MSI X79-GD45 Plus Motherboard Review (inc. CPU Gaming Performance Comparison)

As a chipset, X79 is starting to show its age, especially when compared to the feature-heavy Z87 PCH. This can pose problems for motherboard manufacturers looking to sell a value-orientated product that isn't stripped to the point where masses of consumers are alienated away from the target audience. Cutting down in regards to add-on controllers, can MSI's X79A-GD45 Plus win over the market with its appealing value? With the X79A-GD45 Plus, MSI has opted for the 'less is more' approach. The board features the components found on Intel's X79 chipset and as few add-on controllers as possible to keep costs to a minimum. A pair of USB 3.0 controllers outputs four SuperSpeed connections while Realtek's ACL892 audio codec is used to provide Sound Blaster Cinema support. Feature-wise the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus may seem scarce - and it is. But with Intel's LGA 2011 CPUs offering 40 PCI-Express lanes, MSI's motherboard can be used to house 3-card CrossFire and SLI configurations. Has MSI been able to make the correct compromises and offer an affordable motherboard in the X79A-GD45 Plus? Gigabyte was kind enough to extend our loan of its ultra-fast GTX 780 WindForce OC graphics card. We used the additional time with the card to gather data when modern gaming CPUs were put through our updated game benchmark suite, which now uses a 2560 x 1600 resolution. Is it worth opting for MSI's low-cost X79 solution and investing a greater sum of money in graphics horsepower? Features: Military Class III. Click BIOS II. Sound Blaster Cinema support. Supports Intel IVB-E and SB-E Processors (Core i7 38xx/39xx and 48xx/49xx). Supports CrossFire and SLI. MSI ships the X79A-GD45 Plus in the company's typical motherboard packaging. A shiny box provides plenty of information regarding the motherboard's features and specifications. MSI's user guide features plenty of useful information, including which DIMM slots to use first and how to ensure a video signal is received when using multi-GPU configurations. A certificate of stability accompanies the board and outlines the rigorous testing procedures that its Military Class III components undergo. A cost-effective bundle is supplied with MSI's X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard. Users wanting 3-way SLI will be disappointed to see that MSI only gives the board 2-way functionality out of the box. Two additional SLI interconnects will have to be purchased for 3-way configurations (a 3-way bridge is not necessary; three 2-way cables can be used to team a trio of cards). The bundle consists of: 6x latching SATA cables. M-connectors. 1x SLI bridge. IO shield. The MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard measures in at 12" x 9.6", conforming to the standard ATX form factor. MSI opts for a good-looking black and grey colour scheme with its entry-level motherboard. In person, the GD45 Plus' PCB appears far darker than the ugly shade of brown that bright lighting portrays. A pair of 4-DIMM banks sits either side of the LGA 2011 CPU's sizeable socket. MSI eliminates clearance issues when a graphics card is installed in the uppermost slot by using the increasingly-popular single-latch DIMM solution. Users can populate the X79A-GD45 Plus with up to 64GB of memory by using 8GB DIMMs. MSI's website and promotional material state memory frequency support for up to 2400MHz, although a BIOS selection for a 2933MHz profile is present. We will explore the board's memory frequency support later in this review with some high-speed RAM. Beneath a black and grey heatsink sporting the MSI logo sit nine driver MOSFETs that MSI calls DrMOS II. Along with the nine Solid Ferrite Core (SFC) chokes that sit in front of the heatsink, the two remaining classes of power delivery components that make up MSI's Military Class III implementation are solid and high-conductivity (Hi-C) capacitors. Users with wide CPU coolers, such as the Phanteks PH-TC14PE or Noctua NH-D14, may find that the tall MOSFET heatsink could cause interference issues. In a sense, there is little that MSI can do to combat this issue; the board's CPU and socket area are already cramped and MOSFETs require sufficient cooling. Perhaps shaving a few centimetres off the heatsink's height and increasing its width would help to reduce clearance issues, while also having little effect on the sink's thermal capacity. Along the board's top edge is where the 8-pin CPU power connector is located. This is its ideal position as hiding the cable behind a case's motherboard tray is a simple cable management measure. The PWM-controlled CPU fan header sits adjacent to the 8-pin power socket, while an additional 4-pin connection is placed closer to the 24-pin's edge. Ideally, we would have liked to see a pair of CPU fan headers, rather than just one. The two header approach is better for users with dual-fan CPU coolers as it allows the speed of both units to be controlled via the same PWM channel. Making effective use of the LGA 2011 CPUs' 40 PCI-Express lanes, the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard features five full-length PCI-E connections and one x1 port. Fed directly by the CPU's lanes, the grey slots are given graphics duties. When an IVB-E CPU is used, the grey slots feature PCI-E Gen 3 link