MSI Big Bang-XPower reviews, tests, benchmarks, round-up

MSI Big Bang-XPower Reviews

3-1-2011 review by xbitlabs

This product has lots of features, but not everything is as good as it looks, unfortunately. This mainboard comes in high-quality packaging, has a great set of accessories, a smartlayout and extensive functionality, but the MSI Control Center utility is useless, the board is energy-efficient in nominal mode and uses a lot of power during overclocking.

Benchmarks:

3D Mark 2011, 7zip, Cinebench, Far Cry 2, Fritz Chess Bench, Photoshp CS5, Power Consumption, SuperPi, x264 HD.

Test Setup:

CPU : Intel Core i7-930
CPU Cooler : Scythe Mugen 2 Revision B SCMG-2100
Memory : 3x1GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1866MHz KHX14900D3T1K3/3GX
Power Supply : CoolerMaster RealPower M850 RS-850-ESBA
SSD : Kingston 128 GB Now V+ Series SNVP325-S2
Video Card : HIS Radeon HD 5850 H585F1GDG

Overclocking:

The reviewers tried to push the i7 up to 4 GHz, but they wer only able to reach 3.9 GHz.

august 23 2010 review by hothardware

Conclusion:

The Big Bang performs exactly like an X58 motherboard should. The XPower delivers on its promises, although some of its features are only useful to a small niche' of hardware enthusiasts. The Big Bang is competitively priced and overclocks extremely well. There's nothing to suggest that lower-cost boards from any manufacturer are less reliable, durable, or failure-prone than this high-end mobo. If you are looking for an expensive luxury board though, the MSI Big Bang XPower is the right choice.

Overclocking:

An Intle Core i7 920 was OCed @ 3.84GHz, BCLK 192MHz.

Stability Testing: All six DIMM slots filled with dual-bank RAM let's us see if the board is stable under stressful conditions. The reviewers ran PC Mark and 3D Mark Vantage several times with Elpida and Corsair RAM, to ensure system stability.

Benchmarks:

RMAA General audio performance, Power Consumption, SiSoft Sandra, LAME, PC Mark Vantage, Cinebench, Low-Resolution Gaming: Crysis.

Compared to:

Gigabyte X58A-UD3R, EVGA X58 SLI Classified.

Test Setup:

CPU : Intel Core i7-920
HDD: WD Caviar Black 1TB
Memory : 3x2GB DDR3 1600MHz Corsair Dominator
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium x64
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD5970

august 14 2010 review by expreview

Conclusion:

The MSI Big Bang XPower features Military class components, like Super Ferrite chokes and tantalum cored Hi-c capacitors, To ensure higher and more stable overclocking this mobo comes with a 16-phase power circuit for the CPU. Multiple GPU configurations from both ATI and NVIDIA are possible, but it does not support 4-way SLI running at full speed mode. Next to that you'll find USB3.0 and SATA3.0, OC GENIE, Active Phase Switching, V-Switch and voltage measurements. The MSI Big Bang XPower delivers a good performance at a good price, it's probably the best partner for a hexa-core CPU.

Overclocking:

After raising the voltage of to 1.344 V, the reviewers reached 4.2 GHz with an i7 920.

Test Setup:

CPU : Intel Core i7 920 (OCed @ 4.2GHz)
CPU Cooler : Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme
Display : Dell 2405FPW
Graphics Card : GeForce GTX 480
HDD : Seagate Barracuda 72000.12 500GB
Memory : G.Skill DDR3 1600MHz 3x1GB 9-9-9-24
Operating System : Windows 7 Ultimate x64
PSU : 750w Thermaltake Toughpower 750AP

Benchmarks:

Fritz Chess, 3D Mark Vantage, Cinebench, Crysis: Warhead, Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, PC mark vantage, Winrar, wPrime.

Compared to:

This mainboard was not compared to another board.

august 13 2010 review by hardocp

Conclusion: This is a great board, it has a nice design, good looks and an unbelievable performance. The reviewers couldn't boot Windows XP with a drive connected to the Marvell SATA ports and the Intel ICH10R controller set for RAID operation. The reviewers were forced to revert the ICH10R controller to IDE mode for the system to load Windows XP. The overclocking performance was somewhat disappointing but hopefully future BIOS updates will fix this. Other factors such as the CPU and memory used may have affected the outcome as well. The board is also set up to take a large Thermalright TRUE cooler with push and pull fans configured and you'll still be able to use all RAM slots with taller DIMMs. MSI has a solid design on its hands with the XPower board.

Overclocking:

The highest manual result with a Core i7 Extreme 980X was 4.198GHz with the BCLK @221MHz, the highest OC Genie result was 4.126GHz with a 188MHz base block. There is also a dedicated page for the MSI Control Center and the OC Dashboard.

Test Setup:

Processor : Core i7 920
RAM : 3x2GB DDR3 Patriot PVV34G2000LLK

Benchmarks:

Audio Microphone Port Testing, Audio Subjective Listening, Iometer , Network Utilization Tests, DU Meter, Sisoft Sandra, Hiper Pi, wPrime, Multimedia Benchmarks, DivX Converter 7.0, LAME, WinRAR, Videora IPod Converter, TMPGEnc 4.0 XPRESS, Lost Planet, Call of Juarez, Quake 4, Crysis, FarCry 2.

