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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aeternitas - Sunday, June 7, 2009 - link
Whats even more strange is thinking a SLi/CF motherboard regardless of size should have on-board video.Not to mention this is an i7 board. You're in the wrong place!
Mr Perfect - Sunday, May 24, 2009 - link
"We expect to see several new uATX designs when P55 hits the market later this year, if not mini-ITX designs based around it."If that's true, then let us know anything you find. While uATX is interesting, gameable M-ITX are unbelievably rare and/or expensive. On a standard ATX board, I use exactly one slot; the x16 PCIe. Needless to say, a M-ITX i5 or i7 board with one of those would be great to play with.
wicko - Sunday, May 24, 2009 - link
Too bad its lowest price is $220 here.. economy+markup = not fun!mmntech - Sunday, May 24, 2009 - link
Business as usual. It's worth noting that $220 CAD translates to $196 US; so we're paying $30 too much. Might still be worth it if it makes a good Hackintosh rig. Be nice to have something that powerful for running Final Cut.Staples - Sunday, May 24, 2009 - link
I am a fan of uATX. I don't desire 5 optical drives nor do I care for more than 2 hard drives. I have bought a few uATX boards in the past but the people who make Intel boards always put G31 or another subpar integrated chipset inside of them. There is no reason that the top of the line chipset can not fit inside a uATX board and work just as well as the crap they put in them today. I definitely welcome someone finally making a desirable motherboard in a uATX board.Per Hansson - Sunday, May 24, 2009 - link
Are we sure these boards support SLI?Crossfire is readily mentioned for these series of boards on MSI's homepage.
But SLI is not mentioned...
Only in the manual but there it looks very generic...
http://eu.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&main...">http://eu.msi.com/index.php?func=prodde...cat2_no=...
http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&mai...">http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=prodd...2_no=170...
http://global.msi.eu/index.php?func=proddesc&m...">http://global.msi.eu/index.php?func=pro...cat2_no=...
Gary Key - Monday, May 25, 2009 - link
SLI is fully supported with the upcoming Version 3 BIOS, which should be released this week. My FarCry 2 tests were run with SLI enabled. ;)Googer - Sunday, May 24, 2009 - link
Nice price on a motherboard, but the lack of legacy PCI (32) is a deal killer for me. I have an X-Fi that I would like to carry over to my new system.I could buy an Asus XONAR but at $200, I'd rather put that money towards something better and buy a $365 Asus with PCI and more features than buy a new sound card for an MSI board with only 4 expansion slots.
Kibbles - Sunday, May 24, 2009 - link
It has a regular PCI slot. It's the bottom one.plonk420 - Sunday, May 24, 2009 - link
i'm still a bit twirked off by my first negative MSI experience with my X58 Pro... i have a review on The Egg... it all boils down to the shoddy northbridge cooler. google "hot IOH" and you'll see how many people had issues...this LOOKS ok, but i gotta wonder since i've never had an issue with a NB ever before in my life...