MSI has sent us its new MSI NightBlood X2 Naked Hoon with Intel i7-6700k processor, 8GB RAM, GTX 970 graphics card and an M2 NVM disk. Special at the national level!
At the end of 2014 we tested MSI Night Blood 1 and a few months ago MSI Night Blood MI had very good results. Want to know more about this new version? What performance does it offer? Can it pass the test in our laboratory? Don't miss our review in Spanish. Here we go!
We thank MSI Spain for trusting us in analyzing its products.
Technical Features MSI Night Blood X2 MSI
The MSI Night Blood X2 is offered in a cardboard box that is large in size and very strong. In the front and back we all have a picture of the product, and on this side we find a brief description of the features of the bare bone.
Once we open the box we find an excellent anchoring system, which includes:
MSI Night Blood X2. Instruction manual. CD with drivers. Two Wi-Fi antennas. Power card
The MSI Night Blood X2 features 115 liters of 175.77 x 277.33 x 245.8 mm and has an estimated width of 5 kg. The truth is that personally it looks really good on our test benches and is usually very compact.
On both sides we get a small string of MSI Dragon Gaming and some grids that allow us to improve the cooling of the bare bones.
The front panel is made of premium quality plastic and clear electrical aluminum. Next to the power button, we find two LED indicators for hard drive and Wi-Fi connection. In the front contacts we get a USB 3.1 Type-C connection, two USB 3.0 connections with "Super Charger 2" technology, an overlock button and audio input / output.
Once we turn it on, we realize the light system at the bottom of the front.
- Already in the back we find its power and the connection to a small red fan, which emits all the heat from the MSI Night Blood X2. In addition, we have the following contacts:
- 2 x USB 2.0.1 x PS / 2.2 x USB 3.1 Gen1. LAN Killer Network Card Two connections for Wi-Fi antenna. 5.1 / 7.1 audio output.
- To open the box, we must remove the two security screws and press on the red sports.
Disassembly and admission
As we have already seen in MSI Night Blood MI a sticker has been added to it and if we open it we will void the warranty. Undoubtedly this is another disappointment for future updates and it will force us to wait for two years warranty to open it.
update
MSI Iberia tells us that this seal has been applied all over the world, but in Spain they do not invalidate it if it is opened. It is common in both laptops, bare bones and all computers. The latter, however, may be somewhat reluctant to accept bail. If you would like to leave a comment at any time, you can leave a comment or visit our forum, and we will contact them.
This time we're going to start with the aspect that usually generates less interest and we get the back of the motherboard and a high speed M.2 NVMe disk. Specifically, this Samsung MZVPV128HDGM is 128 GB with 2000 MB / s reading and 650 MB / s write. For data we have 3.5% mechanical disk with 2TB of storage.
Now we are on the other side where all the "chicha" is. We see that the whole inner part is very deep and it looks like there is good routing in the wiring, but there is a lot more in sight.
We see a small heat sink with two towers with a small fan between them. We believe that although it is better than the stock hat sink, you can choose a compact 120 mm liquid cooling that gives the gaming bare bones better performance and aesthetics.
On RAM memory it includes a single 8GB DDR4 module. After reviewing the documentation, we have seen that we can add up to 32 GB DDR4 in its two available sockets.
The processor selected is i7-6700K which has 4 cores and 8 threads. When Turbo Mode is activated, its base speed is 4.0 GHz and goes up to 4.2 GHz. It also has 8MB of cache memory and 95WW consumption (TDP).
Reaching a very interesting point, we get an MSI GTX 970 Armor 2X OC with 4GB GDDR5 memory. This model is the most purchased in the market because it has a cool heat sink, which has good overclocking capability and 0DB functionality (passive fan under load).
On electricity we have a source of 350W 80 Plus Gold which will be really good if we do not increase the equipment (especially graphics card). Since there is a higher model with 500W which is suitable for Nvidia GTX 980 Ti.
We recommend that you review the Gigabyte Force K85 RGB in Spanish (full analysis)
Wi-Fi connectivity with Intel AC 3165 (Killer AC1535), Killer E2400 Network Card with Killer Shield (technology against power surges and Air-enhancing technology) and Bluetooth 4.1 connection to end the talk.
Software
MSI has chosen to install the full pack of applications offered in its gaming series. Among them we have burn recovery application, E2400 network card killer network application and system recovery with AC 1535.
And its great gaming centre suite that allows you to perform system monitoring, front-end system configuration, device configuration, scan max application and EZ-swap.
Benchmark
NVMe SSD Disk Test
A very interesting test of this MSI Night Blood X2 Bone Bone is on 128GB Samsung MZVPV128 HDGMNVMSSD. As we can see on the screen, it meets the expectations of 2000 MB / s in reading and 650 MB / s in writing.
Consumption
Last words and conclusion
The MSI Night Blood X2 is a barebone that meets the best conditions for any gamer user or who wants to have a powerful team with the smallest size.
There are several versions available but the one received includes a 6th generation i7-6700K 4GHz processor, 1151 ITX board, 2TB for 128GB SSD disk plus storage and a great 4GB MSI GTX 970 graphics card. Although in this particular configuration I have to point out that it contains only 8 GB RAM in a single channel, so we lose a lot of capacity from the team. If you can buy the 16GB DDR4 version.
Another point to improve is cooling, we believe a 120mm liquid cooling system would be a great option. Although the work involved in the heat sink, we will not be able to overclock more than 4.2 GHz.