Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/12374/the-msi-x299-gaming-m7-ack-motherboard-review-light-up-the-night



What happens when a vendor adds 802.11ac to Killer networking? You get an ACK - specifically, the MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK. This motherboard includes 3-way SLI and Crossfire support, dual M.2 slots with a unique heatsink design attached to the chipset, both front and rear USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) ports, dual Realtek audio chips, Killer based networking, and plenty of RGB LEDs to light up the case. 

MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK Overview

With the X299 platform, users tend to drop into one of two categories: the all or the nothing. A user investing in X299 is either trying to get everything, every feature, with multiple graphics cards and displays and lots of memory, or they are trying to get the high-end on the cheap. I remember the days when investing in X58 to get a Core i7-920 and overclocking it was seen as the height of aiming at performance, compared to investing in a Core i7-800 series platform. Back then, X58 was a stepping stone into HEDT. But here, the MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK, or M7 ACK for short, is clearly aimed at users who want it all: more cores, more memory, more graphics cards, more storage, more network connectivity, and most importantly, more LEDs. If you wanted to light up the night, this is one motherboard that can certainly do that for you.

Buy MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK on Amazon.com

Aside from features and LEDs, there is one consistent metric in all motherboard reviews. Our performance results placed the M7 ACK right in the middle of the pack, performing well overall. The form of Multi-Core Enhancement it has runs the benchmarks in the 3.6 GHz range, as do the majority of other motherboards tested. The main system performance win was the fact that it was the fastest MSI board to boot that we have tested so far. But users investing in this system should look into the overclocking.

Manually overclocking our Core i9-7900X was met with little fanfare, as this board happily took our i9-7900X CPU to 4.6 GHz before running into our temperature limit. Using the automated OC tool, Game Boost, was a different story. We were only able to reach the 2nd boost level before the CPU was throttling due to the voltage causing temperatures to be too high for the settings. Through it all, the smaller heatsink covering the VRMs did a good job keeping temperatures to an acceptable level during our extended stress testing peaking at 75C while overclocked to 4.5 GHz.

The M7 ACK allows users to have all the options for storage connectivity. There are eight SATA ports along with two M.2 slots. These slots are both covered by the unique hinged heatsink attached to the chipset heatsink. Both M.2 slots support PCIe and SATA modules, and share bandwidth with the U.2 port and SATA ports. 

The board comes with four full-length PCIe slots in positions 1, 3, 4, and 6. Those slots are all connected through the CPU and intended for video cards. PCIe slots 2 and 5, both PCIe 3.0 x1, are connected through the chipset. For connectivity, there is a total of four USB 3.0 ports (three managed by ASMedia 1074, one by the chipset), three USB 2.0 ports (chipset), and two USB 3.1 ports (Type-A and Type-C, ASMedia 3142) on the back panel. Internally there are additional headers for both USB 3.0/USB3.1 as well as two USB 2.0 headers. 

For networking, MSI chose to go with an all Killer-solution here. The board uses Rivet Networks latest Killer E2500 NIC for wired duty and the  Killer Wireless-AC 1535 module for wireless, which comes pre-installed in the M2 (Key E) slot. The 802.11ac module supports Bluetooth 4.1 and speeds up to 867 Mbps. The networking is built into the name of the motherboard - Killer networking and 802.11ac gives 'AC' and 'K', for ACK.

Pricing for the MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK is $390 at Newegg and $365 (from $420) at Amazon. This price point puts it in some decent company in the the $350-$400 range including the ASRock Fatal1ty X299 Professional Gaming i9 currently listed at $390 (from $399), the ASUS ROG Strix X299-XE Gaming at $370, and the GIGABYTE X299 AORUS Ultra Gaming Pro priced at $350. If U.2 is needed, the MSI board is the hands down choice, otherwise, users will need to filter through faetures they need and want as well as consider looks and price. 

MSI X299 Strategy

MSI brings a current total of eleven X299 boards to choose from: the MSI X299 XPower Gaming AC holds the flagship title and makes its home in the Enthusiast Gaming segment along with the X299 Gaming M7 ACK. There are a total of three boards in the Performance Gaming hierarchy in the X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC, Gaming Pro Carbon, and X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC (mATX). The Arsenal line carries the three Tomahawk boards, the X299 Tomahawk, the X299 Tomahawk Arctic and the X299 Tomahawk AC, while the Pro lineup for professionals has three motherboards; X299 SLI Plus, X299 Raider, and X299M-A Pro.

MSI's X299 Motherboard Lineup (1/29)
  AnandTech
Review
Amazon Newegg
X299 XPower Gaming AC [review planned] $450 $450
X299 Gaming M7 ACK [this review] $366 $380
X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC Review 9/21 $273^ $330
X299 Gaming Pro Carbon   $320 $320
X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC [in editing] $277 $290
X299 Tomahawk AC   $273 $290
X299 Tomahawk Arctic Review 11/20 $280 $280
X299 Tomahawk   $256 $270
X299 SLI PLUS Review 11/29 $232 $220
X299 Raider   $215 $220
X299M-A Pro   - $237^

^ Third Party Sellers

Information on Intel's X299 and our other Reviews

With Intel's release of the Basin Falls platform, encompassing the new X299 chipset and LGA2066 socket, a new generation of CPUs called Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X were also released. The Skylake-X CPUs range from the 7800X, a hex-core part, all the way up to an 18-core 7980XE multitasking behemoth. Between the bookend CPUs are five others increasing in core count, as in the table below. The latter HCC models are set to be launched over 2H of 2017.

