MSI Big Bang XPower (X58 Express) Motherboard

Package and Contents

The Big Bang X58 XPower box is a little different from MSI's usual packaging. It is kind of eye catching. The front is glossy black with a gold design. There is very little other decoration on the front of the box. We do see a few logos along the bottom edge, but there is not a ton of the usual hard-sell.

For those of you that miss that marketing, fear not. After you open up the front flap you will find a bunch of it. This is in addition to a glimpse of XPower through a plastic window.

The back contains more of the heavy sell that we saw on the inside of the front flap.

Inside the box are two familiar looking black boxes. These hold the Big Bang XPower and all the goodies MSI has provided you.

After pulling these boxes out, I found something very interesting. There was a book and document in a sleeve that seemed to indicate how well this particular Big Bang XPower should perform.

The document listed a set of specs as well as a high BCLK and the multiplier they used to get there. There was a disclaimer saying that due to differences in hardware you might not see the same results, but I am also thinking this is a good thing.

I spoke with MSI and while they said the certification was at this time press only, they are considering to do this for all of their upper end motherboards. I think this would be a very good move.

You do get a huge load of loot with the XPower, though, as you can see from the stack we piled up in the picture above. One of the interesting things that came in the box is something we normally only see in a GIGABYTE box. This is a powered external SATA port with a Molex power connector.

MSI has also thrown in some nice little extenders for their voltage monitoring points on the board. These allow you to connect your leads a little more efficiently.

One item that MSI has added in gave me a little bit of a laugh. This is the OC Dashboard. I was not laughing because they included this; I was laughing at what it looked like. It looked almost exactly like my garage door opener. I hope that MSI refines this part and makes it look as good as it functions (we will cover this below).

Last on our list of fun gadgets is the Quantum Wave audio card. This is a THX, EAX 5.0 and Alchemy laden sound board that should help the audiophiles in the crowd enjoy their games more.