Which MSI x99 Board?

Tephnos

Tephnos

Tephnos

Soldato
Joined
20 May 2011
Posts
6,077
Location
Aberdeen, Scotland
Hi all,

Was recently getting an ASUS x99S but heard of all the issues of some cases where they'd fry CPUs, so I noped right out of there and am looking to see what MSI has. I'm seeing three different models:

x99a SLI PLUS

x99a SLI Krait

x99a Gaming

What's the difference between them really? Been mostly looking at the first two and I particularly like the white/black of the Krait. (Not as nice as the ASUS of course but reliability over a nice facepaint and stupid bugs everytime)
 
Had a quick look on OCUK and the MSI website and it seems the SLI plus and Krait are basically the same, just with a slightly different colour scheme and more apps(on the krait side) for functionality over bios etc

The gaming board - quad SLI seems to be the main difference vs the tri SLI of the other two

And good shout on the Asus boards - I hadn't heard that and was planning asus for my x99 build :S
 
As someone with an Asus X99-Pro sat boxed next to him... Uhh. Let's hope it doesn't fry my chip when I do my build.

X99A is USB 3.1 (Krait, Gaming * and SLI Plus)
X99S is USB 3.0 (Krait, Gaming * and SLI Plus)

The Krait is apparently made with more durable components than the SLI Plus, but I don't recall where I read that. The biggest difference would be the colour scheme, which I love from the Krait to be honest.

And as Gamble said, the Gaming 7 and 9s have Quad SLI/Xfire capabilities on the 5930k/5960X.

The "AC" denotes built in WiFi, whilst ACK denotes the ability to use both WiFi and Ethernet to the same router... I believe that's how it works at least.
 
Thanks guys, MSI Krait sounds like the good choice then.

A google on the ASUS issue shows a few threads, and a large one on Overclock net about it. Even if the issue is rare, the fact it can outright kill your CPU and ASUS seemed quick to deny it was enough to put me off - I'd never be comfortable with booting!
 
Tephnos said:
Yep, afaik ALL ASUS x99 mobos can have this issue.
Click to expand...

I think them rumours are just BS to be honest. I saw one guy on the asus rog forums claiming his 5960X was killed by Rampage. Got his cpu replaced by intel then says he noticed bent pins on his cpu socket after getting his new cpu but was to scared to install it. Also It was the overclock socket i beleave people was blaming? Yet quite a few builds now that aint asus have the OC socket

Msi boards had afew issues to. hense the fact there was some bad reviews and ocuk had loads of them as b grades for £100 last month. Doesnt mean its a huge problem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CXb6J4fZ50
 
Last edited:
ASUS is better than MSI for X99 I've found. I'd suggest the ASUS X99-S. Ignore the CPU OV issues, there's a 0.0001% chance occurrence. MSI mobos have had far more issues in the past from what I can recall.
 
As for Asus: X99-S is good for budget, X99-Pro is good if you are on a budget but would like the WiFi/BT card - Also has a USB 3.1 variant, X99 Deluxe is the best of all worlds.

Asus do a USB 3.1 PCI-E card if you need USB 3.1 on any of the other models :p - I don't know if it works on other brands of motherboard, but I can't imagine why it wouldn't.
 
brit~XR said:
I think them rumours are just BS to be honest. I saw one guy on the asus rog forums claiming his 5960X was killed by Rampage. Got his cpu replaced by intel then says he noticed bent pins on his cpu socket after getting his new cpu but was to scared to install it. Also It was the overclock socket i beleave people was blaming? Yet quite a few builds now that aint asus have the OC socket

Msi boards had afew issues to. hense the fact there was some bad reviews and ocuk had loads of them as b grades for £100 last month. Doesnt mean its a huge problem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CXb6J4fZ50
Click to expand...

You then missed the big overclock.net thread on it in which quite a few people have had it happen to them. I believe one review site had it happen too and they tried to get ASUS' attention on it - they dismissed it.

