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MSI Big Bang XPOWER Intel X58 motherboard review

Overclocking is often seen as a dark art and MSI have attempted to take some of the effort out of this by the inclusion of an OC Genie button on the motherboard.

Simply shut down the system, hit the button and it will light up in blue and work its magic. The chip will then automatically try and set the optimal overclock in a matter of a few seconds.

By doing this our system was overclocked to 4ghz, almost a 1.4ghz overclock without any effort ! We managed to improve upon this by raising the voltage to 1.425 and then our Core i7 920 was stable at 4.2ghz. To be honest, for most people that OC Genie button is going to be a lifesaver as we couldn't believe how well it actually worked, giving a rock solid overclocked system with minimal effort and huge gains in performance also. We would recommend you use a good cooler for this however, not the reference Intel solution.

We believe that the Big Bang product will not only be a great overclocking board for the experienced enthusiast, but that it will help inexperienced users to get to grips with overclocking. Studying the bios changes and settings required to get the most from the system. They even supply an overclocking guide in the box which gives a lot of basic pointers.

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20 comments

  1. bugger me with a bargepole, thats bloody impressive.

  2. MSi really are pulling out all the stops recently to get seen in high end circles. I think its working !

  3. Looks like a mega product again from MSI. price is high but I expected that after reading the review.

  4. 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.

  5. Very good review Zardon, thank you.

  6. 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.

  7. Seems to be low stock levels of this everywhere, must be popular or a low build rate for MSI.

  8. hard to get in some parts of the world, so ive heard, yah.

  9. They need to realise a board like this for the 1156 platform also. that platform has such crappy boards throughout the ranges.

  10. Good review and I was interested to see the power drain was lower than competiting products. thats always a good sign.

  11. 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.

  12. 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.

  13. 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.

  14. 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.

  15. Its impresive, but I feel ASUS still have the quality edge. the rampage board is the cream of the crop.

  16. @ 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.

  17. excellent, really excellent. way out of my price range, but I can dream

  18. 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

  19. Very good product, the price isnt as bad as I thought, I had surmissed it would be £320.

  20. 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.