Skylake-X Processors
  7800X 7820X 7900X   7920X 7940X 7960X 7980XE
Silicon LCC   HCC
Cores / Threads 6/12 8/16 10/20   12/24 14/28 16/32 18/36
Base Clock / GHz 3.5 3.6 3.3   2.9 3.1 2.8 2.6
Turbo Clock / GHz 4.0 4.3 4.3   4.3 4.3 4.3 4.2
Turbo Max Clock N/A 4.5 4.5   4.4 4.4 4.4 4.4
L3 1.375 MB/core   1.375 MB/core
PCIe Lanes 28 44   44
Memory Channels 4   4
Memory Freq DDR4 2400 2666   2666
TDP 140W   140W 165W
Price $389 $599 $999   $1199 $1399 $1699 $1999

Board partners have launched dozens of motherboards on this platform already, several of which we will have an opportunity to look over in the coming weeks and months. 

Other AnandTech X299 Motherboard Reviews:

To read specifically about the X299 chip/platform and the specifications therein, our deep dive into what it is can be found at this link.

X299 Motherboard Review Notice

If you’ve been following the minutiae of the saga of X299 motherboards, you might have heard some issues regarding power delivery, overclocking, and the ability to cool these processors down given the power consumption. In a nutshell, it comes down to this:

  • Skylake-X consumes a lot of power at peak (150W+),
  • The thermal interface inside the CPU doesn’t do much requiring a powerful CPU cooler,
  • Some motherboard vendors apply Multi-Core Turbo which raises the power consumption and voltage, exacerbating the issue
  • The VRMs have to deal with more power, and due to losses, raise in temperature
  • Some motherboards do not have sufficient VRM cooling without an active cooler
  • This causes the CPU to declock or hit thermal power states as to not degrade components
  • This causes a performance drop, and overclocked systems are affected even more than usual

There has been some excellent work done by Igor Wallossek over at Tom’s Hardware, with thermal probes, thermal cameras, and performance analysis. The bottom line is that motherboard vendors need to be careful when it comes to default settings (if MCT is enabled by default) and provide sufficient VRM cooling in all scenarios – either larger and heavier heatsinks or moving back to active cooling. 



MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK Visual Inspection

Our first real glimpse of the board on the previous page shows the Gaming M7 ACK isn't a run of the mill budget board. For its price point, it certainly shouldn't be. The PCB is matte black with only a few distinguishing colors, with all heatsinks and shrouds a grey color. The back panel IO shroud extends down through the PCIe area and covers the audio bits in the process. The color is left to the RGBs: the back panel IO portion has RGB LEDs, along with five more between the PCIe slots on the bottom portion of the shroud. The power delivery heatsink sitting above the socket also includes integrated RGB LEDs.

What is easily noticable when looking at the board is the chipset heatsink, which is quite unique with its shape. The heatsink, along with cooling the chipset, doubles as an M.2 module cooler, with arms spreading out between the PCIe slots. While having M.2 cooling isn't unique by itself, the cooling is hinged with the chipset heatsink, allowing the cooler to pop up rather than be removed entirely. I have to say this is one of the more clean implementations of a robust M.2 cooler.

 

Diving into the specifics of the board, the MSI Gaming M7 ACK includes a total of six fan headers. On the top is where the CPU Fan 1, Pump Fan 1, and SYS Fan 1 reside, with the latter two located in the upper right-hand corner by the debug LED, and the CPU Fan on the left above the DRAM slots and to the left of the EPS power connectors. The remaining three headers, called SYS Fan 2/3/4, are located at the bottom of the board. All six headers have the ability to control the attached fans via PWM or DC. The CPU and Pump fans have an LED to indicate the fan control mode visually with red being PWM and green DC. MSI documentation does not mention if any of the headers are high amperage.

For the power delivery, MSI touts a 12-phase power delivery with 10-phases (a doubled 5-phase design) going to the CPU, and another phase for the VCCSA. Driving these are International Rectifier's IR3550 fully integrated power stages with an IR35201 multi-phase buck controller. The doubling duties are handled by five IR3599 doublers. The memory power delivery uses a Primarion PV4210 PWM with each memory phase using two 25A/40A NexFETs, in the CSD87350Q. Sending power to the VRMs is an 8-pin EPS and an (optional) 4-pin EPS connector. These premium power bits are the same that we found on the X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC. 

The board comes with eight slots for memory, which are all reinforced by MSI's Steel Armor. Keeping the memory locked in place is a single latch on the top of the DRAM slot. Compared to dual latch systems, the single latch is a bit easier when the system is installed, and still locks the sticks down securely, but might require a double check on the bottom latch to make sure the memory is in place. The board supports both Dual and Quad channel DDR4 with capacity up to 128GB. Memory speed for quad-channel processors is up to DDR4-4266, and DDR4-4500 with dual-channel processors. 

The top-down image of the right side of the board shows, in the bottom corner, two of the eight SATA ports oriented vertically from the board. This follows with a U.2 connector, the six SATA ports, a front panel USB 3.1 header, and a pair of USB 3.0 headers. 

To the right of the 24-pin ATX connector are EZ debug LEDs (4), for Boot, DRAM, VGA, and CPU, which give a visual display of where the board is at in POST. Located directly to the left of those are a miniature set of voltage read points covering Vcore, VCCIO, VCCSA, DDR, CPU (input voltage), and Ring voltage. These are quite helpful when extreme overclocking, rather than relying on software readouts.

Across the bottom of the motherboard, there are several IO headers and a couple of buttons. From left to right we see:

  • Front Panel Audio
  • RGB LED header
  • Sys Fan 2/3/4 headers
  • Front Panel connectors
  • 2 x USB 2.0 headers
  • VROC header
  • Power Button
  • Reset Button
  • Game Boost knob, that goes up to 11
  • 2 x SATA ports

Hidden under the shroud on the left, connecting to the front panel audio, are two Realtek ALC1220 audio chips. Two is not a typo. MSI has one set up for front panel audio, and the other for audio output on the rear. It also uses Chemicon Gold Series audio capacitors for the front and rear outputs as well as separated audio layers for the left and right channels. 