Compared to:

Gigabyte GA-H55M-USB3, MSI 890FXA-GD70, MSI P55-GD80, ASUS P6T6 WS Revolution.

july 28 2010 review by techwarelabs

Conclusion:

This mainboard can be considered an enthusiast board worth every penny, with a fantastic overclocking capability. The BIOS needs a little update, but MSI is allready working on this. You'll have the option to use 6 graphics cars at once. This is one of those mainboards that will get the most out of your machine.

Overclocking:

An Intel Core i7-920 was OCed @ 4.0 GHz, 20x200MHz, because of thermal issues with the GlacialTech cooler the reviewer was not able to get a higher overclock.

Benchmarks:

3D Mark Vantage, H.A.W.X, PC mark vantage, STALKER: Call of Pripyat. In the gaming benches a Palit Radeon 4870 X2 graphcis card was used.

Test Setup:

computer Case : In Win Ironclad
Air Cooler : GlacialTech UFO V51
Memory : 3x2GB Crucial Ballistx Tracer
SSD : Patriot 256GB Torqx
HDD : WD Caviar Green 2TB
PSU : Ultra X4 1050 Watt
OS : Windows 7 64 bit

Compared to:

This motherboard was not compared to another board in the benchmarks.

july 28 2010 review by ocia

Conclusion:

This mainboard is a new X58 built from the ground up, with USB3 and SATA3 added. Of course it will work with the new Core i7 980X Extreme Gulftown. The accessory bundle is very large and includes a SoundBlaster EAX 5.0. MSI is using Mil-Spec components, 8mm heatpipe and Dr MOS. The OC Genie is a one-second overclocker, by the push of a button you'll activate the onboard chip. The reviewer gave it the Gold Seal of Approval.

Overclocking:

A Core i7 920 was OCed @ 4.225gHz with a BCLK of 211MHz and a multiplier of 20, the VCore @ 1.485v. The OC Dashboard LED display serves as a remote overclocking tool and a hardware monitor.

Compared to:

This mainboard was not compared to another board, but instead to its own overclocking results.

Benchmarks:

Photoshop Bench, 3D Mark 2006, 3D Mark Vantage, Call of Juarez, Cinebench, Crysis, PC mark vantage x64, Sisoft Sandra, SuperPi. In the gaming benches a Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 Graphics Card was used.

Test Setup:

Memory : OCZ XMP Ready DDR3 1600MHz 3x2GB
PSU : OCZ EliteXStream 800 Watt
Air Cooler : Zalman X10 Performa
OS : Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit

july 20 2010 review by pureoverlock

Conclusion:

In terms of quality, features, performance and price MSI has a winner here. The MSI Big Bang XPower is an excellent motherboard especially for those people who want a multiple card setup. In terms of layout and design, the Big Bang XPower is extremely good except for a few things, such as the 8-pin power connectors positioned slightly away from the board's edge and a lack of an additional fan header on the right side of the board. A graphics card installed in the bottom PCI-E slot could block the Direct OC and Genie buttons. Direct OC is extremely handy when fine tuning your overclock. For novices the OC Genie could be useful, by the press of a button your sytem will be overclocked. OC Genie uses conservative presets rather than dynamically-adjusted settings, thus limiting the overclock results. If the SATA3 and USB3 are also on your wish list, the Big Bang XPower should definitely be on your purchase shortlist.

Overclocking:

An intel Intel Core i7 980X was overclocked @5.53GHz, the cooler used to reach this result was a Koolance CPU-LN2 V2 Evaporator Liquid Nitrogen cooler.

Benchmarks:

AS SSD Benchmark, Atto diskmark.

Compared to:

This board was not compared to another mainboard.

may 28 2010 review by guru3d

Conclusion:

The sheer performance and really nice design make this mobo a winner. There's plenty of bandwidth for the SATA3 and USB3 controllers. The component usage, the layout and the astonishing feature set also need to be mentioned. The OC Genie gives you an automatic spicy overclock. MSI has not included the NVIDIA NF200 ICs, in other words with six PCIe slots it's not possible to use quad-SLI. The Quantum Wave audio card supports THX TruStudio PC and Creative EAX Advanced HD 5.0. The reviewer gave it a best hardware award.

Overclocking:

There is a dedicated page for the OC Genie: With this tool the reviewer reached 4126 MHz stable overclock. Manually they ended up @ 4483 MHz 28 X 160 and a vCore of 1.48v.

Benchmarks:

SiSoft Sandra, Lavalys Everest, 3DMark06, 3DMark Vantage, Handbrake, Medialink Espresso, CineBENCH 11.5, Crysis WarHEAD, Far Cry 2, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Power Consumption, Temperatures. In the gaming bencharks an ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB Video Card was used.

Test Setup:

CPU: Core i7 980X EE
RAM: 6GB DDR3 OCZ Blade
PSU: BFG 1200 EX
Display: Dell 3007WFP
OS: Windows 7 x64

Compared to:

ASUS Rampage 3 Extreme.

Processers Compared:

Core i7 975, 965, 920, 940, 870, 860
Core i5 750, 650
Core i3 530
Phenom II - X4 965BE, 955BE, 945, 940, 810 - X3 720BE - X2 550BE
Athlon II - x4 620 - X3 435 - X2 250

These are the latest models, the comparison chart also includes some older models.

MSI Big Bang-XPower Milirary Class HI C Solid Cap Icy choke

MSI Big Bang-XPower PCIe soundcard back panel view

MSI Big Bang-XPower 7-1 ChannelP High Definition Audio

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