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MSI know that if you’re going to hype a feature, it had better work under most configurations. The X99S MPower gets there by lane switching, but does it have enough added features to breach the $300 class?
Priced and valued $35 higher than MSI’s award-winning X99S Gaming 7, the X99S MPower struggles to earn the firm a second award.
Reasons to buy
+
The X99S MPower supports 3-way SLI and PCIe 3.0 M.2 simultaneously, on both 40-lane and 28-lane processors. Advanced overclocking features such as slow-mode for booting with LN2, an oversized voltage regulator, a row of barely-accessible voltage detection points, and a pair of BCLK adjustment buttons may entice overclocking exhibitionists.
Reasons to avoid
-
Few of the X99S MPower’s upgrades are likely to attract ordinary Air & Water overclocking enthusiasts.
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Love, Lust And That Other Thing
What does it take to make a $300 motherboard? Combining Intel’s premium on the X99 chipset with the added motherboard layers needed to support its 2011-pin CPU interface, we can understand why entry-level motherboards come at a decidedly non-mainstream price. But if $250 can buy us a great board, and if most of the features needed to make those platforms “high-end” are already built into the chipset, what feature is so important that enthusiasts should pay an extra $50 to get it?
Asus answered that with 802.11ac Wi-Fi. ASRock decided that wasn’t enough and added dual GbE plus the 802.11ac controller. Yet, I slammed both of those boards for dropping the third PCIe 3.0 graphics slot whenever a PCIe-based M.2 drive was installed. It’s not that PCIe M.2 and three-way SLI are super popular, but rather that both vendors went cheap on PCIe 3.0 lane switches and caused the conundrum. If you’re going to charge someone $300 for a motherboard, don't leave out a few minor components.
You could say that we love the X99’s integrated features. Or you could say that we have an issue with products that don’t implement them properly. Either way, MSI’s X99S MPower includes the low-cost components needed to overcome its competitors' biggest headaches. But what of lust? Didn’t we see a similar slot configuration on the company’s own X99S Gaming 7? Which X99S MPower features will entice us to pay a $35-higher price?
Today we’re comparing MSI’s X99S MPower to its closest rivals. But a look back at the X99S Gaming 7 review reveals that the MPower gains only a slightly larger voltage regulator, a slow-mode switch to assist extreme overclockers at boot, dual BIOS and a couple of buttons for firmware-level overclocking. None of these are particularly lust-worthy, though the aforementioned extreme overclockers might find value in the small upgrades.
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Have you guys gotten a sample of the X99S SLI Plus? I'm pretty interested in it because of its matte black scheme. Also it's a nicely priced board (for 2011-3 standards) that has guaranteed support for Xeons and ECC RAM.
Maybe a throw down between it and Asus's X99-E WS for what board takes the workstation crown?
Yes, the SLI Plus arrived late for the roundup that included the Gaming 7. Since the Gaming 7 had arrived on time, the substitute model is still sitting in the intake bin :)
PCIe 3.0 switches are not really minor components. They may not be very exciting, but they are a pain in the as to work with.
They're inexpensive (the ones that don't have logic) and available on cheap Z97 motherboards, so one would think that implementing them on an X99 board (rather than shutting things off) would be a priority.
