Overall and Final Verdict
I knew when going into the X99S MPower than it would most likely have the same black and yellow theme and the clean styling that I have really enjoyed with previous MPower boards. I wasn’t at all disappointed. In fact I was very happy with the X99S MPower in just about every aspect. Not only did it look great but performance was just as good as well in every single benchmark. Dropping the Killer NIC on this model for the Intel NIC meant great performance and you don’t have to run any special software. Speaking of software, as always I was very impressed with MSIs software, between Live Update and their Command Center software I almost never had to toy around in the BIOS. The software was easy to use and packed full of features. They did a great job packing the board full of features as well. I was really happy to see more than one USB 3.0 header for example.
Really I only had a few complains, less than I normally have. I was disappointed in the auto overclock that OC Genie gave me, but I was able to make up for it when manually overclocking. Beyond that, I could really only nitpick and point out that the yellow theme isn’t going to be for everyone.
Even more impressive than everything else is what price the board is selling for. Both the EVGA and Asus boards that I tested have an MSRP of $399.99 where the X99S MPower is listed for $269.99. It’s not MSIs top of the line motherboard, but feature wise this board is right up there with both the EVGA and the Asus. In fact, I would put it up above the EVGA for features and software and on par with the Asus X99 Deluxe.
