Whenever a new processor line is introduced, motherboard vendors usually go nuts and create all manner of next generation products based off of a new chipset. But what happens when the chipset is carried over without any changes from the previous generation? It's happened in the past with Intel's X79 platform, AMD's ages-old 990FX and now Intel's ultra expensive Broadwell lineup is tied at the hip to a chipset which was launched nearly two years ago. No one is taking Broadwell-E sitting down, least of all MSI. Their new X99A Gaming Pro Carbon highlights a situation where even though the underlying chipset hasn't changed, it's still possible to completely modernize a motherboard.

While the X99 chipset has certainly become synonymous with performance and longevity, Intel's decision to extend its service life to the new Broadwell-E generation was controversial. While Z170 has received a litany of chipset-bound PCI-E lanes for high bandwidth I/O, X99 hasn't. Intel happens to disagree with any assessment of obsolescence and feels that their current PCH is still more than capable of supporting the Broadwell-E ecosystem. On the surface such a decision does make a certain amount of sense as the existing combination of a massive quad channel DDR4 memory bus, epic core count, and large number of PCI-E lanes has been a winning formula.