speeds of at least 8x, allowing them to offer three-way CrossFire and SLI support. Spacing between the two upper x16 graphics slots is also very good; a one-slot cooling gap is provided to ensure that the top card isn't starved of air. All of the black slots operate at PCI-E 2.0 bandwidth and receive their lanes from the X79 chipset. Despite two of the slots being full-length, all three of the connections are limited to PCI-E 2.0 x1 speeds. That isn't too much of an issue for an entry-level (as far as X79 goes) motherboard; those wanting to use two-way SLI and then add an x4 device can use the lower PCI-E 3.0 slot which would be spare. The standard affair of headers is located along the X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard's bottom-edge. Front panel headers are edged to a more centralised location than usual, due to the fact that two USB 2.0 connections and the internal USB 3.0 header occupy the board's bottom-right segment. Onboard buttons, in the form of an OC Genie II toggle and power switch, are positioned directly in the centre of the GD45-Plus' bottom-edge. If a graphics card is installed in the lower PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot, all of the bottom-edge inputs and connections will be impossible to access. With interference in mind, MSI would have been wise to place both the USB 3.0 header and onboard buttons in locations where they will not be fouled and rendered completely unusable. Other headers can retain function by having their connecting cables compressed against the graphics card, but the same cannot be said for the aforementioned components. A low-profile black and grey heatsink cools the X79 chipset. Its design coincides with the rest of the colour scheme for MSI's X79A-GD45 Plus. SATA connections are provided by the X79 chipset which means that users are allocated four SATA 3Gb/s ports and two capable of 6Gb/s transfers. MSI differentiates the 6Gb/s connections by giving them a squared structure. While two SATA 6Gb/s connections may be cutting it fine in today's storage age, MSI had to cut corners somewhere and rejecting add-on storage controllers was one of the most effective ways to keep costs down. A 4-pin molex connector is used to provide additional power to high-end multi-GPU configurations. Single card systems will not require the connector to be used. Users who demand effective cable management will be pleased to see that MSI gives the connector a right-angled orientation, allowing power leads to be hidden with ease. Given the X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard's entry-level pricing for the X79 platform, a basic set of rear IO connections is a by-product of cost-minimisations. A pair of USB 3.0 ports is provided by a Renesas D720202 controller while Intel's 82579V is used for Gigabit Ethernet. Multi-channel audio is provided by Realtek's ALC892 codec to which MSI also adds Sound Blaster Cinema support. Overclockers will be pleased to see MSI including a rear panel clear CMOS button - it adds very little cost to the board's design, but can save users from being inconvenienced. Motherboard rear ports: 1 x PS/2 Keyboard port 1 x PS/2 Mouse port 1x Clear CMOS button 1 x Coaxial SPDIF-out port 1 x Optical SPDIF-out port 1 x RJ45 LAN Jack 6 x USB 2.0 ports 2 x USB 3.0 ports 1 x 6 in 1 audio jack As circled above, five 4-pin fan headers are distributed around the X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard. Placing a header along the motherboard's bottom edge would have been useful to users with side-panel fans. As previously mentioned, an additional CPU fan header would have also proved useful. Firstly, we are pleased to report that our Roccat Kone XTD mouse worked to its usual standard in the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard's UEFI BIOS. This is a positive point as we have experienced problems when using certain mice in the UEFI BIOS of other motherboards in the past. We tested an NZXT Avatar S mouse with the interface but it did not work (the mouse's fault). Issues could be caused for users with a mouse that doesn't work inside the UEFI; MSI's interface relies on the mouse function more than many of its competitors' implementations. The main page of MSI's UEFI BIOS displays a good amount of information relating to temperatures, frequencies, and boot device priorities. It also provides quick access to the interface's main sub-sections. Connected SATA devices and the amount of physical memory installed are displayed on the system status page. The hardware monitor page displays operating temperatures and allows fan speed parameters to be tweaked. We like MSI's method for controlling the CPU fan header; a user can select a desired CPU temperature and then set the minimum fan speed (all of the way down to 0%) that will be used while the target is being achieved. Plenty of frequency, multiplier, and voltage parameters can be tweaked via the overclocking section. Unfortunately, the interface isn't the best we have seen - readouts are mixed in with parameters that can be changed. We would prefer the readouts to be placed in a separate column, adjacent to their relating parameter's input box. Asus and ASRock use a style which separates the parameters and inputs and it combines to form a good-looking interface which is easy to use. When conducting our overclocking tests, we noticed that MSI's