If you need one of many beefiest, quickest processors on the earth in the present day you’ll want to know you’ve acquired a motherboard able to not simply operating it, however making absolutely the many of the costly tech inside it. And that’s the place MSI’s lit-up X299 Gaming M7 ACK is available in.
It’s not all concerning the processor, your GPU is arguably extra necessary for gaming. So try our choose of the best graphics cards round in the present day.
Today’s CPU panorama is sort of fully fixated on core-count proper now. The large boys are placing every part they’ve acquired into squeezing as many processor cores as they’ll into their high-end silicon, with Intel pushing forward with their 18-core Core i9 7980XE. Well, they are going to do when it finally launches in September…
AMD, on the opposite facet, have gotten their Ryzen Threadripper CPUs out the door now, with the 12 and 16-core processors showing first. But with regards to straight single-threaded efficiency – nonetheless the important thing metric for gaming – Intel’s Core structure is king. So, which means, money-no-object, in order for you the most effective excessive core-count processors for gaming then it’s acquired to be certainly one of Intel’s X-series CPUs. They’re not the most effective worth, nor presently the most effective multi-threading chips, however they’ve nonetheless acquired the normal Intel gaming chops.
So, can MSI’s top-end, $397 (£362) X299 motherboard sooth Intel’s savage processing beasts?
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MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK specs
When you’ve simply spent a grand, or extra, on a excessive core-count CPU then you definitely wish to know the motherboard you’re dropping it into can cope. And MSI’s X299 Gaming M7 ACK is setting itself as much as be the proper mobo for each avid gamers and content material producers. Y’know, them YouTube-ing, 3D modelling, inventive sorts.
It’s sporting the X299 chipset designed for the newest Skylake-X X-series CPUs. That’s an entire lot of ‘X’s… it’s like Intel and Microsoft are enjoying scrabble with their newest tech naming schemes. But which means the Gaming M7 options the largest client CPU socket they’ve ever launched, the LGA 2066.
As it’s certainly one of Intel’s high-end CPU platforms, the X299 Gaming M7 options quad-channel reminiscence, with eight separate DIMM slots on the board you possibly can fill out with as much as 128GB of DDR4 reminiscence. That’s extra capability than many individuals’s SSD boot drives. The MSI board is able to supporting as much as four,133MHz within the overclocked reminiscence stakes, although sadly three,200MHz was as speedy as we’ve acquired with our present Crucial reminiscence equipment.
It’s additionally rocking 4 full PCIe three.zero sockets, all in x16 configuration to take your willy-waving, fully pointless, multi-GPU graphics card arrays. For all of your Titan Xp’s in a row…
And you need USB three.1 connections? I can get you USB three.1 connections – there are 4 customary sockets on the again panel, with a pair of Gen2 variations in each Type A and Type C configurations. There are additionally three USB 2.zero (keep in mind them?) sockets on the rear in addition to as much as 9 extra attainable USB choices up entrance by way of onboard connections.
But it’s not simply concerning the base specs anymore. MSI are additionally decided to pack as many extras into the package deal as they’ll. I imply, take a look at all them LED lights. Shiny, no? Don’t fear, you possibly can flip all of them off in the event you can’t address the continuous swirling vomit of colored gentle emitting out of your PC’s facet panel.
But there are genuinely helpful options in there too, most particularly the quantity of safety they’ve really given the board and elements themselves. Quite apart from the strong energy componentry MSI have jammed into the Gaming M7, they’ve additionally armour plated all of the PCIe sockets and the DIMM slots too. For in the present day’s hefty GPUs, particularly in a side-mounted motherboard, that degree of assist is appreciated – I’ve seen loads of machines broken in transit from monster graphics playing cards flailing away out of their PCIe housing.