The bottom half of the board has a total of six PCIe slots with all four full-length slots reinforced. Between the full length slots are two x4 slots connected via the chipset. The primary video card slots are all CPU connected (lane breakdowns in the table below). The primary video card slot slots are, from top to bottom, slots one and four. This configuration allows for double and triple wide cards to fit. Any three-way SLI/Crossfire action will utilize slot 6 (bottom slot). 

Below is a simplified list of  how the PCIe slots will work with each family of CPUs (talking PCIe lanes) when multiple cards are used (the "@" symbol is used to show slot preference for the configuration):

MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK CPU PCIe Layout
  44-Lane
1/2-Way
44-Lane
3-Way
28-Lane
1/2-Way
28-Lane
3-Way
16-Lane
1-Way
16-Lane
2-Way
PCIe 1 @x16 @x16 @x16 @x8 @x8 @x8
PCIe 3 x4 x4 x4 x4 x4 -
PCIe 4 @x16 @x16 @x8 @x8 x4 @x8
PCIe 6 x8 @x8 - @x8 - -
 
SLI Yes Yes Yes Yes - Yes
Crossfire Yes Yes Yes Yes - Yes

So what might seem odd here is that the PCIe 3 slot is listed as PCIe 3.0 x4 from the CPU in all configurations, despite being a full sized slot. This is due to the breakdown with the PCIe lanes for the U.2/M.2 slots.

The back panel IO has the following connectors:

  • 1 x Clear CMOS
  • 1 x BIOS Flashback+ button
  • 1 x PS/2 Keyboard/mouse combo port
  • 3 x USB 2.0 ports
  • 2 x Wi-Fi Antenna connectors
  • 4 x USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) ports
  • 1 x LAN (RJ45) ports
  • 1 x USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) Type-A port
  • 1 x USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) Type-C port
  • 1 x Optical S/PDIF OUT connector
  • 5 x OFC audio jacks

In the Box

The MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK includes the following accessories:

  • Driver & Utilities Disk
  • Motherboard User Guide
  • 4 x SATA cables
  • IO Shield
  • SLI HB Bridge M
  • 1 x 1 to 2 RGB LED Extension Y Cable (80cm)
  • Quick Installation Guide, SATA Labels, Manual
  • 3D X-Mounting Screw pillars
  • Case badge
  • 2 x Antenna



BIOS

The Gaming M7 ACK's BIOS should look familiar to many who have used any MSI boards recently. The Click Bios 5 is set up exactly as we have seen the others, with an EZ Mode being the landing page. Since the M7 ACK is part of the Enthusiast gaming segment, the BIOS receives the red and black theme treatment we are familiar with. 

The EZ Mode portion of the BIOS is designed to be informative as well as allowing editing of a few options. Across the top we see the Game Boost button for one-touch (or twist of the onboard button) overclocking. Each setting will implement a pre-defined overclocking profile. For our CPU, the highest setting, 11, and could send the i9-7900X to 5 GHz on a single core. Next to the Game Boost button is another button to enable XMP profiles. To the right of it is an informative dashboard showing the CPU, motherboard, memory size, Vcore, BIOS version, and boot order (can change this here by dragging the icons around). 

The advanced version of the BIOS 'unlocks' the rest of the features. In typical Click BIOS 5 fashion, we see the informational dashboard still up at the top, with the bottom replaced by several sections:

  • Settings - housing many board and system level functions,
  • OC - for overclocking,
  • M-Flash - to flash the bios,
  • OC Profile - save or load BIOS settings,
  • Hardware Monitor - for system monitoring and fan control,
  • Board Explorer - displaying what is connected to the board. 

The settings section includes sub-headings for System Status, Advanced, Boot, Security, and Save and Exit. The Advanced section contains options for PCI Subsystem settings, Intel VROC configurations, USB configuration, Integrated Peripherals section, as well as power management and Windows OS configuration options. In a nutshell, anything you need to edit from OS selection to enabling/disabling onboard functionality should be found here. 

 

The OC section is where users will find all options for overclocking. This section has two available modes: Normal, for the base options, and Expert which expands the available options. Most overclockers can be satisfied with the normal setting, but for more granular control, Expert needs to be selected. Within this section are other subsections such as CPU feature/function control, DRAM control, and voltage options.

 

The OC Profile section is where users are able to save profiles, either to the BIOS or a USB, as well as load profiles.

The Hardware Monitor section gives users a graphical display of the system status, from the temperatures and voltages of the CPU, to motherboard temperatures, MOSFETs info, chipset info, and M.2/PCIe temperatures. This section also displays information on the fan curves and allows users to create their own custom curve for each header. The board offers hybrid control (PWM or DC) on each of its headers. 

The Board Explorer section displays what it attached to the connectors that are on the board. As shown below, the populated DRAM slots, fan headers and PCIe slots are shown. For the Rear IO or SATA ports, these are sub-menus to drill down into what is installed. It can also display temperatures as noted by the thermometer icon located in several locations (VRM, CPU, above the PCI slot, chipset, etc). 

Software

MSI includes a driver and software disk with the package. For software, it gives Live Update 6, Mystic Light, Command Center, and more. I installed the basic drivers checked off below without issue, as well as some of the utilities, avoiding free bundled anti-virus.

The Live Update 6 software scans the PC for installed versions of MSI applications and will go out and check for the latest versions at the MSI website. In our case, it did not find anything which needed to be updated from the driver disk. 

MSI has an App Manager application that it is a central location/repository for the major MSI software. When installed, the icons change to use color instead of a greyscale. All the applications I had installed launched without issue from here. I am personally not a big fan of these as its just more applications to clog up the taskbar, but, many find its consolidation of applications useful. 

