Test Setup
We selected the ASUS ENGTX260 video card for GPU duties. It is a non-reference design that offers improved thermals and acoustics over the standard NVIDIA GTX 260 216 designs. The WD Caviar Black 640GB is our hard drive of choice for storage purposes. LG’s GGC-H20L and Sony’s BDU-X10S Blu-ray playback capable drives fills in for optical duties. We purchased Patriot’s impressive DDR3-2000 C8 6GB kit for memory duties. This kit features the Elpida Hyper ICs that are required at this point for high memory clocks with low voltages. We used 6GB in our standard benchmarks with the memory speed set to DDR3-1600 and 7-8-7-20 1T timings at 1.6V. We chose the Scythe SCSK-1100 for our standard air-cooling results and for overclocking up to the 160 Bclk range. This cooler features a low profile design with quiet operation and good cooling characteristics, which is perfect for a basic SFF setup. Vigor Gaming provided their Monsoon III LT CPU and we utilized it for our 200 Bclk and up testing.
Our standard power supply is the excellent Corsair HX520, and considering our standard test bed is limited to a single video card this power supply works perfectly. We did toss in the Thermaltake W0116RU 750W for SLI testing since it supports the necessary PCIe connectors. NZXT sent us the new PANZERBOX case that really turned out to be an excellent pairing with our uATX setup. We decided to try some extreme air based overclocking and turned to the Thermaltake Spedo for additional airflow opportunities in our 21x230 test setup. We utilized the ASUS VH242H 23.6" 1920x1080 LCD monitor for display duties. Finally, we have dropped Vista 64-bit and moved to the Windows 7 64-bit RC for our testing today - it just works better.
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harbin - Friday, July 24, 2009 - link
This mobo turbo throttles, if that gets fixed, I'll buy one for sure.kenco - Friday, July 17, 2009 - link
I think it's brilliant that the holes are there to use s775 coolers. I have a Scythe Ninja (rev.B iirc) sat doing nothing. Do you reckon this'll be okay for a spot of overclocking? I'm a bit loathe to try on the retail hsf as I can see a wall (temperatures) being hit fairly quickly. Also - would Artic Ceramique work okay to replace the gunk under the chipset heatsink? The only other thing that concerns me is there's no pwm heatsink.. and there are no holes around there either. Would thermal tape be enough to transfer heat to a few dinky little heatsinks?A lorra questions - hope someone's tried one or more already and had success :)
RagingDragon - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 - link
It has mounting holes for a PWM heatsink - according to the article this board is compatible with the PWM heatsinks used on MSI's full size X58 boards.AsYouWish - Sunday, June 14, 2009 - link
On page 2 of your article you list the bios revsion on this board as 3.1. I have recently purchased the MSI X58M and no voltage adjustment options are available and the board overvolts the cpu terribly on overclocks (1.35+ volts). The only bios that I see available on the MSI website is revision 1.2 and that is the version that shipped on the board. I am curious as to where you acquired 3.1 bios.Tomzi - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
I can see BIOS 3.0 on MSI support. Try this, maybe it helps.http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=downloaddetail&a...">http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=downl...bios&...
AsYouWish - Thursday, June 18, 2009 - link
Thanks for replying, the 3.0 bios did show up the day after I wrote that (or that's when I noticed they were there). I'm starting to think that I'm missing something here. I updated to the 3.0 and still have the same issue.AsYouWish - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
Just to assure anyone considering this board, silly mistake on my part. I do have all the control over voltages that I require. This is what I get for taking a year off from pc building and tweaking.wetwareinterface - Thursday, May 28, 2009 - link
Too many reviews of Gigabyte products or a brain fart probably but on page 1 you state it has "RTL8111C Gigabyte LAN". You do mean Gigabit lan correct?Otherwise interesting article and an interesting budget core I-7 motherboard (never thought I'd be saying that this year).
ICBM - Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - link
It is a shame SiS is not making any chipsets for Core i7. I assume they do not have a license. Talk about the perfect chance!I would think it would be similar to the situation when the i850 was Intel's main chipset, and before i865/875. SiS really offered some great alternative solutions, and motherboard makers actually offered decent motherboards based on their chipsets.
Competition is greatly needed in the Core i7 chipset market(or lack there of).
Just a thought....wish.
AssBall - Monday, May 25, 2009 - link
Does MSI have any plans for a board like this with integrated video? Getting a uATX board without integrated video seems strange. I'd love to see some cheap x58 with intel IGP.