MSI X99A GAMING 7 Motherboard

The X99A GAMING 7 Motherboard from MSI is designed to fit in cases that support the ATX form factor. It supports Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition processors in the LGA1150-3 socket, as well as the Intel X99 Express chipset. It has been designed for extreme gaming and supports Windows 8.1, 8, and 7 operating systems.

The ATX form factor of the X99A has eight RAM slots that can support up to 128GB of non-ECC, unbuffered DDR3 RAM, or 16GB per slot. The following memory speeds are supported: 3333 (OC), 3110 (OC), 3000 (OC), 2750 (OC), 2666 (OC), 2600 (OC), 2400 (OC), 2200 (OC), and 2133 MHz. The X99A also has a total of 10 x SATA III 6 Gb/s ports (two reserved for the SATA Express port), 1 x SATA Express port, 1 x M.2 port, 2 x USB 3.1 ports, 10 x USB 3.0 ports, and 6 x USB 2.0 ports. To provide data redundancy, RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 modes are supported. For PCIe expansion, there are four PCIe 3.0 x16 slots and two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots. The X99A has also been optimised for multiple graphics cards and has multi-GPU support for AMD 3-Way CrossFire technology and NVIDIA 3-Way SLI technology.

Network connectivity is achieved using Killer E2205 Gigabit LAN which supports wired Gigabit Ethernet speeds. The integrated Realtek ALC1150 audio codec supports 7.1 channel HD audio and S/PDIF out. The X99A has also been designed with Military Class 4 components, including Hi-c CAPs, Super Ferrite Choke, Dark CAPs, humidity protection, ESD protection, EMI protection, and temperature protection, as well as Click BIOS 4, Live Update 6, Command Centre, a RAMdisk, and more. This motherboard is protected by a limited 3-year warranty and includes cables and connectors.

Features

USB 3.1

Faster than SATA III, USB 3.1 allows for speeds up to 10 Gb/s, doubling the speed compared to USB 3.0 and up to 20x faster than legacy USB 2.0

• Up to 2x faster than USB 3.0
• Up to 20x faster than USB 2.0
• Up to 10 Gb/s data transfer bandwidth
• Boost transfer rate between your PC and external storage devices

XSplit Gamecaster & XSplit Broadcaster

XSplit Gamecaster & Broadcaster V2 helps you easily record your gaming moments and broadcast your live gameplay sessions to Twitch, YouTube, UStream, and more. It's simple, easy to use, and suitable for sharing your gameplay with friends, family, or the world. It's also suitable for capturing those perfect gaming moments, just for the heck of it. After you'Voe finished capturing moment, assemble and edit your recordings in included the video editor. Game Capture Auto Detect also allows for automatic streaming when starting a game.

Webcam & Chroma Key: Add a webcam and show your game face Realtime Notes: Draw attention while casting with in-game annotations Record & Stream: Use XSplit Gamecaster to stream and record all of your gaming activities

OC Engine

Have you run into unstable situations when pushing your CPU to the limit? This occurs because the internal clocks are linked through the 100 MHz BCLK strap. Thanks to an integrated Clock Generator, MSI motherboards support more flexible BCLK adjustments, from 100 / 125 / 167 MHz straps.

Using these straps helps prevent system crashing while overclocking. MSI X99 motherboards all come with the next generation Clock Generator offering even lower jitter and power consumption resulting in even higher stability under extreme conditions

DDR4

MSI engineers have made sure you can enjoy high speed DDR4 compatibility. DDR4 brings higher memory speeds with power usage as low as 1.2 V. DDR4 offers higher volume sticks, meaning that memory configurations are possible up to 128 GB

Audio Boost 2

Get ready for ear-drum shattering sound, with MSI Audio Boost 2. With Audio Boost 2 we're delivering high audio quality with the use of a Creative Sound Blaster Cinema 2 so you can enjoy crystal clear sound and music through 8-channel HD Audio

Isolated Audio PCB

With traditional onboard audio, the signal is distorted by electromagnetic signals from the rest of the PCB. Audio Boost 2 acts like a dedicated soundcard by physically isolating the audio circuitry which is separated by a red LED path. Less interference gives you an audio signal with more clarity