MSI's Command Center Application is a Windows-based utility to control and monitor the system. It has the ability to overclock the CPU and change voltages, has the ability to control fans, and has a Game Boost section for implementing one-touch preset overclocking. Accessing the advanced section gives users more options for voltage, DRAM timings, and fan control as well as displaying a 'board explorer' type map monitoring temperatures and fan RPMs. CC is one of the more complete Windows-based applications for this type of functionality. 

The Killer Control Center application allows monitoring and manipulating both the wired and wireless networking options on the board. The application has the ability to monitor traffic as well as offer six levels of prioritization for all applications with network traffic. It includes an optional whitelist which prioritizes a set of known applications in different ways, giving priority to latency software first (games, VOIP) and placing downloads as the lowest priority. All unknown connections get given priority 4, which is the same priority as regular web traffic. Users can also decide if certain applications go over wired or wireless, depending on the networks chosen. The KCC also has a Wi-Fi analyzer to view all the Wi-Fi signals it can reach which is helpful for selecting the least busy channels for best throughput. 

MSI's Mystic Light application controls all of the RGB LEDs on the MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK. The application offers control over the LEDs to be synced with 15 different effects, or individually lit up. The application is also able to control any RGB LEDs attached to the board's multiple RGB headers. My only complaint about this software is how it scales with screen size, as it can fill up a 4K UHD monitor pretty easily. I wouldn't imagine a simple RGB controlling application needs to do this. 

The MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK uses dual Realtek ALC1220 codecs, and uses a custom skin on the Realtek based software which matches their Gaming lineup theme of black and red. The software functionality is no different in offering preset sound stages a graphics equalizer, as well as a visual representation of what is plugged into the back and front panels as well as SPDIF.

With the ALC1220 codec, MSI adds another piece of software for audio manipulation called Nahimic. The Nahimic software feels most like an extension to the Realtek software, allowing users to change multiple facets of their sound profile include bass and treble, virtual surround, loudness, and others. These sound profiles are able to be applied by different types of activities such as listening to music, watching a movie, phone calls, or gaming. It is also able to adjust inputs from the microphone and recording as well as including a sound tracker software for gaming which uses an OSD to show where the sound heard in game is coming from. 



Board Features

The MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK is a high-end board from MSI sitting right up there with the flagship X299 XPower Gaming AC. The high-end board updates MSI's M.2 heatsinks with a more formidable cooling solution, dubbed M.2 Shield Frozr, which is attached to the chipset heatsink via a hinge. This is a unique implementation for such a board.

The board includes a bunch of RGB LEDs in multiple zones for lighting. It also uses dual Realtek ALC1220 codecs, one for the front panel and one for the rear, with Audio Boost 4 Pro parts. Networking comes from the Killer E2500 NIC for wired, and the Killer AC1535 for Wi-Fi. On the storage front there are eight SATA ports, two M.2 slots, as well as a U.2 port while on the USB side of things, support for both back panel USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) and front panel is included. Driving the CPU is a 10-phase VRM with robust Infineon(IR) power bits. Overall, quite a feature-laden board. 

MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK
Warranty Period 3 Years
Product Page Link
Price $366 (Amazon)
Size ATX
CPU Interface LGA2066
Chipset Intel X299
Memory Slots (DDR4) Eight DDR4
Quad Channel
Supporting 128GB
Up to DDR4-4266
Network Connectivity 1 x Killer E2500 LAN
1 x Killer AC1535 802.11ac
Onboard Audio Dual Realtek ALC1220
PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU)  4 x PCIe 3.0
- 44 Lane CPU: x16/x4/x16/x8 
- 28 Lane CPU: x16/x4/x8/x0 or x8/x4/x8/x8
- 16 Lane CPU: x8/x0/x8/x0 or x8/x4/x4/x0
PCIe Slots for Other 2 x PCIe 3.0 x1
Onboard SATA 8 x RAID 0/1/5/10
Onboard SATA Express None
Onboard M.2 2 x PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA modes
Onboard U.2 1 x PCIe 3.0 x4
USB 3.1 ASMedia ASM3142 
1 x Type-A Port (back panel)
1 x Type-C Port (back panel)
1 x Internal Header
USB 3.0 ASMedia ASM1074
3 x Type-A (back panel)

Chipset
1 x Type-A (back panel)
2 x Internal Headers
USB 2.0 Chipset
3 x Type-A (back Panel)
2 x Internal Headers
Power Connectors 1 x 24-pin ATX
1 x 8-pin CPU
1 x 4-pin CPU (optional)
Fan Headers 1 x 4-pin CPU
1 x 4-pin Water Pump
4 x 4-pin System Fans
IO Panel 1 x Clear CMOS
1 x BIOS Flashback+ button
1 x PS/2 Keyboard/mouse combo port
3 x USB 2.0 ports
2 x Wi-Fi Antenna connectors
4 x USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) ports
1 x LAN (RJ45) ports
1 x USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) Type-A port
1 x USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) Type-C port
1 x Optical S/PDIF OUT connector
5 x OFC audio jacks

Test Bed

As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard that was released during the socket’s initial launch and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC sub timings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend our testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.

Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives, in essence, an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency/monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.

Test Setup
Processor Intel i9 7900X (10C/20T, 3.3G, 140W)
Motherboard MSI X299M Gaming M7 ACK (BIOS v1.60)
Cooling Corsair H115i
Power Supply Corsair HX750
Memory Corsair Vengeance LPX 4x8GB DDR4 2666 CL16
Corsair Vengeance 4x4GB DDR4 3200 CL16
Memory Settings DDR4 2666 CL16-18-18-35 2T
Video Cards ASUS Strix GTX 980
Hard Drive Crucial MX300 1TB
Optical Drive TSST TS-H653G
Case Open Test Bed
Operating System Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

Many thanks to...