What issues have MSI had recently, such as on the KRAIT edition? Heard nothing.

Btw, I already had the ASUS X99S. Sending it back because of these issues + day 1 it already disabled my keyboard USB until I moved it to another port.
 
Last edited:
Don't forget that Asus sell a hell of a lot more motherboards then a lot of other vendors almost twice that of msi recently (although less than gigabyte)

http://www.kitguru.net/components/m...ined-top-mainboards-makers-in-q1-2015-report/

Means more boards likely to fail overall and the internet tends to amplify bad news out of perspective. I have had many Asus boards over the years and have always found them to be decent reliable boards. Same with gigabyte boards I have owned. Don't dismiss the big players unnecessarily
 
Caracus2k said:
Don't forget that Asus sell a hell of a lot more motherboards then a lot of other vendors almost twice that of msi recently (although less than gigabyte)

http://www.kitguru.net/components/m...ined-top-mainboards-makers-in-q1-2015-report/

Means more boards likely to fail overall and the internet tends to amplify bad news out of perspective. I have had many Asus boards over the years and have always found them to be decent reliable boards. Same with gigabyte boards I have owned. Don't dismiss the big players unnecessarily
Click to expand...

I'm not.

The problem is this issue seems to be happening in the first place and it kills your CPU, whereas nothing on the MSI side. (or anyone else)

I'm no stranger to ASUS hw and I know exactly how unreliable they can really be (especially their router side) at times in return for features or design.

I was thinking MSI because my previous mobo was MSI and it just worked for me.
 
x99s and x99a is all the same the latter x99"a" is the addition of USB 3.1 that's it!

I decided to go with MSI krait since I liked the theme and I usually go with Gigabyte but they don't offer the full m.2 speeds and I would like to avoid ASUS like the plague! Bad RMA Service and had a bad experience with them with my sabertooth z77 once and my old deluxe 775 board back in the days!

MSI Krait offer less features yes but the no frills and solid Overclock makes it a pretty solid board! A mate got a ASUS x99s SLI and he's having so much problems with it, overclocking wise and some issues with his USB 3.0 ports.

However like caracus said ASUS are selling more so are bound to report more problems than MSI.
 
Yeah, I had the same OC issues on my x99S, not sure if my chip was terrible or it was the board, but I had my keyboard disconnect itself from USB on BOOT one time with the mobo, and that was day one.

Not a good sign is it. Definitely feeling the KRAIT now. MSI has never done me any harm plus I hear RMA with them is lovely.

ASUS are imo pretty much 'great if it works; SOL if its broken'. I really feel they put more effort into the design of the board/GUI than the actual internals of the thing, which as I said, mirrors my experience across a range of ASUS hardware like their routers.
 
Last edited:
Can't think of a single problem with my krait at the moment, touch wood! Haven't tried the on board sound yet though since I got a sound card. Honestly this is the single platform I've upgraded to that from start to finish ran without any hitch. 775, 1366, 1155 all had its minor problems mostly bios/hardware issues when newly built.
 
Thanks for the rec. :)

Saw a ** No competitors ** (x99a) and took a punt on the KRAIT. Saving more than £20 too! Hopefully this works out better than the ASUS one. I'd like to use this until Skylake-E or later if that one is no good, so the less worries about my CPU randomly blowing up one day/other known problems, the better.
 
Sorry Jester, slipped. :(

Yeah, I don't think I could go B-Grade and be entirely comfortable, though. Plus, the Krait uses better components than the SLI PLUS.
 
Just in case others are also considering the MSI offerings, I have the Krait X99A and it's been all good so far, stable and nicely overclocks my 5820 without problems.

However, sometimes it's the small things that sway the choice. For me, the slick monochrome snake MOBO graphic on Boot is enough to warrant the Krait edition:

MB-300-MS_110555_800.jpg
 
I am glad to hear that the people with the MSi Krait have not run into any problems I have one here for my new build.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom