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MSI Big Bang Marshal Gaming Motherboard Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips

2011-04-10
bang yeah okay it sort of related this is the Big Bang Marshall so this has a three year warranty it is an MSI motherboard for gaming it uses the b3 revision chipset which means that it doesn't have the SATA to bug that plagued the original p67 boards and it supports Intel Core i7 Core i5 and core i3 processors on the LGA 1155 platform crossfire X and SLI technology are both supported by this particular motherboard and this is all about gaming check out that board it looks awesome but look at the board more later let's look at the features first so here we go it features the military class 2 concept from MSI which means you got super ferrite chokes highly conductive tantalum core capacitors as well as solid capacitors for up to a 10-year life time on this particular board top stability and quality that's good ultimate 3d gaming performance you can see that I got four graphics cards installed on it right here ok USB 3.0 and say 2 6 3 gigabit per se 2 3 6 gigabit per second click BIOS which means it has a UEFI bios which is fully compatible with your mouse for changing all your BIOS settings and inner workings and whatnots ok finally uh this I already outlined when you're talking about military class 2 soundblaster x-fi mb 2 so features EAX advance on what MB 2 stands for if anyone knows what MV 2 stands for please leave it in the comments and somebody thumbs it up please so we can all see it next on the back we have dr. Moss three-in-one server grade MOSFETs MSI has been using these for a number of generations now and they keep stepping up their game providing better power delivery to your CPU with every generation of products superpipe is something on the big fan of probably performs better but really it just looks sweet because it's got big old fat thick heat pipes OC Genie one-second overclocking this is another feature I'm actually a big fan if you just press the button and it over clocks and then you can grow into the more advanced overclocking features of the board that you choose OC dashboard is kind of useful I have one with my Big Bang X power you can like press the button and change the B clock and whatnot 24 phase dr. Maas PWM so 24 power phases on this board is it over kill yes is it cool yes eight PCIe 16x slots is it overkill yes is it necessary no is it cool yes multi BIOS so we have multiple BIOS chips on this particular board PCIe cease fire is what they're calling their switches for turning on or off your PCIe slots this allows you to more easily diagnose your any video card issues or display issues you may be having with your motherboard dual eight pin CPU power connectors allow you to deliver a whole lot of juice to your CPU should you desire and let's go ahead first we have dramatic pause accessories including a big Start Guide which is the size of me and the size of the board but bigger it shows you all what knots that are on it okay more of the exactly the same stuff that was already on the packaging thank you on the side all right so let's put this over here just in case we can't you know see the board well enough oh no alright next we have the OC dashboard right there plus/minus mode you can use it to change a bunch of different settings it plugs in via this okay it's actually kind of useful I hadn't used it in the past there's the cable for it okay next we have one of those eSATA as well as an adapter plug from the molex power here which plugs into your power supply to dual SATA powers so this is actually a really cool little thing because you can just take bear hard drives and plug them into the back here system and easily access the data with the included eSATA cable does that nice a Q SATA cable is it what the heck oh yeah it is okay eSATA it to SATA cable and then this particular little power adapter alright good feature next we have a USB 3.0 IO panel as well as another one so you can plug in two via the internal headers for up to four additional ports coming out the back of your case we've got one two three four SATA 3 6 gigabit per second SATA cable as well as a couple of molex power to SATA power we have an i/o shield we have V checkpoints okay so these can be plugged in to check voltages we've got the M connector which allows you to plug in your front USB your speaker's your front power all that good stuff a little bit more easily SLI connector no idea guys sorry looks like a pass-through for something so there's a little rubber grommet and then there's a little spot to put the rubber grommet and something probably passes through to the back okay quick installation guide drivers and utilities 3d mark 11 serial very nice inclusion so you can benchmark your new high-performance system as soon as you get your big bang Marshall setup here's an overclocking guide look at that that's kind of neat I've never seen this included before overview some OC info but the new p67 platform military class materials multi graphics cards gaming design PCIe C's far so to show you how to use the overclocking features of this board that's actually a very helpful inclusion because a lot of guys produce overclocking boards but not a whole lot of them actually document in such a detailed manner what to do huh so it supports up to 4-way ATI crossfire X and nvidia sli so it does not purport no it does not support as well as yeah it does not support greater than two way and vidya sli because it actually uses a lucid hydrologic chip in order to get all those PCIe lanes split out rather than using an NF 200 chip software applications as well as the big bang marshall user guide the Box got a little bit demented in shipping but we're not going to take off