MSI's new motherboard is the world's most elaborate USB-C charger

MSI's new X99A Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard is totally extreme. For extreme people only. People who like gaming hardware inspired by the look and performance implications of carbon fiber. I am none of those things, but I do love USB-C, and MSI has me covered there. The motherboard has not one, but two USB Type-C ports, and one of them is on the front — a world's first, according to MSI.

Sure, the USB-C port makes more sense on a phone you're trying to slim down than on the world's most extreme motherboard, and you could always plug a Type-A to Type-C adapter into one of this motherboard's myriad of standard USB 3.1 jacks. But that's not very extreme, is it?

Unfortunately, while the USB-C plug in the back is powered by "Gen 2" USB 3.1 (which is very fast), the front plug is Gen 1 (which is basically just 5Gbps SuperSpeed USB 3.0 grandfathered in to the 3.1 standard). So I guess MSI left itself some room to go even more extreme next year.

I'm told this motherboard does all sorts of other things as well.

• ViaHardOCP
• SourceMSI