Introduction

Update: After running into some odd performance related issues when first testing our board in conjunction with FutureMark's PCMark Vantage, we contacted MSI to see if they could give reason for what was crippling the board in this testing suite. MSI hadn't gotten back to us until just a short time ago.

Thankfully, these performance oddities are not a trait of the board itself. We have ascertained that it was a driver specific issue and with the board being of such a high calibre and pleasing us in many other areas, we figured it was well worth a second chance.

With that said, we have re-ran our PCMark Vantage tests using updated drivers to make it clear that the board itself is not of hindrance; rather, the drivers were holding it back. You can view our full update with test results here.

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Back in the early days of the slot A Athlons, there was only one company that you could trust for both performance and stability. It was not ASUS, it was not GIGABYTE; it was MSI. Their boards were quite simply ahead of the game. When the Gold Finger devices came out, again MSI was at the front of the others in support for advanced cooling and a few other features. But, after that MSI sort of went into hiding. Their products dropped in quality and even in prevalence on the market.

Today things appear to be changing; MSI has pushed out their Big Bang line of high performance motherboards. They are working to re-establish themselves in the component market. Products like the R5870 Lightning and Cyclone are getting the word out from the DIY crowd again.

We have the Big Bang XPower board in for a look. This board features six full x16 PCIe slots, THX and EAX Audio, Hi-quality caps, chokes and a host of other items that are sure to get you going. Let's take a look and see what we can get out of it.