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2010 has been a strong year for MSI so far. They have been releasing some amazing products, such as the R5870 Lightning which not only scored very highly on KitGuru but left us feeling that it was one of the best video cards ever made.
Today we are going to look at the latest product from MSI, the Big Bang XPower Motherboard. This is a X58 Socket 1366 motherboard and the specification list is simply staggering. At £270 inc vat in the UK, its certainly not aimed at the faint of heart – this is a high end enthusiast grade board for people who want the ultimate performance product.
As with the R5870 Lightning we reviewed, the Big Bang is built with Military Class components and to the highest standard possible. When you hear that this meets the temperature requirements of US Department of Defense MIL-PRF-39003L standard, you know they mean business. They are keen to mention on their literature that this is ‘the same class of components as used on NASA satellites or space shuttles'.
Buzzwords aside, what you can be sure is that the MSI Big Bang board is accepting no compromises and while the price is high, it is clear that MSI are targeting the Asus Republic of Gamers audience by offering a similarly specified board.
The MSI Big Bang XPower board supports up to six single slot graphics cards for extreme multimonitor use and it also will cope with QUAD SLi and Crossfire X configurations from both nVidia and ATI. Extreme overclocking is also supported as MSI have included a second 8 pin CPU connector to the motherboard for increased stability. The same goes for graphics cards, as there is an additional 6 pin PCI-e on the board for overclocking stability.
| Socket | 1366 |
| Chipset | X58+ICH10R |
| CPU Support | Intel i7 1366 socket |
| DDR 3 Memory support | 800/1066/1333/1600/1800/2133 |
| Memory Channel | Triple |
| DIMM Slots | Six |
| Maximum memory support | 24GB |
| PCI-Ex16 | Six |
| PCI-E Gen 2.0 | Gen2 (2×16, 2×8, 2×4) |
| PCI-Ex1 | One |
| SATAIII | Two |
| SATAII | Six |
| Raid | 0/1/5/10 |
| LAN | 10/100/1000 x 2 |
| TPM | One |
| USB 2.0 Ports (rear) | Six |
| USB 3.0 Ports (rear) | Two |
| Audio Ports (rear) | 6+Coaxial SPDIF/Opticial SPDIF |
| 1394 Ports (rear) | One |
| eSATA | Two |
| DrMOS | Yes |
| APS | Yes |
| SLI | Yes |
| 3x SLI | Yes |
| Crossfire | Yes |
| D-LED | Yes |
| Green Power Genie | Yes |
bugger me with a bargepole, thats bloody impressive.
MSi really are pulling out all the stops recently to get seen in high end circles. I think its working !
Looks like a mega product again from MSI. price is high but I expected that after reading the review.
Love the design, they look to have covered everything from design to connectivity. the OC genie is a great idea and I was surprised to hear it worked well, thats a bit of a shocker.
Very good review Zardon, thank you.
That bundle is crazy good, so much in it, no wonder it costs so much. Seems a good price I think its cheaper than the asus rampage board just released.
Seems to be low stock levels of this everywhere, must be popular or a low build rate for MSI.
hard to get in some parts of the world, so ive heard, yah.
They need to realise a board like this for the 1156 platform also. that platform has such crappy boards throughout the ranges.
Good review and I was interested to see the power drain was lower than competiting products. thats always a good sign.
MSI are underrated in the motherboard market, but I love to see them creating these products to go head to head with ASUS and the top level players on the market right now. This looks to be better than the Ramage from what ive seen on kitguru and other review sites.
Its a really good looking board, I hate all the ordinary capacitors we normally see around the CPU socket, but those HIc capacitors are a huge selling point, for me anyway.
I think AMD motherboards are better equipped, but this one really helps Intel 1366 buyers. so much on it and a great variety of high quality components onboard.
I currently own a gigabyte board which i love, but I want to move to 1366, I think this would be top of my list, its well priced considering the quality throughout.
Its impresive, but I feel ASUS still have the quality edge. the rampage board is the cream of the crop.
@ Derek, normally I would agree, but I cant see there being any better 1366 motherboard on the market right now. MSI are really doing their homework before releasing these products.
excellent, really excellent. way out of my price range, but I can dream
MSI rock, they really do, I loved the review of the R5870 card on kitguru last month. all their changes arent just for show or talk,. they really make a difference
Very good product, the price isnt as bad as I thought, I had surmissed it would be £320.
No real weaknesses indeed. even the sata ports are in the right places. so many makers (yes im looking at you intel), put sata ports right under a long graphics card which is useless, even with a 90 degree designed connector.