MSI X299 SLI Plus Intel X-Series Motherboard Review

A Closer Look

This is a stunning looking motherboard, and while it lacks a lot of colour, the monochrome theme should blend in well with your system. Of course, it’s packing some lovely RGB lighting on the various shrouds and heat sinks, so once powered up, you’ll be able to give it all of the colour you desire.

Sitting proudly in the middle is that huge X299 socket. I’ve got good hopes for the overclocking performance too, as there’s a robust VRM/Choke setup behind the CPU and a chunky metal heat sink to keep the hardware cool.

The CPU draws power from a single 8-pin header, so I wouldn’t expect overclocks to be as crazy as the higher end boards with dual CPU power connections, but there should be more than enough power here.

Built-in Rear I/O Guard

There’s no Armour on the DDR4 slots, although there doesn’t need to be, it does look nice when it’s there. The rear I/O is gorgeous though, with a chunky built-in shroud that keeps it looking neat and tidy. Of course, it’s got some lovely RGB lighting built-in too.

Down the right side, a handy debug-LED that’ll prove useful when tweaking settings. The motherboard 24-pin is fairly straight forward, and there’s a USB 3.0 and 3.1 header below that.

Further down the board, there’s a second USB 3.0 header, 6+2 SATA 6Gbps connections, and dual U.2. Clearly, connectivity isn’t going to be a problem here.

Moving across the motherboard, you’ll find two M.2 drive bays, one with an M.2 Shield, the other exposed. A cover on both would have been very nice though.

The bottom row is packed with headers for RGB lighting, fans, USB 2.0 headers, HD audio and more. Right in the middle, you’ll find two small controls for power and reset, which are great when tinkering on a test bench.

Armoured PCI and M.2

There are four full-size PCIe slots, two with Armour to support the weight of high-end expansion cards. There’s also a pair of 1x PCIe which are great for smaller add-in cards.

This motherboard packs some serious audio hardware, which is isolated from the main board with a trace. The bulk of it hides under the shroud, where you’ll find the DAC, but there are some exposed gold capacitors in the bottom left too.

The rear I/O guard isn’t pre-installed, but is included in the box. There are BIOS/CMOS controls onboard, which is very handy while overclocking. Below that, PS2, 4 x USB 2.0, 5 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB Type-C. Networking shouldn’t be an issue here, with dual 1Gbe connectors. Finally, HD audio jacks with gold plated ports and an optical connector.

There’s not much else to see on the other side of the board. However, it’s nice to see that the VMR heat sink is mounted securely on the board. The heat sink has a backplate and is screwed on for added durability.