MSI Big Bang-XPower II X79 Review – A World of Novelty Heatsinks
by Ian Cutress on February 25, 2012 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- MSI
- X79
Aliens vs. Predator Benchmark
Aliens vs. Predator is a DirectX 11 science fiction first-person shooter video game, developed by Rebellion Developments. Available as a standalone benchmark, on default settings the benchmark uses 1920x1080 with high AF settings. Results are reported as the average frame rate across 4 runs.
Dirt 3
Dirt 3 is a rallying video game and the third in the Dirt series of the Colin McRae Rally series, developed and published by Codemasters. Using the in game benchmark, Dirt 3 is run at 1920x1080 with full graphical settings. Results are reported as the average frame rate across 4 runs.
Metro2033
Metro 2033 is a challenging DX11 benchmark that challenges every system that tries to run it at any high-end settings. Developed by 4A Games and released in March 2010, we use the inbuilt DirectX 11 Frontline benchmark to test the hardware at 1920x1080 with full graphical settings. Results are given as the average frame rate from 10 runs.
GPU Conclusions
While the MSI Big Bang-XPower II doesn't light up any of our gaming tests, it's never far behind in any of them. Technically the worst result is in dual GTX 580s for Dirt3, where the board is in the middle of the pack at 130.91 FPS, compared to our best result of 135.31 FPS.
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Iketh - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
I disagree. Onboard X-Fi is far better than the regular ALC codecs, and I'm saying that with my living room computer using a $160 shielded X-Fi PCIe card and my personal desktop using the Asus ROG. I can't tell the difference between the 2 using the same 5.1 setup.I'm also not touching Asus' sound solutions just based on reviews of their products at retailers. Granted, I haven't looked at every model from them.
I agree that I'd rather not have any sound solution on the motherboard, unless of course it's a full discreet solution integrated in the board. But like I said, I'm very happy with the X-Fi chip in the ROGs.
Iketh - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
Also, what daughter card are you speaking of? Asus has the X-Fi on the board, and that's on a micro-atx form factor.DanNeely - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
Intel NICs are more expensive than Marvell/Realtek NICs and very few people actually know enough to care.TerdFerguson - Saturday, February 25, 2012 - link
That the reviewer very mistakenly thinks that BIOS flashback, SSD caching, better fan controls, and an auto-overclock system are worth $70 alone illustrates how worthless his opinions and reviews are to me and to most users.OwnedKThxBye - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
You illustrate how worthless your opinion is by not being able to read the review correctly.The board looks great apart from the heatsinks. Love the review Ian.
Sabresiberian - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
The MSI mainboard is also capable of quad SLI, whereas the Asus board is not.As far as someone who likes to call himself "TerdFerguson" speaking for most other Anandtech users - I suggest your opinion of yourself is grossly over-inflated. The only fault that I find hear is that some Anandtech moderator hasn't required you to change your name to something less tasteless.
;)
IceDread - Monday, February 27, 2012 - link
You do not care about micro stuttering do you? Using three graphic cards... no thanks.pandemonium - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
Umm, what?"Amazingly, the three-way setup has a tremendous advantage over two cards in CrossFire."
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce...
Sabresiberian - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
It's good to see MSI producing top-level boards again. Most of my builds pre-Nehalem were based on MSI products, but my last 2 builds were not in part because MSI had nothing competitive to offer at the time (for my particular purposes). Good job MSI!;)
thetuna - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
"This is in comparison to the audio, which is only the ALC898"What's that X-Fi I see?