MSI Big Bang XPower 2 X79 Motherboard Review

[Tenida]

MSI Big Bang XPower 2 X79 Review
*i.imgur.com/93Jtd.jpg
*i.imgur.com/GY5yD.jpg


Specs-

Spoiler

CPU
• Supports 2nd Generation Intel® Core i7 processors in LGA2011 package.
Chipset

• Intel® X79 Chipset
Main Memory

• Supports eight unbuffered DIMM of 1.5 Volt DDR3 1066/1333/1600/1866*/2133*/2400* (OC) DRAM, 128GB Max
- Supports Quad channel mode
Slots

• 4 PCI Express gen3 x16 slots
- PCI_E1 supports up to PCIE x16 speed
- PCI_E5 supports up to PCIE x16 speed when PCI_E3 is empty, or supports x8 speed when PCI_E3 is occupied
- PCI_E3 & PCI_E7 support up to PCIE x8 speed
• 3 PCI Express gen2 x16 slots
- PCI_E2, PCU_E4 & PCI_E6 support up to PCIE x1 speed

On-Board SATA

• SATAII controller integrated in Intel® X79 chipset
- Up to 3Gb/s transfer speed.
- Supports four SATAII ports (SATA3~6) by X79

• SATAIII controller integrated in Intel® X79 chipset
- Up to 6Gb/s transfer speed.
- Supports two SATAIII ports (SATA1~2) by X79

• SATAIII controller integrated in ASMedia® ASM 1061 chipset
- Up to 6Gb/s transfer speed.
- Supports four SATAIII ports (SATA7~10)

• RAID
- SATA1~6 ports support Intel Rapid Storage Technology enterprise (AHCI / RAID 0/1/5/10) by Intel X79
USB 3.0

• 1 USB 3.0 internal connector by NEC® D720200
• 4 USB 3.0 rear I/O ports by NEC® D720200

Audio

• Chipset integrated by Realtek® ALC892
- Flexible 8-channel audio with jack sensing
- Compliant with Azalia 1.0 Spec
- Meet Microsoft Vista Premium spec
LAN

• Supports dual PCI Express LAN 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet by Intel 82579V and 82574L.
IEEE1394 / FireWire

• VIA® VT6315N chipset
- Supports up to two 1394 ports. (Rear panel x1, pinheader x1)
- Transfer rate is up to 400Mbps.
Internal I/O Connectors

- ATX 24-Pin power connector
- 2 x 8-pin Power connectors
- CPU x 1 / System x 5 FAN connectors
- Front panel audio connector
- Front panel connector
- 1 x Chasis intrusion connector
- 2 x USB 2.0 connectors
- 1 x USB 3.0 connectors
- 4 x Serial ATAII connectors
- 6 x Serial ATAIII connectors
- 1 x IEEE1394 connector
- 1 x Clear CMOS jumper
- 1 x Power button
- 1 x Reset button
- 1 x OC Genie button
- 2 x Base clock buttons
- 1 x Multi BIOS button



Back Panel I/O Ports

- 1 x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard port
- 1 x Clear CMOS button
- 1 x Coaxial SPDIF port
- 1 x Optical SPDIF port
- 1 x IEEE1394 port
- 2 x RJ45 LAN Jacks
- 6 x USB 2.0 ports
- 4 x USB 3.0 ports
- 1 x 6 in 1 audio jack



BIOS

• The mainboard BIOS provides "Plug & Play" BIOS which detects the peripheral devices and expansion cards of the board automatically.
• The mainboard provides a Desktop Management Interface(DMI) function which records your mainboard specifications.



Dimension

• 34.5cm(L) x 26.4cm(W) XL-ATX Form Factor

Mounting

• 12 mounting holes.

Review Link
MSI Big Bang XPower 2 X79 Motherboard Review - Introduction
MSI X79 Big Bang XPower II review


Conclusion

Hardwareheaven

Spoiler

It is clear from using the Big Bang XPower 2 that MSI's designers and engineers were given the task of creating the best X79 board they could, with as few compromises as possible. The result is an exceptional product which has hugely impressed us during out time testing it.

The experience begins with a great first impression as we note the plethora of enthusiast features which are found across the board, from additional power connectors (CPU and GPU) to useful buttons and switches (OCGenie, PCIe CeaseFire) and overclocking essentials such as voltage read points. Looking a little closer allows us to see that the build quality is top notch with features like DR.MOS protecting our board and high spec components such as solid capacitors, super ferrite chokes and HI-C solid capacitors with Tantalum cores used throughout the product.