any marks for that one today I mean I never take marks off a product that's just not really something I say Oh mark software this I won't be taking off any marks okay the Big Bang Marshall this is a massive massive motherboard so actually give me two seconds I'm gonna go find a board to compare for you guys this is an XL ATX board which makes an ATX board look like an M ATX board so this is a standard sized motherboard and this is not a standard sized motherboard so you will need a special case in order to run your Big Bang Marshall motherboard if you get one which you lucky dog good work okay I'm just gonna take off the one second overclocking sticker so we can have a more clear look at the motherboard itself so why don't we start right here in the middle with the socket this is our LGA 1155 socket it uses a lote socket which is good i'm till LED to understand okay we have our 24 phase power design all around it but you can actually see that all of the heat sinks all of the power components all that stuff is actually very low-profile around that socket so you should be able to install some pretty exotic cooling solutions on this board without any clearance issues whatsoever I love the overall look of MSI's recent MOSFET Northbridge heat sinks look at this super pipe it's like ridiculous it's like look at it compared to like a stubby finger it's like huge awesome I love super pipe probably does nothing for performance but it's there and it's cool so that's not it alright let's have a look here so we've got our 2 8 pin CPU power connectors ok moving along we have our where is the CPU yeah our CPU fan connector we've got support for a dual channel ddr3 memory ok this allows us to turn on and off PCI graphics one two three or four okay so this is on so clearly this is not on ok we have moving down we have our voltage check points which hopefully there's some documentation somewhere in the motherboard manual or something like that for which ones are which we have our 24 pin power connector and it's ideal location along the right-hand edge of the board we've also got a couple of USB 3 front panel connectors so these can be used to plug into the front of your case or into those in back panel brackets SATA 3 6 gigabit per second quartz so we have to running off of the Intel chipset as well as to running off a third party looks like a Marvel chipset then we have four SATA to three gigabit per second ports as well front panel USB this is an innovation here they are at the front of the board I like that so this is actually closer to your front panel than having it all along the bottom edge where we would typically find USB 2 headers I like that a lot actually we've got a power connector resets our power connector power switch reset switch we've also got OC Genie button as well as a multi bias button so presumably this will select one of our multi BIOS chips to boot from and this one is going to OneTouch overclock your system here we have our post indicator LED so that'll tell you if you have any problems with your board when you're trying to boot up and finally moving along we have our front panel connectors so that's your power switch power LED all that good stuff we have smart LED stuff we've got firewire we've got front panel audio there's the x5 mb2 sticker that appears to be on the board ok PCI Express slots so eight because this is a non-standard board is actually nine PCI slots high but they're not using the first one that there is potential for here there are 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 PCIe 16x slot however they do not all run at PCIe 16x so let us pull up the manual and we'll go through that for you so running in two-way mode you would use the top PCIe 1x aren't top you take you on top PCIe 16x slot and then the 1 2 3 and then the 4th PCIe 1x slot so that means if you're running 2 way you could all you could use even triple slot graphics cards such as the asou triple slot gtx 470 so remember it supports crossfire and sli into a mode in 3-way mode you would use this one this one and this one running in 8 8 and 16 x mode and in 4 way you would use this one this one this one and this one running in 8x mode so for the full guide you can actually consult this I mean this is fantastic there little overclocking guide here to find out what bandwidth each slot is going to run at in the various graphics configuration modes okay so here we have an auxilary power connector this is a 6 pin PCI II power connector so if you are gonna load it up with graphics cards it's definitely a good idea to plug that in to keep your 24 pin power connector from getting fried from so much current running through it to power these cards other than that I think that's pretty much everything there is to say about the Big Bang Marshall on the back you find more power circuitry you find your standard back plate as well as not a whole lot else you can see that all of the coolers are held on with screws so that means you don't have to deal with any stupid pushpins which I hate and I really do prefer to see these spring-loaded screws because you won't run into any issues with them getting worn out if you ever have to take them off and put them back on say to replace the thermal compound or whatever else the case may be on the back yes that is 8 USB 3.0 ports yes this board supports a total of no fewer than 12 USB 3.0 ports pretty sweet ok so we've got a ps2 keyboard mouse combo port we've got a digital audio out in coaxial and optical flavours firewire eSATA times 2 gigabit ethernet times 2 as well as 7.1 audio so thank you for checking out my unboxing of the msi Big Bang marshall don't forget to subscribe to Linus tech tips for unboxings reviews and other computer videos
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