Pros: Its really pretty

Cons: Never booted consistently
Died after a few months
Ill need to replace it and spend more money

Other Thoughts: Because It died i'm extremely behind on work now and can't do anything about it.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Shawn,
Sorry to hear about the issue you reported. Before considering an RMA can you check following steps below since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected firmly, clear CMOS.
2. Check your other major hardware’s (memory, video card, CPU and power supply) to ensure that they are not the cause of the issue.
3. If possible test system outside of the case to eliminate any possible ground/short issue.
4. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: It looked and worked perfectly with a great way. I switched my layout for this board specifically just because I heard great things about it and it looks amazing. But it was still too new and I wished I waited.

Cons: The price was crazy and it died after 7 months. They are requesting for me to send back the board for repairs and if not they will replace with refurbished. I would like to play safe and have he board completely replaced if anything else were damaged and save me time because I'm already out of commission now for 2 weeks and probably will have to wait 3-4 weeks

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valuable Customer,
Sorry to hear about the issue you reported. Before considering an RMA can you check following steps below since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected firmly, clear CMOS.
2. Check your other major hardware’s (memory, video card, CPU and power supply) to ensure that they are not the cause of the issue.
3. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: Solid board, everything worked great for 6 months. Thats about where my pros end.

Cons: This board died after 6 months. I have now gone over a month and a half waiting for MSI to send me a working board. The 3 they have sent out have also been dead.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Benjamin,
Sorry to hear about the issue you reported. Our normal RMA turn around time for motherboard board and video card are from 5 to 15 business days. Can you provide your RMA number so we can check on status for you? Please do not hesitate to contact us directly at usreview@msi.com and we will be more than happy to assist you, thank you.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: It's got lots of pretty lights...lots of pcie slots that are completely useless as the board flat out refuses to function properly.

Cons: Video tares! (And I've replaced every component..including the motherboard...and surprise it follows the MB EVERY TIME!!!!!)
Wireless stopped working!
Way too expensive to have this many problems!
I've had this board RMA'ed twice now (so...I'm on the third board) and each one is more disappointing then the last.

Other Thoughts: SAVE YOUR MONEY!!! DON'T BUY THIS BOARD FOR ANY REASON!!!
It's just not worth it...all the flash is for nothing.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valuable Customer
Sorry to hear about the issue you reported. Before considering an RMA can you check following steps below since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected firmly, clear CMOS.
2. Check your other major hardware’s (memory, video card, CPU and power supply) to ensure that they are not the cause of the issue.
3. If possible do a clean install of window and update drivers BIOS for best result. www.MSI.com
4. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: -Worked the first time I booted

Cons: -DOA
-Motherboard half an inch or so wider than standard ATX boards

Other Thoughts: My first MSI, after sticking exclusively to ASUS for a long time. Booted successfully after installation. After power cycle: Debug code 00. No post. No beep. I don't think it even makes it to CPU initialization.

The motherboard being wider than most standard ATX boards made this fit a bit snugly in my case, but that was a minor inconvenience thanks to some cable gymnastics.

Hopefully my replacement is good for more than just a target practice.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Metin,
Sorry to hear about the issue you reported. Before considering an RMA can you check following steps below since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected firmly, clear CMOS.
2. Check your other major hardware’s (memory, video card, CPU and power supply) to ensure that they are not the cause of the issue.
3. If possible do a clean install of window and update drivers for best result. www.MSI.com
4. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: are:

- Beautiful MB
- Easy to install in my Carbide Air 540
- Nice bundle

Cons: are:

- Never worked... Well... Never worked like it should work.

Other Thoughts: So, I installed the RAM sticks, the GPU, the CPU... All the stuff needed to start the computer.

Everything went well until I pushed the power button.
The LED immediately showed the following error codes: 04 - 60 - 55 and the computer started to "boot loop"...

The only way to boot and see something on the monitor was if ONE memory stick was in DIMM_7 or DIMM_5.
If the memory stick was in any other DIMM or if I tried to put more than one stick, the monitor stayed black and the computer started to boot loop again.

CPU / Memory sticks/ GPU / SSD / HDD were tested on an other system and they were all OK.

Thank you so much Newegg for the quick refund.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Michael,
Sorry to hear about the issue you reported. Before considering an RMA can you check following steps below since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected firmly, clear CMOS.
2. Check your other major hardware’s (memory, video card, CPU and power supply) to ensure that they are not the cause of the issue.
3. Check for any bent pins on CPU socket.
4. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: -Excellent power delivery, able to hit 4.6GHz on 5820k with ease
-Looks great
-DUAL BIOS

Cons: -Expensive
-BIOS 2.4 is funky, got stuck in a boot loop! Dual BIOS was a life saver. CLRCMOS button fixed the issue though (would recommend flashing the bios to 2.4 not in the windows environment)
-USB2.0 devices don't work well in USB3.0 ports

Other Thoughts: Here is my additional thoughts...

This board by any means is not perfect. It supports great OCing and looks great, but the USB ports is quite irritating. Logitech 930, Razer Deathadder, Xbox 360 Controller, and Logitech C920 all need to be plugged into USB2.0 ports for them to function properly. More specifically the Razer Deathadder and Xbox 360 controller works flawlessly in the "gaming ports" on the rear io.

