MSI Lights Up New Carbon-Edition Motherboards

By Derek Forrest
published

MSI revealed two new special-edition motherboards for the X99 and Z170 platforms, with each sporting carbon-fiber accented surfaces and the company’s “Mystic Light” RGB LED feature: the X99A Godlike Gaming Carbon Edition and Z170A Gaming Pro Carbon Edition.

The X99A Godlike Gaming Carbon and Z170A Gaming Pro Carbon edition motherboards have a sleek black color scheme and feature MSI’s Mystic Light RGB LEDs and Audio Boost 3 (with the X99A offering the Pro version of the onboard sound card). The lighting effects can be controlled using MSI’s Gaming app from a PC, smartphone or tablet.

The Z170A Gaming Pro Carbon also features a PCI-e graphics card support system called Steel Armor, which is designed to protect data signals against electromagnetic interference and provide additional support for heavier-than-average graphics cards. It has additional solder points on the PCB to add strength.

The X99A Godlike Gaming Carbon edition motherboard features improved Mystic Light LEDS that support up to 16.8 million colors and 16 LED effects. In addition, the X99A sports MSI’s patented Turbo Socket, which offers additional processor socket pins and is designed to provide better overclocking of Intel Extreme edition processors.

Full specs, pricing and the release dates of the new Carbon edition motherboards are not currently available.

Derek Forrest is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware and Tom’s IT Pro. Follow Derek Forrest on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

Derek Forrest
Derek Forrest
Derek Forrest is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He writes hardware news and reviews gaming desktops and laptops.
6 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Mac266
    Woah woah woah. Turbo socket? Extra pins? Didn't ASUS already patent (or something) that for their X99 boards?
    Reply
  • KaiserPhantasma
    Woah woah woah. Turbo socket? Extra pins? Didn't ASUS already patent (or something) that for their X99 boards?

    not sure if ASUS "patented" it but yeah they have done that extra socket thing for "extra overclocking capabilities no other board offers"
    Reply
  • biggestinsect
    Does this mean in a couple years I will have to build a pyramid, mummify it and entomb it with a bunch of cats?
    Reply
  • turkey3_scratch
    Definitely for the highly anticipated Broadwell-E CPUs! Forget Skylake, Haswell, Kabylake. Broadwell-E and Haswell-E are where it's at!
    Reply
  • koffeeshop77
    i would still stick with the asus, those attenas and extra stuff it comes with is ^^talking boult MSI are the worst, at least you get worth while and fuctional extas with a ASUS mobo although i do agree the x99 is faster those extra pins wont help it at all, had an msi sli s x99 board overclocker mediocre then brock sent back replaced with a cheaper asus x99 and c3.1 board and it still runs and runs faster north of 5 gz with h100. ill never buy an msi again i can put my own LED's in the case if i have to. i have not once had a good long lasting experience with them + i really dont belieave ca "patent pins" who's got count them and what would intel say?
    Reply
  • Tommy_Gun
    Will be including this mobo in my next build!
    Reply