We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our multiple test beds. Some of this hardware is not in this testbed specifically but is used in other testing.

Thank you to ASUS for providing us with GTX 980 Strix GPUs. At the time of release, the STRIX brand from ASUS was aimed at silent running, or to use the marketing term: '0dB Silent Gaming'. This enables the card to disable the fans when the GPU is dealing with low loads well within temperature specifications. These cards equip the GTX 980 silicon with ASUS' Direct CU II cooler and 10-phase digital VRMs, aimed at high-efficiency conversion. Along with the card, ASUS bundles GPU Tweak software for overclocking and streaming assistance.

The GTX 980 uses NVIDIA's GM204 silicon die, built upon their Maxwell architecture. This die is 5.2 billion transistors for a die size of 298 mm2, built on TMSC's 28nm process. A GTX 980 uses the full GM204 core, with 2048 CUDA Cores and 64 ROPs with a 256-bit memory bus to GDDR5. The official power rating for the GTX 980 is 165W.

The ASUS GTX 980 Strix 4GB (or the full name of STRIX-GTX980-DC2OC-4GD5) runs a reasonable overclock over a reference GTX 980 card, with frequencies in the range of 1178-1279 MHz. The memory runs at stock, in this case, 7010 MHz. Video outputs include three DisplayPort connectors, one HDMI 2.0 connector, and a DVI-I.

Further Reading: AnandTech's NVIDIA GTX 980 Review

 

Thank you to Crucial for providing us with MX300 SSDs. Crucial stepped up to the plate as our benchmark list grows larger with newer benchmarks and titles, and the 1TB MX300 units are strong performers. Based on Marvell's 88SS1074 controller and using Micron's 384Gbit 32-layer 3D TLC NAND, these are 7mm high, 2.5-inch drives rated for 92K random read IOPS and 530/510 MB/s sequential read and write speeds.

The 1TB models we are using here support TCG Opal 2.0 and IEEE-1667 (eDrive) encryption and have a 360TB rated endurance with a three-year warranty.

Further Reading: AnandTech's Crucial MX300 (750 GB) Review

 

Thank you to Corsair for providing us with Vengeance LPX DDR4 Memory, HX750 Power Supply, and H115i CPU Cooler

Corsair kindly sent a 4x8GB DDR4 2666 set of their Vengeance LPX low profile, high-performance memory for our stock testing. The heatsink is made of pure aluminum to help remove heat from the sticks and has an eight-layer PCB. The heatsink is a low profile design to help fit in spaces where there may not be room for a tall heat spreader; think a SFF case or using a large heatsink. Timings on this specific set come in at 16-18-18-35. The Vengeance LPX line supports XMP 2.0 profiles for easily setting the speed and timings. It also comes with a limited lifetime warranty. 

Powering the test system is Corsair's HX750 Power Supply. This HX750 is a dual mode unit able to switch from a single 12V rail (62.5A/750W) to a five rail CPU (40A max ea.) and is also fully modular. It has a typical selection of connectors, including dual EPS 4+4 pin four PCIe connectors and a whopping 16 SATA power leads, as well as four 4-pin Molex connectors.

The 135mm fluid dynamic bearing fan remains off until it is 40% loaded offering complete silence in light workloads. The HX750 comes with a ten-year warranty. 

In order to cool these high-TDP HEDT CPUs, Corsair sent over its latest and largest AIO in the H115i. This closed-loop system uses a 280mm radiator with 2x140mm SP140L PWM controlled fans. The pump/block combination mounts to all modern CPU sockets. Users are also able to integrate this cooler into the Corsair link software via USB for more control and options. 



Benchmark Overview

For our testing, depending on the product, we attempt to tailor the presentation of our global benchmark suite down into what users who would buy this hardware might actually want to run. For CPUs, our full test suite is typically used to gather data and all the results are placed into Bench, our benchmark database for users that want to look at non-typical benchmarks or legacy data. For motherboards, we run our short form CPU tests, the gaming tests with half the GPUs of our processor suite, and our system benchmark tests which focus on non-typical and non-obvious performance metrics that are the focal point for specific groups of users.

The benchmarks fall into several areas:

Short Form CPU

Our short form testing script uses a straight run through of a mixture of known apps or workloads and requires about four hours. These are typically the CPU tests we run in our motherboard suite, to identify any performance anomalies.

CPU Short Form Benchmarks
Three Dimensional Particle Movement v2.1 (3DPM) 3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, derived from my academic research years looking at particle movement parallelism. The coding for this tool was rough, but emulates the real world in being non-CompSci trained code for a scientific endeavor. The code is unoptimized, but the test uses OpenMP to move particles around a field using one of six 3D movement algorithms in turn, each of which is found in the academic literature. 
The second version of this benchmark is similar to the first, however it has been re-written in VS2012 with one major difference: the code has been written to address the issue of false sharing. If data required by multiple threads, say four, is in the same cache line, the software cannot read the cache line once and split the data to each thread - instead it will read four times in a serial fashion. The new software splits the data to new cache lines so reads can be parallelized and stalls minimized.
WinRAR 5.4 WinRAR is a compression based software to reduce file size at the expense of CPU cycles. We use the version that has been a stable part of our benchmark database through 2015, and run the default settings on a 1.52GB directory containing over 2800 files representing a small website with around thirty half-minute videos. We take the average of several runs in this instance.
POV-Ray 3.7.1 b4 POV-Ray is a common ray-tracing tool used to generate realistic looking scenes. We've used POV-Ray in its various guises over the years as a good benchmark for performance, as well as a tool on the march to ray-tracing limited immersive environments. We use the built-in multi threaded benchmark.
HandBrake v1.0.2 HandBrake is a freeware video conversion tool. We use the tool in to process two different videos into x264 in an MP4 container - first a 'low quality' two-hour video at 640x388 resolution to x264, then a 'high quality' ten-minute video at 4320x3840, and finally the second video again but into HEVC. The low-quality video scales at lower performance hardware, whereas the buffers required for high-quality tests can stretch even the biggest processors. At current, this is a CPU only test.
7-Zip 9.2 7-Zip is a freeware compression/decompression tool that is widely deployed across the world. We run the included benchmark tool using a 50MB library and take the average of a set of fixed-time results.
DigiCortex v1.20 The newest benchmark in our suite is DigiCortex, a simulation of biologically plausible neural network circuits, and simulates activity of neurons and synapses. DigiCortex relies heavily on a mix of DRAM speed and computational throughput, indicating that systems which apply memory profiles properly should benefit and those that play fast and loose with overclocking settings might get some extra speed up.