Direct Audio Power

Enjoy a heavy calibre audio experience with Direct Audio Power. A dedicated power input to Audio Boost 2 allows for a more powerful and stable power delivery, resulting in a more explosive and pure sound experience

Creative Sound Blaster Cinema 2

Thanks to Creative Sound Blaster Cinema 2, you're getting amazing surround sound with just stereo headphones or speakers. Creative Sound Blaster Cinema 2 enables you to clearly hear specific sounds in gaming environments. Hear your enemies perfectly, make your ears a decisive tool to finish on top

EMI Shielding

To shield the audio core from EMI (electromagnetic interference) caused by other add-in cards, the audio chip is protected by an EMI cover with backlight illumination

Dual Headphone Amplifiers

The built-in dual headphone amplifier rewards your headphones with studio level sound quality up to 600 ohms delivered from your gaming PC.

Tired of having to connect your headset in difficult to reach places? MSI Gaming motherboards are designed to be easy to use, featuring front and rear audio outputs fuelled by Audio Boost 2

Audio Capacitors

With the use of professional Nichicon Japanese capacitors specially designed for audio purposes, MSI Gaming motherboards provide the high level audio signal filtering, delivering high fidelity sound with strong acoustics and realism.

• Acoustic series
• Lower Tolerance
• Lower Dielectric Absorption
• Lower ESR
• Lower Leakage Current
• Higher Stability

Golden Audio Connectors

With golden audio connectors you get the best possible signal output with less chance of distortion.

• Up to 600 ohms sound with strong acoustics
• Dedicated amplified output (red) optimised for studio-grade headgear
• Superb signal conductivity and will not wear over time

USB Audio Power

When connecting multiple USB devices, most motherboards will be unable to deliver a strong 5V power signal to all USB ports. This is highly noticeable with external USB DACs where sound quality degrades as the motherboard is unable to deliver a perfect USB signal.

MSI USB Audio Power continuously delivers a stable 5V current to the USB ports on motherboards, making sure you can continue to enjoy the audio standard you expect. Benefits:

• Enhances the USB audio quality
• Stable 5V power and improved signal transmission over USB

Killer E2200 Game Networking

The Killer E2200 Intelligent Networking Platform is built for maximum networking performance for online games and high-quality streaming media. Featuring Advanced Stream Detect, Killer E2200 automatically detects and accelerates game traffic ahead of other network traffic for smoother, stutter-free in-game performance. With this automatic traffic prioritisation, games and real-time chat get priority over low-level system chatter, giving you the lower latency for game data on controllable network hardware

Network Traffic

Through the detection and prioritisation of gaming traffic, you can utilise your network without less fear of being kicked from an on-line game because of high ping. This enables multi-tasking without manually enabling or disabling applications, updates, and installations

SATA Express

SATA Express is a solution in high speed storage through PCI-Express, providing more bandwidth for the SSDs up to 10 Gb/s

Push Your SSD to the Limit with Turbo M.2

Turbo M.2 is the successor to M.2 10 Gb/s, offering up to 3x more performance up to 32 Gb/s using Gen 3 x4. M.2 uses a small form factor and is compatible with three different sizes to fit most storage solutions

SteamOS Support Out of the Box

MSI is committed to PC gaming and that is why MSI Gaming motherboards support SteamOS by default. Because of this, MSI works close with numerous tier #1 system integrators that release their SteamBOX PCs

Military Class 4 Components

Military Class 4 includes high quality components. The Hi-c CAP, Super Ferrite Choke, and Dark CAP will help make sure that your PC runs more stable under extreme gaming conditions.

Hi-c Cap A Hi-c Cap is a very small but efficient capacitor. Besides helping to ensure enough spacing around a CPU socket to instal large coolers, it also allows for 93% energy efficiency

Super Ferrite Choke Super Ferrite Choke uses a ferrite core that is super-permeable. This allows the choke to run at a 35°C lower temperature, have a 30% higher current capacity, a 20% improvement in a power efficient, and improved overclocking stability

Dark Cap With their aluminium core design, Dark CAP's have been a staple in motherboard design and helps to provide lower Equivalent Series Resistance (ESR) as well as its over 10-year lifespan