Final thoughts on the board... It's pretty nice but I wish the usb ports worked a little nicer and I didn't have to jump through hoops to fix my issues. Definitely a 4/5 and I couldn't possibly rate it under 4. It doesn't deserve a 3 star rating. Did I wish it worked perfectly out of the box, of course; however, computers are unique usually with their parts and are nearly impossible for everything to work perfectly. With a little tinkering and messing around though, I got my issues fixed and look forward to a long life out of the board.

OC Settings for 5820k
Multiplier at 43x, base clock at 105.04MHz, CPU Voltage 1.23-1.25V

Pros: Good color and look, features seem sweet. Newegg customer service people are kind.

Cons: I used my lifetime savings to buy myself a dream computer for college and my hobbies, and I wanted it a couple weeks before black Friday. I made the risk and purchased it not thinking about if there was anything wrong with the product.

I'm new to building computers and mail-in-rebates, so I mailed in the rebate before checking if the mobo worked. I had a little trouble building it, and I called the manufacturer for help, and they were actually pretty helpful. Once I got my whole computer together, nothing posted.

I called the manufacturer and they told to reset the CMOS, Use one stick of RAM, trying all the slots. I noticed there was this LED at the bottom right of the mobo, and they didn't mention or know anything about it. One of the people I talked to seemed to ignore me, the person would tell me to do something, and not respond for like 5 minutes.

I was fed up with computer not working, and took it to a professional and paid a pretty penny for them to diagnose it too. They saw that the RAM and MOBO were bad. I guessed they were both bad since they used their own RAM, and it still didn't post. The professional told me that I did everything right on my end. I somehow got really unlucky.

I called the manufacturer after I get this information, and after 1 hour and 20 minutes, nobody had answered. I look for information on the mobo LED thing, and somehow I get to the online manual, and it turns out it was a debug code LED. None of the people I talked to could figure out what it was except the professional I had to pay for. None of the techs for the manufacturer ever referred me to the online manual either.

While it was the weekend, I couldn't contact the manufacturer, so I had to troubleshoot myself. I found out that if it's not posting to try and switch the BIOS from the default to it's second one. I tried it, and it still didn't work. I was convinced that I won't have a working computer anytime soon.

I contacted Newegg, and they informed me on their return/replacement policy, and I made the mistake of MIR. They Customer service person I talked to though was very kind, and I appreciate the person willing to work with me. I needed to contact the manufacturer directly now.

I called the manufacturer again, and they told me that all they could do was replace it. I feel with all the trouble that I had to go through that they would at least try to compensate for what had gone wrong. Now I'm trying to contact the department of the manufacturer to talk to them a little more about my situation and hopefully they'll be more willing to work with me.

Other Thoughts: Overall, I was really looking forward to such a cool product, and I've been royally disappointed. I've even been trapped with their product now, and can't get my money back or switch to another product.

I payed a high price for this product in terms of time, and got returned with less of it. This a big downer since black Friday was a few weeks away from when I bought it. I won't be purchasing products of this brand in the future, and hope people will read my review and not have to experience the same problems I've had.

Tips for when purchasing this product:
-Don't expect it to work on arrival.
-Don't Mail-in-rebate before checking if it works.
-Look at the online manual. There's more in there than there is that comes with the product.
-If you don't have multiple sticks of RAM, testing the motherboard may be an issue.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Brandon,
Sorry to hear about the issue you reported. Based on the symptom you reported, we suggest you check following steps below doing an RMA since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected correctly and firmly (JPWR1 and JPRW2), clear CMOS.
2. Check your other major hardware’s (memory, video card, CPU and power supply) to ensure that they are not the cause of the issue. Remove CPU check for possible bent pins on CPU socket.
3. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: Cool looking........

Cons: Issues out of box, boot hang ups, blue screens. Blue bios has never worked. Finally got green to work however blue screens started after 7 months and now it locks at boot "99". I press reset and then it works. Cleared CMOS/Battery and the issues still persist, tested new memory and GPU. All produce same results. Went against my better judgment and bought this over ASUS. I have built over 100 gaming boxes and have never had as many issues as I have with this Mobo. Very disappointed.

Other Thoughts: MSI Gaming X99S Gaming 9 ACK
Intel Core i7-5930K Haswell-E
CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000) CMK16GX4M4B3000C15
EVGA GeForce GTX 980
Rosewill Photon-1050W Full Modular Power Supply
WD BLACK 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB
Win7 64
bios 2.40

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Brian,
Sorry to hear about your issue reported. Based on the symptom you reported, we suggest you check following steps below since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected correctly and firmly (JPWR1 and JPRW2), clear CMOS.
2. Check your other major hardware’s (memory, video card, CPU and power supply) to ensure that they are not the cause of the issue.
3. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: Good board when it worked. Which was not that often.

Cons: First board caused constant system hangs and caused computer crashes. Replaced every component, except for the mother board to fix the problem. Problem was solved when I finally changed out the motherboard. Had to open an RMA, which is fine. Got the board back and then couldn't even get past the bios without the board freezing on the new board. RMA department told me that there would be a 45 dollar charge to have it repaired, when they sent me a defective board to begin with. Save your self some money and purchase an ASUS.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Steven,
Sorry to hear about the issue you're having with our MSI product. Please note MSI use the best components possible in industry. Based on the symptom you reported, we suggest you check following steps below since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected correctly and firmly (JPWR1 and JPRW2), CLEAR CMOS.
2. To Confirm Check your other major hardware’s (memory, video card, CPU and power supply) to ensure that they are not the cause of the issue.
3. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com