 

System Benchmarks

Our system benchmarks are designed to probe motherboard controller performance, particularly any additional USB controllers or the audio controller. As general platform tests we have DPC Latency measurements and system boot time, which can be difficult to optimize for on the board design and manufacturing level.

System Benchmarks
Power Consumption One of the primary differences between different motherboads is power consumption. Aside from the base defaults that every motherboard needs, things like power delivery, controller choice, routing and firmware can all contribute to how much power a system can draw. This increases for features such as PLX chips and multi-gigabit ethernet.
Non-UEFI POST Time The POST sequence of the motherboard becomes before loading the OS, and involves pre-testing of onboard controllers, the CPU, the DRAM and everything else to ensure base stability. The number of controllers, as well as firmware optimizations, affect the POST time a lot. We test the BIOS defaults as well as attempt a stripped POST.
Rightmark Audio Analyzer 6.2.5 Testing onboard audio is difficult, especially with the numerous amount of post-processing packages now being bundled with hardware. Nonetheless, manufacturers put time and effort into offering a 'cleaner' sound that is loud and of a high quality. RMAA, with version 6.2.5 (newer versions have issues), under the right settings can be used to test the signal-to-noise ratio, signal crossover, and harmonic distortion with noise.
USB Backup USB ports can come from a variety of sources: chipsets, controllers or hubs. More often than not, the design of the traces can lead to direct impacts on USB performance as well as firmware level choices relating to signal integrity on the motherboard.
DPC Latency Another element is deferred procedure call latency, or the ability to handle interrupt servicing. Depending on the motherboard firmware and controller selection, some motherboards handle these interrupts quicker than others. A poor result could lead to delays in performance, or for example with audio, a delayed request can manifest in distinct audible pauses, pops or clicks.

Gaming

Our gaming benchmarks are designed to show any differences in performance when playing games. 



System Performance

Not all motherboards are created equal. On the face of it, they should all perform the same and differ only in the functionality they provide - however, this is not the case. The obvious pointers are power consumption, but also the ability for the manufacturer to optimize USB speed, audio quality (based on audio codec), POST time and latency. This can come down to manufacturing process and prowess, so these are tested.

* Results with a * were performed with our second Core i9-7900X processor.

Power Consumption

Power consumption was tested on the system while in a single GPU configuration with a wall meter connected to the Corsair HX 750 power supply. This power supply is Platinum rated. As I am in the US on a 120 V supply, leads to ~87% efficiency > 75W, and 92%+ efficiency at 375W, suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.

While this method for power measurement may not be ideal, and you feel these numbers are not representative due to the high wattage power supply being used (we use the same PSU to remain consistent over a series of reviews, and the fact that some boards on our test bed get tested with three or four high powered GPUs), the important point to take away is the relationship between the numbers. These boards are all under the same conditions, and thus the differences between them should be easy to spot.

Power: Long Idle (w/ GTX 980)

Power: OS Idle (w/ GTX 980)

Power: Prime95 Blend (w/ GTX 980)

Our power consumption results for the MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK land right in the middle of the pack with idle results of 69W for long idle and 73W for OS idle. The load wattage reading was 208W from the wall also placing it in the middle of the group. 

Non-UEFI POST Time

Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we look at the POST Boot Time using a stopwatch. This is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows 10 starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features.

Non UEFI POST Time

POST times on this board were just below 30 seconds placing it just on lower half of results. That said, this is the quickest MSI motherboard to boot of all we have tested by nearly a second. 

Rightmark Audio Analyzer 6.2.5

Rightmark:AA indicates how well the sound system is built and isolated from electrical interference (either internally or externally). For this test we connect the Line Out to the Line In using a short six inch 3.5mm to 3.5mm high-quality jack, turn the OS speaker volume to 100%, and run the Rightmark default test suite at 192 kHz, 24-bit. The OS is tuned to 192 kHz/24-bit input and output, and the Line-In volume is adjusted until we have the best RMAA value in the mini-pretest. We look specifically at the Dynamic Range of the audio codec used on board, as well as the Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise.

Due to circumstances currently out of our control, we were unable to get RMAA results for this board. The problem does not lie with the board itself. Once we are able to get it working properly, the space will be updated with data. 

DPC Latency

Deferred Procedure Call latency is a way in which Windows handles interrupt servicing. In order to wait for a processor to acknowledge the request, the system will queue all interrupt requests by priority. Critical interrupts will be handled as soon as possible, whereas lesser priority requests such as audio will be further down the line. If the audio device requires data, it will have to wait until the request is processed before the buffer is filled.

If the device drivers of higher priority components in a system are poorly implemented, this can cause delays in request scheduling and process time. This can lead to an empty audio buffer and characteristic audible pauses, pops and clicks. The DPC latency checker measures how much time is taken processing DPCs from driver invocation. The lower the value will result in better audio transfer at smaller buffer sizes. Results are measured in microseconds. 