Guard Pro

Circuit Protection Carefully selected materials, multiple PCB layers, and shielding result in the circuit protection for our GAMING motherboards

ECO Power With the MSI ECO Centre, you can physically cut the power to unused chips to save up to 29% power usage

Humidity Protection A 10% reduction in moisture absorption helps prevent "Conductive Anodic Filament." Untreated PCB's can have a 10x higher failure rate

High Temperature Protection All key components used in MSI motherboards have all passed military testing to help ensure stable operation in harsh environments

ESD Protection Each and every I/O port is protected against the hazards of Electro Static Discharge

EMI Protection All MSI motherboards comply with American FCC regulations and help to reduce the impact of Electromagnetic Interference

Gaming Device Port

The MSI Gaming Device Port is optimised to deliver the connectivity for high end gaming mice to fully utilise its speed. This results in a faster and smoother mouse response in games.

Gaming Benefits:

• More responsive
• Smoother gameplay
• Faster reactions

Technical Benefits:

• 3x more gold than regular connectors
• 10x longer lifetime when plugging/un-plugging
• Helps prevent oxidation

OC Genie 4

OC Genie is a built-in hardware overclocking technology on motherboards. With this one-second overclocking option, just hit the button and your PC gets another adrenalin shot. This will deliver up to 20% of extra performance for the CPU, memory, and iGPU

Boost Your Frame Rate

Outperform your competition with the MSI Gaming app, which allows simultaneous control of both your motherboard and graphics card's overclocking.

Simply select your preferred mode with the click of a button:* Silent

• Gaming
• OC

This allows you to tune the system to your preference without any technical knowledge of overclocking

Click BIOS 4

The MSI Click BIOS 4 is UEFI BIOS with optimisations for Windows 8 that reacts faster, runs smoother, and has better mouse support

Optimised for Multiple Graphics Cards

The X99A GAMING 7 motherboard supports Quad SLI / CrossFire. PCI-Express slot placement also helps allow for better fitting and airflow

Software

Live Update 6 MSI Live Update automatically downloads and instals drivers, BIOS, and software updates

Command Centre MSI's Command Centre software is a powerful tool to help push your motherboard to the max. With an intuitive touch-ready interface, Command Centre allows users to tune settings to help increase system stability, maximise overclocking performance, and adjust cooling features

Unlimited RAMdisk MSI Command Centre integrated an unlimited RAMdisk. With a RAMdisk, you can create a virtual drive from your system memory, helping to enable speeds up to 20x faster than an SSD. With a RAMdisk, you can speed up system performance, load complete game images, as well as speed up games, apps, and Internet browsers

Super Charger With the MSI Super Charger, you can deliver more power than regular USB chargers to your smartphone, tablet, USB game controller, or portable console. This allows you to quickly charge these devices for use when you're not gaming on your PC, eliminating the need for wall power sockets

USB Redrivers USB 3.0 signal integrity suffers with longer cable lengths. The USB 3.0 Redrivers on MSI Gaming motherboards, connected to the internal USB 3.0 ports, enable you to use longer USB 3.0 cables, especially in longer chassis

Smart Fan Control Smart Fan Control gives you control of all the fans on the motherboard. This is beneficial for gamers and overclockers. Users will be able to real-time monitor the status of the system fans, create profiles, and record fan speed, voltage, and temperature status into a log file

Dragon Heatsink This motherboard features an oversized heatsink to help provide increased thermal transfer and heat dissipation to enable your system to run intensive gaming sessions

OC Essentials

OC Essentials are a small set of tools that help get the best performance out of your motherboard:

• Increase stability
• Assist in troubleshooting
• Allow you to keep your complete system in cheque
• Allow for simple management

With OC Essentials, you can keep your mind on gaming and be confident that you have the tools to maximise your performance

Connectivity

Be sure to take advantage of all the ports that this motherboard provides:

Audio Boost 2 30µg Gold plated Audio Connectors Amplified Audio

USB Audio Power Optimised stable 5V USB ports Good sound quality for external DACs

Gaming Device Port Optimised for high-rate gaming keyboards and mice Triple gold plating for an extended operational use

Triple Gold Plated PS/2 and USB Ports Up to a 10x longer lifetime when plugging and unplugging Helps prevent oxidation

Specifications