MSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC Preview

MSI Features

Onboard audio has reached such heights that the need to fit a soundcard into your system budget as a matter of course have long since passed. MSIs Audio Boost collection of caps, breakout circuitry and high quality amplifiers have always been a trademark of theirs and the Audio Boost 4 that you’ll find on the X299 Carbon is just another step on towards aural bliss.

  
  

Most of us run AIO cooling for our CPUs these days and having a dedicated water pump header helps alleviate those sphincter tightening moments when you’re booting and can’t remember if you disabled PWM on the header you’ve plugged your pump into.

  

It doesn’t feel that long ago that the only way you could express your individuality was in the colour of the plastics that your chosen motherboard came with. Now RGB bestrides the marketplace like a Colossus and it is something that MSI have invested heavily in, with lighting pretty much everywhere on the Carbon as well as support for RGB strips so beloved of the indecisive. Couple this to the changeable heatsink covers we saw earlier and you can truly make the X299 Carbon your own.

  

  
MSI have always been great overclocking motherboards, largely thanks to the invention of OC Genie which revolutionised overclocking for those of you who were cautious about entering into your BIOS. The X299 Carbon continues this trend by supplying pretty much everything you can think you’d need when it comes to extracting the maximum ‘free’ performance from your setup. Umpteen power phases, external clock generator, real time overclocking to help get past the OC loading hump, multiple monitoring points and even all the elements necessary to overclock at sub-zero cooling levels, the Carbon promises to be all things to all people.