Deferred Procedure Call Latency

Our DPC Latency results are nothing extraordinary, with another test sample fitting in notably under the 300-microsecond threshold, but well behind any consumer-level platform result. The X299 Gaming M7 ACK showed 251 microseconds placing it in the top quarter of our data. 



CPU Performance, Short Form

For our motherboard reviews, we use our short form testing method. These tests usually focus on if a motherboard is using MultiCore Turbo (the feature used to have maximum turbo on at all times, giving a frequency advantage), or if there are slight gains to be had from tweaking the firmware. We leave the BIOS settings at default and memory at JEDEC for the supported frequency of the processor for these tests, making it very easy to see which motherboards have MCT enabled by default.

* Results with a * were performed with our second Core i9-7900X processor.

Rendering - Blender 2.78: link

For a render that has been around for what seems like ages, Blender is still a highly popular tool. We managed to wrap up a standard workload into the February 5 nightly build of Blender and measure the time it takes to render the first frame of the scene. Being one of the bigger open source tools out there, it means both AMD and Intel work actively to help improve the codebase, for better or for worse on their own/each other's microarchitecture.

Rendering: Blender 2.78

In the Blender testing, the MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK completed the benchmark in 205 seconds, around the same metric as most of our other results.

Rendering – POV-Ray 3.7: link

The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, or POV-Ray, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 1-2 minutes on high-end platforms.

Rendering: POV-Ray 3.7

For our POV-Ray results, the Gaming M7 ACK lands in the middle segment of the results. POV-Ray is sensitive to frequency with boards making the most of an MCE implementation leading the pack. 

Compression – WinRAR 5.4: link

Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30-second 720p videos.

Encoding: WinRAR 5.40

WinRAR data places the X299 Gaming M7 ACK second at 34.8 seconds which is an average number in the middle of the pack.  

Synthetic – 7-Zip 9.2: link

As an open source compression tool, 7-Zip is a popular tool for making sets of files easier to handle and transfer. The software offers up its own benchmark, to which we report the result.

Encoding: 7-Zip

Our 7-Zip results are similar here with the Gaming M7 ACK landing dead middle of a very tightly packed group. This board, as the majority of others, boosted to 4 GHz during this testing. 

Point Calculations – 3D Movement Algorithm Test: link

3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz, and IPC win in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores. For a brief explanation of the platform agnostic coding behind this benchmark, see my forum post here.

System: 3D Particle Movement v2.1

Similarly, the 3DPM result lands the X299 Gaming M7 ACK in the middle of the pack. During this test it performs six mini-tests with a 10-second gap between them: our result is from a 3.6 GHz CPU clock speed during the test as are most from this set of results.

Neuron Simulation - DigiCortex v1.20: link

The newest benchmark in our suite is DigiCortex, a simulation of biologically plausible neural network circuits, and simulates activity of neurons and synapses. DigiCortex relies heavily on a mix of DRAM speed and computational throughput, indicating that systems which apply memory profiles properly should benefit and those that play fast and loose with overclocking settings might get some extra speed up. Results are taken during the steady state period in a 32k neuron simulation and represented as a function of the ability to simulate in real time (1.000x equals real-time).

System: DigiCortex 1.20 (32k Neuron, 1.8B Synapse)

In the DigiCortex testing, this MSI board managed to be tied for last place with the Mini-ITX sized ASRock board at 1.13 fraction of real-time simulation possible. These results are also very tightly packed together essentially giving the MSI motherboard the same score as most of the others we have tested.



Gaming Performance 2017: AoTS Escalation, ROTR

AoTSe

Ashes of the Singularity is a Real Time Strategy game developed by Oxide Games and Stardock Entertainment. The original AoTS was released back in March of 2016 while the standalone expansion pack, Escalation, was released in November of 2016 adding more structures, maps, and units. We use this specific benchmark as it relies on both a good GPU as well as on the CPU in order to get the most frames per second. This balance is able to better display any system differences in gaming as opposed to a more GPU heavy title where the CPU and system don't matter quite as much. We use the default "Crazy" in-game settings using the DX11 rendering path in both 1080p and 4K UHD resolutions. The benchmark is run four times and the results averaged then plugged into the graph. 

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation - 1080p

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation - 4K UHD

Our tight-knit AOTSe results find the Gaming M7 ACK again above the 50th percentile putting up  44 FPS exactly in our 1080p settings while averaging 35.1 in 4K UHD. Nothing out of the ordinary here, a capable performer as expected. 

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game that features similar gameplay found in 2013's Tomb Raider. Players control Lara Croft through various environments, battling enemies, and completing puzzle platforming sections, while using improvised weapons and gadgets in order to progress through the story.

One of the unique aspects of this benchmark is that it’s actually the average of 3 sub-benchmarks that fly through different environments, which keeps the benchmark from being too weighted towards a GPU’s performance characteristics under any one scene.

Rise of the Tomb Raider - 1080p

Rise of the Tomb Raider - 4K UHD

Rise of the Tomb Raider also continues its close results as the Gaming M7 ACK delivered 94 FPS at 1080p and 40.1 FPS using 4K UHD resolution easily mixing in with the pack. 



Overclocking

Experience with the MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK

Overclocking the MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK was just as straightforward as most any other board. The BIOS options are easy to find, and most items are on the first page or one level down making finding and changing options quick and painless. The 10-phase power delivery handled up to  4.7 GHz as we blasted through the 90C temperature limit we set. Running 4.5 GHz and 1.125V, the VRMs peaked at 77.5°C in our testing environment.