motherboard does not update the frequency of memory dividers when the base clock is changed. For example, we increased the base clock to 125MHz, selected the 1600MHz memory option, and were given a 2000MHz memory speed (which was displayed beneath the memory frequency input box, NOT on the options list). A plethora of DRAM Timings can be tweaked via a specific section. Up to six overclocking profiles can be saved to the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard. Each profile can be given an individual name and the date of its build is also displayed. If six save points isn't enough, or if you want to share somebody else's settings, profiles can be imported and exported via a USB flash drive. The X79A-GD45 Plus' main utilities are HDD backup, Live Update, and M-Flash. We used the M-Flash utility to upgrade the board's BIOS for overclocking testing. Unlike many of its competitors' implementations, M-Flash requires the BIOS file to be saved in the root folder of a USB flash drive. Overall, the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard's UEFI BIOS is well-equipped and generally easy to use. The overclocking section is a little untidy, with input parameters mixed in with readouts, but it is by no means unusable and will become more straightforward with practise. There are a few irritating factors, such as a memory frequency options box that doesn't update with a changed base clock and the M-Flash utility that only reads from a USB drive's root folder, but these are not major issues and are easy for MSI to fix. To test the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus, we teamed it with an Intel Core i7 4960X processor and 16GB of 2133MHz CL9 memory from G.Skill. We will be outlining the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard's performance with the Core i7 4960X CPU at its stock frequency of 3.6GHz (4.0GHz due to forced turbo). Overclocked performance will be outlined later in the review. Unfortunately, we don't have performance figures (using identical components) from any other X79 motherboards to compare against the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus. As we build up our X79 motherboard performance database using the Core i7 4960X processor, we will include comparison figures to outline performance differences. By default, the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard forces the 4960X to a constant 4.0GHz when XMP is enabled. This will be displayed as the ‘stock’ setting (and outlined in the charts' brackets after the non-turbo stock speed is displayed). Gigabyte kindly extended our loan of the company's excellent GTX 780 WindForce OC graphics card which we reviewed here. Later in the review, we will be combining the ultra fast card with a 2560 x 1600 monitor and focusing on the gaming performance offered by some of today's most common CPUs, using the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus as the foundation for our LGA 2011 testing. G.Skill sent over a 16GB quad-channel set of its 2133MHz CL9 RipjawsX memory to use with our X79 test system. We will use the fast quad-channel memory kit in our future X79 motherboard reviews to ensure that results are consistent and directly comparable. X79 Motherboard Test System: Processor: Intel Core i7 4960X 3.60GHz (4.00GHz forced turbo). Memory: 16GB (4x 4GB) G.Skill RipjawsX (F3-2133C9Q-16GXL) 2133MHz 9-11-11-31. Graphics Card: Gigabyte GTX 780 WindForce OC 3GB. System Drive: 256GB SanDisk Ultra Plus. CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i. Case: NZXT Phantom 630. Power Supply: Seasonic Platinum 1000W. Operating System: Windows 7 Professional with SP1 64-bit. Settings: MSI X79A-GD45 Plus BIOS 7760 V15. GeForce 326.80 VGA drivers. Software Suite: 3DMark 3DMark 11 PCMark 8 Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 SiSoft Sandra 2013 SP4 Cinebench R11.5 64 bit Cinebench R15 64 bit Super Pi WinRAR VLC Media Player 2.0.7 CyberLink Media Espresso 6.7 HandBrake 0.9.9 ATTO Battlefield 3 Bioshock Infinite DIRT Showdown Hitman Absolution Metro 2033 Metro: Last Light Sleeping Dogs Tomb Raider PCMark 8 is the latest version in the popular series of PC benchmarking tools. Improving on previous releases, PCMark 8 includes battery life measurement tools and new tests using popular applications from Adobe and Microsoft. Whether you are looking for long battery life, or maximum power, PCMark 8 helps you find the devices that offer the perfect combination of efficiency and performance for your needs. We run the 'conventional' test for our benchmarking procedure. MSI's X79A-GD45 Plus has no problems helping our system to a strong score with the latest version of PCMark 8. 3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads. If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page. Combined with a 4960X and Gigabyte's GTX 780, our MSI X79A-GD45 Plus-based system delivers over 13,000 points in 3DMark 11. 3DMark is Futuremark's latest benchmark. It can be used to benchmark and compare everything from mobile devices, such as smart phones, tablets and laptops, to high-end gaming systems. The benchmark is available for Windows, Windows RT Android and iOS. With 3 separate tests, each of which is intended to be used alongside a specific classification of hardware, 3DMark is a very versatile benchmark. Ice Storm is intended to be used with mobile devices, Cloud Gate is good for use with laptops and home PCs, and Fire Strike can be used to push the performance of gaming PCs. We used the 'Fire Strike' benchmark which is designed to be used on gaming PCs. We opted for the Normal setting, NOT the Extreme mode. MSI's X79A-GD45 Plus helps the i7 4960X to a physics score of over 15,000. Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand. Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk. Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable: Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems Multicore CPU support Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles) Powerful C++ API Comprehensive performance profiling system Flexible XML-based data structures With a 2560 x 1600 resolution and mid-to-high settings, MSI's motherboard helps deliver over 52 FPS from the Unigine Heaven benchmark. SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software. Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting. It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc. Native ports for all major operating systems are available: Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86) Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64) Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64) Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01) Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02) All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of: SMP – Multi-Processor MC – Multi-Core SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86 IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit Sandra's processor and memory bandwidth tests show strong performance numbers that are exactly where we would expect them to be for our 4960X chip. CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more. CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all - it’s completely free. The MSI-based system scores almost 12 points in Cinebench R11.5, when combined with a 4960X processor. CINEBENCH R15 64 Bit is a cross-platform testing suite that measures hardware performance and is the de facto standard benchmarking tool for leading companies and trade journals for conducting real-world hardware performance tests. With the new Release 15, systems with up to 256 threads can be tested. CINEBENCH is available for both Windows and OS X and is used by almost all hardware manufacturers and trade journals for comparing CPUs and graphics cards. Version R15 of MAXON's Cinebench software shows our system to be hitting over 1070 points in its rendering test. Super Pi is used by a huge audience, particularly to check stability when overclocking processors. If a system is able to calculate PI to the 2 millionth place after the decimal without mistake, it is considered to be stable in regards to RAM and CPU. We used Super Pi's '32M' benchmark setting. Thanks to its forced turbo implementation, the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus allows our IVB-E processor to deliver a Super Pi 32M run of just over eight-and-a-half minutes. WinRar is one of the most popular archive manager programs available. It can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format. You can try WinRAR before buy, its trial version is available in downloads. WinRar’s built in benchmark and hardware test can help us outline the performance of a system. WinRAR's built-in benchmark delivers a resulting speed of over 12MB/s. The Matroska Media container is a very popular, open standard multimedia container which is usually found as .MKV files. It is a very popular format in enthusiast circles and can be played directly in VLC or Windows Media Player with suitable codecs installed. We played our 1080P MKV rip of The Dark Knight using the latest version of VLC Media Player. MSI's X79A-GD45 Plus keeps our 4960X processor running efficiently, as proven by the minimalistic 3% load required for HD MKV playback. CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats. Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology. New and Improved Features Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously. Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention. Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices. Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment. Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A. Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier. For our testing today we are converting a 4.4GB 720p MKV file (1h:58mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power. Hardware acceleration is disabled to provide an accurate interpretation of the CPU performance. Media Espresso conversion times are right where we would expect them to be for our test system. The MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard doesn't cause any glaring issues. HandBrake is a fantastic free program that can be used to convert video files to many common formats for portable devices. HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multi-threaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. We used the latest V 0.9.9 version. For our testing today we are converting a 4.4GB 720p MKV file (1h:58mins) to MP4 format, using HandBrake's 'Normal' profile, for playback on High-Resolution devices. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power. As was the case with the Media Espresso conversion test, Handbrake's performance is where we would expect it to lie. The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage. Our testing uses a Kingston HyperX 3K SSD. Using the SATA 6Gb/s ports wired to the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard's X79 chipset, transfer rates of over 500MB/s are achievable. With its emergence as the new standard for high-speed portable devices, USB 3.0 performance on a modern motherboard needs to be good to ensure that data transferral bottlenecks aren't created. We tested USB 3.0 performance using an ADATA SP300 SSD connected to an Icy Box IB-223StU3 USB 3.0 enclosure (ASMedia ASM1051 controller). ATTO was the benchmark used. Due to its absence of UASP-activating software, the USB 3.0 transfer rates using MSI's X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard are not particularly strong. It would seem that the Renesas D720202 USB 3.0 controllers are not as strong as their ASMedia counterparts - not when used on the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard, at least. According to EA, Battlefield 3 garnered 3 million pre-orders by the day of its release. It is unknown at present whether these figures are worldwide or just for the US. The pre-order total makes it “the biggest first-person shooter launch in EA history”, according to the publisher. The engine is beautiful on the PC and very demanding of the partnering hardware. We used the game's demanding 'Ultra' setting and a 2560 x 1600 resolution to push today's gaming hardware. Battlefield 3's maximum settings at a 2560 x 1600 resolution show minor performance differences between each tested CPU. Intel's Haswell flagship is clearly the strongest part, with both of the company's HEDT chips equalling one another's performance. AMD's FX-8350 is behind the Intel competitors, albeit it by an almost negligible margin. Set in 1912, in Bioshock Infinite, players assume the role of former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt, sent to the flying city of Columbia on a rescue mission. His target? Elizabeth, imprisoned since childhood. We used the game's demanding 'Ultra' setting and a 2560 x 1600 resolution to push today's gaming hardware. Our data was recorded using a section of the game, not the built-in benchmark. Bioshock Infinite paints a similar picture to Battlefield 3, but this time the gap between AMD's chip and its Intel competitors is amplified. Dirt Showdown is the latest title in the franchise from Codemasters, based around the famous Colin McRae racing game series, although it no longer uses his name, since he passed away in 2007. We used the game's maximum settings and a 2560 x 1600 resolution. Our data was recorded using the game's built-in benchmark. Dirt Showdown shows all of the non-Haswell chips to have tied performance, with the 4770K leading the pack by a solid margin. Hitman: Absolution is an action-adventure stealth game developed by IO Interactive and published by Square Enix. It is the fifth entry in the Hitman game series, and runs on IO Interactive’s proprietary Glacier 2 game engine. Before release the developers conveyed that Absolution would be easier to play and more accessible, while still retaining hardcore aspects of the franchise. We used the game's maximum settings and a 2560 x 1600 resolution. Our data was recorded using the game's built-in benchmark. Hitman: Absolution also shows the 4770K to be the strongest gaming CPU of the competitors that we put on show. Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter video game with survival horror elements, based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. The game is played from the perspective of Artyom, the player-character. The story takes place in post-apocalyptic Moscow, mostly inside the metro system, but occasionally missions bring the player above-ground. We used a 2560 x 1600 resolution and the game's built-in benchmark set to 'Very High' quality to offer an intense challenge for the gaming hardware while also making playable frame rates a possibility. Metro 2033's intensive benchmark proves a tough challenge for the AMD FX-8350; a gap opens up between itself and the Intel processors. Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, proceeding from the ending where Artyom chose to call down the missile strike on the Dark Ones. The Rangers have since occupied the D6 military facility, with Artyom having become an official member of the group. Khan, the nomad mystic, arrives at D6 to inform Artyom and the Rangers that a single Dark One survived the missile strike. 4A Games’ proprietary 4A Engine is capable of rendering breathtaking vistas, such as those showing the ruined remnants of Moscow, as well as immersive indoor areas that play with light and shadow, creating hauntingly beautiful scenes akin to those from modern-day photos of Pripyat’s abandoned factories and schools. We used a 2560 x 1600 resolution and the game's built-in benchmark set to 'High' quality to offer an intense challenge for the gaming hardware while also making playable frame rates a possibility. In Metro: Last Light's benchmark, the AMD FX-8350 fairs better against Intel's hexa-core processors, but the 4770K widens its lead at the top. Sleeping Dogs started development as an original title, but was announced in 2009 as True Crime: Hong Kong, the third instalment and a reboot of the True Crime series. As a result of the game’s high development budget and delays, it was cancelled by Activision Blizzard in 2011. Six months later, it was announced that Square Enix had picked up the publishing rights to the game, but the game was renamed Sleeping Dogs in 2012 since Square Enix did not purchase the True Crime name rights. We used a mixture of the game's 'Extreme' and 'High' settings and a 2560 x 1600 resolution. Our data was recorded using the game's built-in benchmark. Sleeping Dogs shows the performance of the four chips on test to be identical. Differences of no more than a few tenths of a frame occur. After a delayed release from late 2012 to March 2013, the game received much anticipation and hype. Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far. We used the game's 'Ultra' preset and a 2560 x 1600 resolution. Our data was recorded using the game's built-in benchmark. Tomb Raider shows the Intel six-core and AMD eight-core processors to be trailing Intel's 4770K by a small margin. It's clear that games love the optimisations brought with Haswell's newer architecture. Automatic CPU Overclocking: We applied MSI OC Genie II automated overclocking configuration via the BIOS option. OC Genie II automatically set our 4960X processor's CPU frequency to 4.0GHz. Given that the forced turbo parameters push the IVB-E chip to its maximum multiplier (40x) at 'stock' settings, OC Genie II wasn't really overclocking our system. The OC Genie II settings can be tweaked to provide overclocked parameters at the push of a button. This is somewhat contradictory to the point of an automated overclocking procedure, but it does provide a quick and effective way of boosting system frequency, rather than loading a specific overclocking profile. MSI's OC Genie II settings were stable and didn't force our CPU to run at an overly-high temperature. We weren't particularly impressed by them, though. Perhaps with a lower-speed chip they would be able to work more effectively by boosting the processor frequency past its maximum 'stock' multiplier. Manual CPU Overclocking: We manually applied a number of voltage tweaks to test the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard's overclocking capabilities. Adjustments included a 1.425V CPU VCore, 1.300V System Agent (SA) voltage, A PLL voltage of 1.900V, and a CPU I/O voltage of 1.100V. These levels are unlikely to cause heat issues for an IVB-E processor when combined with a high-end cooler such as Corsair's H100i. The maximum stable CPU overclock that we could obtain was 4.5GHz when using a base clock of 125MHz and multiplier of 36x. We tried to hit 4.5GHz using the 100MHz base clock, but the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus would not POST with a 45x multiplier, despite our CPU being capable of utilising up to 46x. 4500MHz was achievable by way of a 125MHz base clock and 36x multiplier, but this required a 133MHz decrease in DRAM frequency to maintain absolute stability on the memory's part. 4.5GHz (125MHz x 36) with a memory frequency of 2000MHz is the main overclocked configuration that we will use for our performance testing. Our 4.5GHz validation can be viewed here. We did manage to boot at over 4500MHz using the 1.00x CPU BCLK strap, but stability was hit-or-miss with the increased baseclock. We also managed to boot at over 4600MHz using the 1.25x CPU strap, but again, stability was not present. Memory Overclocking: While a system’s maximum memory frequency may be heavily swayed by the CPU’s individual memory controller, the motherboard’s performance can also help to obtain higher speeds. We switched to a single stick of G.Skill's 2933MHz Trident X F3-2933C12D-8GTXDG memory, as well as a stick of ADATA's 2800MHz XPG V2 for validation purposes, to test the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard’s memory overclocking potential. These sticks both use Hynix MFR ICs in a single-sided configuration - a design that is intended for speeds so high that they are potentially out of reach for an IVB-E CPU's memory controller. To eliminate the CPU as a potential source of instability, we increased its voltage and used a multiplier of 40x. Memory-related voltage and settings tweaks included: CPU PLL voltage = 1.900V, System Agent (SA) voltage = 1.250V, CPU I/O voltage = 1.200V, DRAM voltage = 1.650V. XMP was disabled and timings were manually set to the memory sticks' default settings. By using the above settings and voltages, we managed to reach a 2400MHz DRAM frequency with ease. We pushed on for 2666MHz using a 100MHz BCLK but could not reach the frequency, even when SA voltage was increased to 1.300V and DRAM voltage was set as 1.6950V. Loosened timings on both kits couldn't get us a POST at 2666MHz with a 100MHz BCLK, either. As was the case with Asus' X79-Deluxe motherboard, the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus hit a maximum DRAM frequency of 2400MHz, using a 100MHz BCLK. With both of the X79 motherboards that have accompanied our 4960X chip hitting a DRAM frequency wall at 2400MHz, it would be fair to say that this is the limit of our processor's IMC while using the 100MHz base clock. Our validation with the G.Skill Trident X F3-2933C12D-8GTXDG memory running at 2400MHz can be viewed here. In order to drain more megahertz from the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard's maximum memory frequency, we utilised a 125MHz base clock to overcome multiplier limitations. Upon switching to the 1.25x BCLK ratio and using a 125MHz base clock, we were able to push the DRAM frequency to 2666MHz using the tweaked voltage settings listed above. 