We manually set a 133 MHz base clock with all power-saving features enabled during both our benchmark and power consumption tests. MSI wins big here with power consumption numbers that are close to those we’ve seen on less-overclockable products.

MSI makes a lot of noise about its Icy Choke design, but this is the first time we’ve seen it produce noticeably lower voltage regulator temperatures. This alone could explain the XPower’s lower power consumption.

A quick comparison of the total performance for today’s three motherboards shows a difference of only 1.25%, even though the clock speed difference between the top and bottom boards was only around 0.4%

Dividing average performance by average power consumption could get ugly:

MSI leads by a huge margin, a fact that should excite efficiency fans, such as our own Patrick Schmid.
- More Power!
- Features Comparison
- Asus Rampage III Extreme
- Rampage III Extreme BIOS
- Rampage III Extreme Utilities
- Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9
- GA-X58A-UD9 BIOS
- GA-X58A-UD9 Overclocking Utilities
- MSI Big Bang-XPower
- Big Bang-XPower BIOS
- Big Bang-XPower Overclocking Utilities
- Test Settings
- Benchmark Results: Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Crysis
- Benchmark Results: DiRT 2 Demo, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat
- Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Benchmark Results: Productivity
- Benchmark Results: Synthetic
- Overclocking
- Power, Heat, And Efficiency
- Conclusion
Ok, Hold on. Three Flagship LGA 1366 Boards and no overclocked power consumption results? These boards are obviously made for overclocking and those results would be very interesting to see.
The EVGA Classified SR-2 is based on the Intel 5520 chipset and uses Xeons, so it's not an X58 board technically speaking which is why it doesn't qualify.
If I could spend that much on a motherboard I'd have chosen the Rampage III Extreme, not only does it have good features it also has the best colour scheme. ^^
Does anyone know why I try to submit a comment it doesn't show up, and I have to use the forums instead to post a comment instead?
http://www.guru3d.com/news/quad-sli-on-asus-rampage-iii-extreme-is-not-possible/
Awesome, thanks. Manufacturers don't actually discuss this stuff.
Yeah... they are changing 1366 to some socket R... Well... At least I can look forward to these motherboards going down in price by next year when they go to Socket R's for performance than 1366's. I guess ill be happy with 1366's. Hopefully they go down by at least $100.
I don't like any of the motherboards PCI-e layouts. Its a top range board but only assumes to run 2 cards well. Then confuses the user by placing a bunch of half/quarter speed PCI-e slots. X8 on x16 lane is fine, but x4 is not.
While the SR2 is nice, I have no need for dual socket. As nice as it would be.
The only thing the UD9 is missing is three more DIMMs (9 total). I know some server boards have 9 DIMMs per CPU, why not any enthusiast boards?
I want the UD9, put 12GB RAM in it, two 5870's, a nice sound card and a nice NIC (when going extreme, may as well go the full way right?).
Too bad I quit my job and can't afford it now.
Can we ever expect 7/8 way SLI/CF drivers? I, for one, would love to use 7 single slot 5770's.
Also, no mention was made of the superior Intel Ethernet adapter in the R3E vs the crappy realtek ones in the other boards