU: 4-Way NVIDIA SLI & AMD CrossFire Support
• OC Engine: Reach higher overclocking results with more flexible BCLK adjustments at 100/125/167MHz.
• Audio Boost 3 PRO: Hear the sound from the heaven with 6.3mm audio jack and ESS audio DAC
• USB Audio Power: Serve Stable 5V Power & Better Signal Transmission over USB
• XSplit Gamecaster: Show off you skills to the world with a 1 year premium license for this popular streaming software
• Guard-Pro: Improved Protection and Power Efficiency
• OC Genie 4: Overclock in 1 Second
• Gaming App: Boost your framerate
• Click BIOS 4: Easily Fine-tune Your System
• Nahimic Audio Enhancer: Enjoy sound that pushes the limits of reality.
• Gaming Device Port: Optimized with Triple Gold-plating for High Polling Rate Gaming Devices

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