The XPower 2 is also packed with great features which includes one of the best GUI BIOS implementations we have seen, dual BIOS, good on-board audio and plenty of SATA ports. In fact we struggle to think of anything major which the board needs, other than removal of the strange bullet heatsink, though the thick heatpipe used is appreciated.

In terms of performance the MSI Big Bang XPower 2 doesn't disappoint. In the motherboard specific tests we saw it compete with the best that ASUS has to offer and this continued on in the other tests where the MSI was able to squeeze that little bit extra performance out of our components on a regular basis. It also overclocked far higher than any other X79 board we have tested so far.

Added to this great performance is a decent number of SATA 6Gb/s and USB 3.0 connectors (along with USB charge ports and ESD protection) but one of the more important features is the ability to install four high end GeForce or Radeon cards in quad SLI/Crossfire X for extreme high end GPU performance... with PCIe Gen3 support.

Currently we do not have an RRP for the MSI Big Bang XPower 2 however given its extreme user target audience expect it to sit at the high end of the market, and understandably so given the features and performance.

*i.imgur.com/qrTga.jpg


Guru3D:-

Spoiler

The MSI Big bang XPower II is an incredible motherboard in many ways. The only thing lacking really would be Wireless Ethernet and / or Bluetooth. Other then that this dark demonic piece of hardware is chucked full with features, and looking very nice.

The XPower II is an impressive motherboard. It's feature rich, a great overclocker and has downright gorgeous looks. If you are a novice overclocker and go for easy as 1-2-3, flick the OC Genie button and it will get you an instant performance boost, our processor was clocked automatically towards 4 GHz. But that's a little pale compared to what you already get at default baseline performance.

Overclocking itself with the UEFI BIOS is fun as well, it really is an easy to work in environment. MSI implemented two uEFI BIOSes by the way, you can can switch in-between them (say a normal and high performance profile), good stuff.

We do like to recommend to MSI though to explain the BIOS features better. For example while overclocking you like to disable VDROOP at BIOS level. Right now when you look at the VDROOP settings it ON or you can select level 1 to 7. Without an explanation what these levels do stuff like that is a bit of a mystery. A lot of BIOS features could leave you wondering what exactly they do, and that might hinder a better overclock result.

For overclocking itself we reached 4900 MHz in a matter of minutes really. the motherboard did need some somewhat advanced fine-tuning though. Mind you though that we work with vanilla picked engineering sample CPUs, we can never guarantee you'll achieve the same results at home. It works vice versa as well, we've seen end-users with much higher overclocks then we have ever achieved. Yeah yeah, rub it in my face, that's OK!

BTW I'm confident that 5 GHz+ is a valid possibility with this motherboard as well, yet with the Corsair H100 cooler we reached an upper threshold in temperatures. E.g. hitting 80~90 Degrees C will ruin your day
So once again, we have little to complain, whatever memory we popped in it worked right out of the box, the XMP profiles are recognized and can be activated making your memory configurations really easy.

The board layout itself is pretty good, there are so many extra ICs on the motherboard that there hardly is any room left for anything else. Each square inch was tucked full and the many power phases will make sure each component has the right and stable amount of juice flowing through it.

The motherboard looks the way it does, a clean and stylish dark design. Please do realize that the motherboard is based on an XL-ATX form factor, that means its slightly bigger then you are used too. Make sure it fits in your chassis, the dimensions are 34.5 x 26.4 cm for those that like to measure that up and check.

The baseline performance of the product is better then your average X79 motherboard, this is due to the trick we explained. MSI has changed the Turbo bin variable for you at default to 3900 MHz on all logical CPU cores when the processors threaded Turbo's kick in. So If all cores are in use they all run at 3900 MHz, hence the higher then normal baseline performance offset.

