The MSI X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC Motherboard Review

Conclusion

For the price of the MSI X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC, there are a number of boards in direct competition. They all have slightly differing feature sets: the MSI board has a smaller x-y footprint, but gives up four DRAM slots as a result. This differentiation should be easy to make depending on the consumer in question - do you focus on size? How much memory do you need?   

The MSI X299M Gaming Pro Carbon does have a lot of features we are used to seeing on full-sized boards, including multiple M.2 slots and eight SATA ports. The board also includes USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) support on the back panel and internal header controlled by the ASMedia ASM3142 chip. LAN duties are handled by an Intel I219-V or I211-AT, both known performers, while wireless duties are also handled by an Intel-AC 8265.  Control over the 9-phase VRM is managed by a respected IR (now Infineon) IR35201 8-channel controller to ensure accurate voltage is delivered to the processor.  

The overall build quality on the MSI X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC felt good - everything was securely in place out of the box. This had a benefit, as the VRM heatsink, though mounted well on both sides, was by far the warmest running we have seen in our testing, topping out at 95C while overclocked at 4.5 GHz. While this result is within its operating range, I would absolutely suggest active cooling, especially while overclocking. When I added a small (40mm) fan to blow across it, temperatures dropped to around 79C, much more acceptable. The heatsink just doesn't have enough mass or surface area to get rid of the heat created by an overclocked 140W processor (no prizes for guessing what a 165W processor would do when overclocked). That aside, about the only other thing I would like to see improved on this board is the M.2 shield. While it is effective at cooling M.2 devices, we are seeing more robust solutions from other partners.

Performance from this board was overall good. MSI's MCE on this board was not as aggressive as we have seen from the other full-size MSI boards tested. To that end, the X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC was in the middle to above top half of the pack in nearly every benchmark. Its worst performance came with boot times where the three MSI boards took the longest to boot around 30 seconds or slightly more, as well as a slight downturn in our 4K gaming. When we overclocked the board, we found to reach a similar temperature limited clock speed of 4.6 GHz matching the previous board but falling short of the 4.7 GHz we achieved on the X299 Gaming 7 Pro. I do not believe this to be a fault of the board, however, as in both cases it seemed to be temperature limited. 

In the end, the MSI X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC is going to have most of the features an enthusiast needs. Be it for gaming, or productivity, this diminutive board will have a user covered with modern USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) ports, the latest audio codec, multi-GPU support, and multiple M.2 ports. The only things it is really lacking is a U.2 port (which few use anyway), and a more beefy VRM heatsink to keep those power bits cooler. 

This board's direct competition outside of its own product stack is the EVGA X299 Micro. We mentioned a few differences earlier, such as the number of USB ports and the number of SATA ports. A major differences between the two are the U.2 on the EVGA, the dual M.2 ports on the MSI (compared to one), the dual networking on the MSI (compared to one) and also the differing CPU support. While the EVGA offers users the ability to run both Kaby Lake-X and Skylake-X CPUs, the MSI board focuses on Skylake-X only. To MSI's credit, this restriction has allowed them to focus more on the Skylake-X features without worrying about Kaby Lake-X at all. 

Other AnandTech Reviews for Intel’s Basin Falls CPUs and X299

• The Intel Skylake-X Review: Core i9-7980XE and Core i9-7960X Tested
• The Intel Skylake-X Review: Core i9-7900X, i7-7820X and i7-7800X Tested
• The Intel Kaby Lake-X Review: Core i7-7740X and i5-7640X Tested
• Intel Announces Basin Falls: The New High-End Desktop Platform and X299 Chipset
   
• ($480) The ASUS Prime X299-Deluxe Review [link]
• ($400) The GIGABYTE X299 Gaming 7 Pro Review [link]
• ($390) The ASRock X299E-ITX/ac Review [link] 
• ($390) The ASRock X299 Professional Gaming i9 Review [link] 
• ($370) The ASUS Strix X299-XE Gaming Review [link] 
• ($366) The MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK Review [link]
• ($308) The MSI X299 Gaming Pro Carbon Review [link] 
• ($340) The ASUS X299 TUF Mark 1 Review [link] 
• ($330) The EVGA X299 FTW-K Review [link]
• ($305) The MSI X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC (this review)
• ($290) The EVGA X299 Micro Review [link]
• ($290) The ASRock X299 Taichi Review [link]
• ($260) The MSI X299 Tomahawk Arctic Review [link]
• ($232) The MSI X299 SLI Plus Review [link]