MSI X99S XPOWER AC Review

Up Close

In a world where eye-catching design is becoming ever more important, the X99S XPOWER AC definitely stands out from the crowd thanks the combination of that enormous X on the front, and the yellow colour scheme. 

      

The box is absolutely stuffed with accessories with everything you expect, some things you might hope for and, as we’ll see below, something you’d not imagine in your wildest dreams. The WiFi antennas – the AC in the model name stands for the AC WiFi standard – have a decent amount of cable and stand up easily, not an accusation you can make of many aerials.

      

Cooling under extreme circumstances is always the primary issue when heading for headline grabbing overclocks, so it’s amazing to see MSI including a fan stand as part of the MPOWER accessories. It leaves you in no doubt about the target audience MSI are aiming at. 

       

As one might expect from a board so heavily focussed upon overclocking the CPU area of the X99S XPOWER is very clean. We’d perhaps like to see more dedication to the yellow colour scheme on the heatsinks. As it is it reminds us of warning tape, rather than something bright and cheery. Black is fine but have the courage of your convictions.

       

With the multitude of PCI lanes available from the various CPUs and the differences in PCI Express slot speeds it’s really handy to have such a quick reference on the PCB. Something more manufacturers should adopt. 

At the other end of the spectrum it’s incredible how much MSI have managed to fit on the cramped space of the XPOWER. The quad-DIMM slots take up so much real estate it’s a testament to their design team that the OC controls are so well laid out.