With a price tag of roughly 300 EUR the Big Bang XPower II isn't a cheap motherboard alright, it however does bring a lot to the table. The sheer design, the build quality, 6x USB 3.0, 10x SATA (6 SATA3), the Intel Gigabit Ethernet jacks, 8 DIMMs, multi-GPU SLI and Crossfire(X) modes, dual BIOS, OC Genie, a 22 Phase PWM Design with a maximum output power of 770 Watts, the seven x16 PCIE slots, Gen 3 compatibility, and sure the niche overclockability didn't disappoint either. It's just a very well thought through motherboard that brings an exceptional basis towards the X79 chipset.
Luckily the "military" theme with the Gatling gun and bullet coolers didn't go over the top, it's all done subtle... and that is the word that defines the X79 Big Bang XPower II the best, subtle. Fact remains that with a much cheaper motherboard you'll achieve the very same overclocks with liquid cooling, it's however the design and sheer features that pushes the XPower II into a higher level. We like the motherboard very much and definitely can recommend it towards any enthusiast, as we assume, nobody will run a Sandy Bridge-E processor at default clock frequencies

My View- Its the best looking motherboard I ever seen.Performance is rock solid too.

 

[Tarun]

the goes msi with sooo many PCIe slots

by the way well done tenida

 

[d6bmg]

^^ Among those 7 slots, at least 3 will be useless and if anyone uses big cards, then they can use only 3 of them. Think those 7 slots more as a marketing strategy rather than some useful additions.

 

[vickybat]

Nice find tenida. Board looks feature rich and offers rocksolid performance as well.

 

[Tenida]

Thanks Batman

^^ Among those 7 slots, at least 3 will be useless and if anyone uses big cards, then they can use only 3 of them. Think those 7 slots more as a marketing strategy rather than some useful additions.

Its not just a marketing strategy it has some definite function.To know that function you have to read the full review.

PCIe slot connectivity, that's seven PCI Express x16 slots. Four of these PCIe slots are linked to the Sandy Bridge-E processor are PCI Express 3.0 compatible, while the remaining three are fed by an added PLX PEX8608 IC chip, which will be good ol' PCIe Gen 2 complaint.

We get this question a lot through email, but a Gen 3 slot is backwards compatible so a PCIe Express 2.0 graphics card will work absolutely fine, you'll simply fall back to Gen 2 bandwidth. Four dual-slot graphics cards can be seated just fine.

Slot 1/3/5/7 are PCie Gen 3 and thus have double bandwidth. 1 and 5 support Gen 3 x16. When the four slots are utilized you'll jump back to x8 mode, yet at Gen 3 that's the same as PCie Gen 2 in x16 mode bandwidth wise.

The three PCIe Gen 2 slots are 2, 4 and 6 and get their bandwidth from an added PLX PEX8608 IC chip.

The motherboard makes note of the fact it could support Quad SLI, the cards need to have x8 PCie slots assigned on slot Slot 1/3/5 or 7 before that's going to work. And with the included SLI bridges you can setup your preferred SLI mode up-to Quad SLI and Crossfire.

 

[Extreme Gamer]

^^ Among those 7 slots, at least 3 will be useless and if anyone uses big cards, then they can use only 3 of them. Think those 7 slots more as a marketing strategy rather than some useful additions.

Watercooling?

 

[d6bmg]

For water cooled system they are good and can be utilized for quad SLI as mentioned in the review. Not for air cooled system. Think about fat cards like Asus GTX580 DCII which takes up 3 expansion slots and there must be some air gap between two cards (at least 1 extension slot).

 

[avinandan012]

i think the mobo industry should revise the specification of the motherboards. now most of the gfx cards consumes two slot. One slot is waste here.

 

[Jaskanwar Singh]

^no its not waste. there are single slot cards with water cooling.

*www.evga.com/PRODUCTS/IMAGES/GALLERY/03G-P3-1597-AR_XL_4.jpg
*www.evga.com/PRODUCTS/IMAGES/GALLERY/015-P3-1589-AR_LG_4.jpg

 

[Tenida]

^^Nice info.Then no slot will be wasted.

 

[Jaskanwar Singh]

i mean if someone spends on those extreme boards he will have enough for WC GPUs too.
or may be for LN2 benching

 

[d6bmg]

^no its not waste. there are single slot cards with water cooling.

Spoiler

*www.evga.com/PRODUCTS/IMAGES/GALLERY/03G-P3-1597-AR_XL_4.jpg
*www.evga.com/PRODUCTS/IMAGES/GALLERY/015-P3-1589-AR_LG_4.jpg

Sorry for the late posting as I was not available.

Matter of fact: talking about Indians,
1. We can't get these cards here.
2. Water-cooling is like a dream in India.
3. Starting from pump, reservoir, coolants etc almost everything isn't available.

For US-Europe region, story is completely different though.