The Game Boost functionality, which promises one-touch overclocking assuming the user has the right cooling, was a letdown. The knob can go up to 11, however, we were only able to use the first level. Single core limits are up to 4.4 GHz while all core AVX loads get a 200 Mhz bump to 3.8 GHz. This worked out well, but it was when we moved to level 2 where things went awry. The voltage was set to 1.25V, a huge jump, for clocks to raise 100 MHz all around (4.5 GHz single core 3.9 GHz all core AVX). We started to run POV-Ray and saw current throttling out of the gate, causing frequencies to drop, and cut results nearly in half. Manually raising the current limit to the max via Intel XTU was not successful, however disabling power limits in the BIOS allowed us to get past that hurdle. Nonetheless, the setting of 1.25V on the CPU was simply too much for this cooling to handle, and we were forced to stop there. In the end, Game Boost brought us one very minor step up from stock, leaving the other seven options unusable without a significant bump in cooling performance, delidding, or both.         

The board did not run into any issues with either the DDR4-2666 or the DDR4-3200 sets of RAM we use for testing. Like the other X299 boards, it was 'set XMP and go'. We were able to overclock past the XMP settings of our 3200 sticks and reached DDR4-3600 speeds without issue as well. 

The Command Center software is one of the more complete windows based utilities offering monitoring and control over the system. There are options to set up custom fan curves, the integrated GPU (not that Skylake-X has one), overclocking, and even memory (though I prefer to do so in the BIOS). It even reads and displays the MOSFET temperatures. 

The MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK is a more than capable overclocking motherboard. Game Boost needs to be tweaked to be more useful and I would have liked to see a larger heatsink on the VRM, but it has all the bells and whistles for manual overclocking and didn't flinch one bit in our testing. 

Overclocking Methodology

Our standard overclocking methodology is as follows. We select the automatic overclock options and test for stability with POV-Ray and OCCT to simulate high-end workloads. These stability tests aim to catch any immediate causes for memory or CPU errors.

For manual overclocks, based on the information gathered from the previous testing, starts off at a nominal voltage and CPU multiplier, and the multiplier is increased until the stability tests are failed. The CPU voltage is increased gradually until the stability tests are passed, and the process repeated until the motherboard reduces the multiplier automatically (due to safety protocol) or the CPU temperature reaches a stupidly high level (90ºC+). Our test bed is not in a case, which should push overclocks higher with fresher (cooler) air.

Overclocking Results

The MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK topped out at 4.6 GHz with the new processor as most others boards did before it. Due to our test bench cooling solution, we are temperature limited and without a larger custom cooler and possible delid of the CPU, we are unable to push further.

There was very little or no vdrop and vdroop with LLC set to auto. This board has voltage read points and the values listed in the table below are from the Digital Multi-Meter (and matched Core Temp, the software used to read the Vcore). All boards we have tested were very stable with voltages not needing any manual adjustment to keep load voltage close to what was set in the BIOS. At the top overclock of 4.6 GHz and 1.149V, the system pulled 299W at the wall with the CPU itself claiming a little under 200W of that value.

 



Conclusion

Going in at the high-end of the motherboard offerings, on the high-end platform, suggests that a user wants and needs power - having a motherboard that can perform its duties becomes a vital asset. Most motherboards in the ecosystem now offer a good base level of design and performance, separated by the additions that each vendor applies for features, controllers, and styling. MSI has a few tricks up its sleeve, such as the design aspect of the board and its dual M.2 heatsink hinge arrangement, or the dual Realtek ALC1220 codecs, or its Live Update 6 software. Users looking for that super special hardware point, such as 10G ethernet, or Thunderbolt, will have to look at a price segment a bit higher, but for all else, MSI can satisfy the majority of its intended audience. In the end, the Gaming M7 ACK was intended to be a 'gaming' centric motherboard and, for all intents and purposes, it has accomplished that goal. It is a well-rounded board that can be attractive to almost any buyer. 

MSI's RGB LED implementation on the M7 ACK is tastefully implemented, using a total of four zones to bring some light into the build. The RGB LEDs are all hidden under a translucent fitting, which gives the board the potential for a nice ambient glow when in use. MSI iterates that if LEDs are not in the user plan, then they can be disabled. But MSI's Mystic Light software allows for several different lighting effects as well as independent control in order to tweak the lighting. 

There are a few bits that we'd like to see MSI address in the future, such as support for high-amperage fans, or a more gradual implementation of the auto-overclocking feature, and fixing the longer POST times of MSI motherboards to be in line with others.

Our performance testing has the M7 ACK sitting at the big table with the other boards showing that the MCE implementation is similar to the X299 boards we tested. Our overclocking adventures left us hitting the same 4.6 GHz speeds as we have seen most boards able to support. We expect this as we are of course limited by the choice of cooler. Also a positive is MSI's Click BIOS 5, which is one of the more ergonomic BIOSes around with most everything in one section or one level below.

Buy MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK on Amazon.com

Overall, the MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK is a very capable board. Its feature set is comparable to other boards in its price class. There are two other boards with U.2 ports in this price range: U.2 typically isn't a make or break feature considering its adoption, but it is always good to have. Choosing any board is going to come down to needed/wanted features, aesthetics, and price. The MSI Gaming M7 ACK, with its hinged M.2 heatsink cooling solution, is one of a kind at this price point and should help keep those hot running modules cool. Between the boards listed below, there really isn't a clear leader considering how close the pricing is, unless U.2 is a requirement for your build.

That said, the MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK should be on the short list when looking for a motherboard in the $350-$400 price range as it presents users with a good base to build an X299 based machine. 

Other AnandTech X299 Motherboard Reviews:

The MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK is $366 at Amazon, but has a regular listed price of around $400-$420. At that price point, it will compete with boards in the $350-$400 range including the ASRock Fatal1ty X299 Professional Gaming i9 currently listed at $390, the ASUS ROG Strix X299-XE Gaming at $370, and the GIGABYTE X299 AORUS Ultra Gaming Pro priced at $350

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