MSI have additionally superior their M.2 Shield to cowl the second PCIe SSD connection and have included thermal pads to assist dissipate the warmth they’ll generate below load. The audio facet of issues has been given some consideration too, offering a pair of shielded audio processors to maintain you whether or not you’re plugging into the again of your board or by way of the entrance panel of your PC case.
They’ve additionally gone to the trouble of separating out the left and proper channels onto totally different layers of the motherboard PCB itself to make sure as clear a sign for every ear as attainable. Now that’s some aural dedication. MSI have additionally included the Nahimic sound tech that, in addition to offering digital encompass sound and bass enhance, can even present a visible tips about sound route, known as Sound Tracker. For your FPS wants it’ll point out the place the photographs are coming from, in the event you can’t make it out your self.
MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK benchmarks
MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK efficiency
The reality the MSI X299 Gaming M7 is ready to run our ten-core Intel Core i9 7900X processor at its rated most single-core frequency Turbo throughout all ten cores as customary is what makes this high-priced board stand out within the benchmarking stakes. We didn’t need to do something apart from drop the chip in – and connect a cooler, obvs. – to be able to get our Core i9 pattern operating fortunately at four.3GHz out of the field.
That’s what pushes the Gaming M7’s CPU efficiency out forward of the Asus ROG competitors we had been benching it in opposition to. But that doesn’t imply it has the gaming benchmarks all its personal means, nonetheless. Asus have, traditionally, produced the motherboards which offered the highest gaming efficiency, however not too long ago the likes of MSI and Gigabyte have been making inroads into that dominance. It seems to be like Asus are combating again with the X299 vary, as the 2 boards commerce blows on the gaming entrance regardless of the upper MSI clockspeed.
That additional clockspeed, nonetheless, does come at a value on the thermal facet. The MSI board clocked in with a peak temperature some 15°C hotter than the Asus X299, and in addition over 60W extra energy hungry too. This is among the issues with the X-series CPUs – as quickly as you begin pushing the frequency up a bit of the temperature and power draw begins to ramp up slightly shortly.
And that additionally means the 2 X299 motherboards we’ve examined in opposition to one another are solely able to the identical four.7GHz most overclock. It’s value noting that’s with fairly customary, light-touch overclocking, and an all-in-one lqiuid chip chiller, not some mad scientist LN2 setup. With each boards operating on the similar clockspeed the Asus really takes the lead, in each CPU and GPU assessments.
We additionally encountered a difficulty with our two Samsung NVMe drives within the MSI board, however not the Asus. Neither would boot by way of the Gaming M7’s two onboard M.2 sockets, or by way of a PCIe enlargement card adapter, merely blue-screening as quickly as we acquired near a Windows boot display. That’s a little bit of a priority, and I’m nonetheless not 100% offered on the soundness of the X299 platform as an entire. It’s gotten significantly better post-launch, because of a gradual stream of motherboard BIOS updates, but it surely would possibly simply be a bit of early to leap feet-first into this new CPU platform simply but.
MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK verdict
If the considered tweaking your model new, costly CPU silicon fills you with worry, trepidation, loose-bowels, and so forth. then you definitely’re perhaps going to be higher off dropping your money on a board which is able to try this form of stuff with out you having to get entangled. That the place the MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK actually makes its mark. The automated enabling of the four.3GHz single-core Turbo velocity throughout all our 7900X’s ten cores meant that we didn’t need to get our palms soiled overclocking the CPU ourselves to get to the efficiency we all know the chip can ship.
The Gaming M7 can be a critically feature-rich X299 board too, with a hefty variety of them being purely gaming-focused, from the Killer networking on the LAN and wifi connections, to the devoted VR connections.
But, whereas it’s out-of-the-box efficiency is spectacular, the cheaper Asus board continues to be able to besting it, particularly with a bit of gentle overclocking tweakery too. The query is: do you wish to pay the additional to have one thing else do the heavy lifting for you, or are you cheerful to take it into your individual palms? The MSI board has the options and the hands-off efficiency, however the Asus actually is mighty shut.
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