2933MHz proved a step too far, but this is almost certainly related to our particular chip's IMC. Our validation with the G.Skill Trident X F3-2933C12D-8GTXDG memory running at 2666MHz can be viewed here. We will outline the performance increases that can be obtained from using the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard to overclock our system. Our overclocked processor frequency was 4500MHz (36 x 125MHz) and memory frequency had to be reduced to 2000MHz. As we test more X79 motherboards, we will include comparison data to outline the performance differences of one board's overclocked configurations and results against those of competing products. 3DMark shows a marginal performance increase with the 500MHz CPU frequency boost. Physics performance clearly shows the greatest gain. Our system's Cinebench score increases by over 1.5 points when the 500MHz CPU speed increase is applied. Super Pi also shows a healthy performance boost when the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard is used to overclock our system. Media encoding tasks benefit greatly from the 500MHz CPU speed increase that MSI's motherboard helps to supply our system with. At 2560 x 1600, the emphasis on graphics horsepower far outweighs the effect of a 500MHz CPU frequency boost. Our tested games offer the same frame rate, irrelevant of CPU frequency. We measured the power consumption with the system resting at the Windows 7 desktop, representing idle values. The power consumption of our entire test system is measured at the wall while loading only the CPU using Prime95′s Small FFTs setting. The rest of the system’s components were operating in their idle states, hence the increased power consumption values (in comparison to the idle figures) are largely related to the load on the CPU and motherboard power delivery components. MSI's power delivery system doesn't needlessly waste energy, thanks to its high-quality Military Class III power delivery components. Power consumption figures for our 4960X test system are very similar to those that we saw when using Asus' X79-Deluxe motherboard. The MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard is a solid, cost-effective solution that makes an entrance into the X79 platform that bit more affordable. Overclocking performance of the X79A-GD45 Plus is solid, but not quite good enough to push our 4960X CPU to its limits. Using the 1.00x CPU strap, our processor multiplier hit a wall at 44x. Garnering stability at anything higher than 4400MHz required the use of a 1.25x CPU strap. Switching to a 125MHz base clock, the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus did manage to take our 4960X processor to 4.5GHz with complete stability, but this resulted in a forced decrease to memory frequency. While 4.5GHz isn't as high as the level that Asus' more expensive X79-Deluxe took our 4960X to, we can't complain about hitting 4.5GHz with an entry-level X79 motherboard. Performance-wise, the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus doesn't have any glaring issues. Benchmark numbers were exactly where we expected them to be and SATA 6Gb/s performance was restriction-free. USB 3.0 throughput was fairly lacklustre due to the omission of a UASP-activating tool. The Renesas D720202 controllers may not have the best implementation on MSI's motherboard, either. In terms of features, the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus is more bare than what we have come to expect from a circa-£150 motherboard. The X79 chipset itself is an expensive solution to implement, so MSI has worked hard to keep the GD45 Plus' price low and does so by limiting the number of add-on features. Four USB 3.0 ports is likely to suffice for a large number of people, while only a pair of SATA 6Gb/s ports may be more of an issue for some. There's no fancy WiFi or Bluetooth support nor is a particularly high-end audio chip used. Thanks to the LGA 2011 processors' 40 PCI-E lanes, the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus is able to offer 3-way CrossFire and SLI. Eight DIMM slots also enhance the board's upgrade potential. Priced at £144.68 from Aria, the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus is sat very close to the market-entry price point for an X79 solution. Given its use of the X79 chipset, you get a solid, multi-GPU capable board for less than £150. Gigabyte and ASRock do offer stiff competition in this market segment, but the attractive MSI X79A-GD45 Plus has the performance and concise feature set to make it a smart buy. Pros: Generally good layout decisions. 3-way CrossFire/SLI support. Attractive colour scheme. High-quality power delivery components - Military Class III. Eight DIMM slots. Solid memory overclocking performance. Cost-effective solution. Cons: Not the best USB 3.0 header positioning. USB 3.0 performance isn't great. BIOS layout could use some improvements. Two SATA 6Gb/s ports may not be enough for some users. KitGuru says: The MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard's solid performance and concise feature set make it worth buying if you're looking to opt for X79 on a budget.