MSI Makes Huge Entry into Overclocking

By Tuan An Nguyen
published

Pushing systems to the limit with liquid nitrogen.

MSI kicked off its Master Overclocking Arena (MOA) event today at Pole Position Raceway in Las Vegas. The event, the first major event of its kind by MSI, brings a certain air to MSI motherboards that was not previously there. Make no mistake though, whatever pre-conceived notions that you had about MSI motherboards can be chucked out the windows.


To demonstrate how serious it is about the stability and overclocking potential of its new line of motherboards, a large group of professional overclockers were invited to overclock and benchmark MSI's Big Bang-Xpower motherboard.

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Paired with an Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition, the players were also given a selection of hardware:

Motherboard: MSI Big Bang-XPower (X58 chipset)
BIOS: A7666IMS.148
Graphics Card: MSI N580GTX
Driver: 263.09 WHQL
Memory: Patriot Sector 7 PC3-1600 (3*2G)
HDD: Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000HLFS
PSU: Antec CP-1000

Tools being used:

CPU-Z V1.56
GPU-Z V0.48
CPU Tweaker V1.5
Maxon Cinebench V11.529
wPrime V1.55/V2.04
MSI Afterburner Setup 210MOA (V2.1.0 MOA)

Team's participating include:
- Over The Edge (USA)
- OCAlliance (USA)
- Team XS (USA)
- I2I3 Extreme (Brazil)
- Team Pure (USA)
- Team Overclockaholics (USA)
- Overclockers Anonymous (USA)
- I2I3 Overclocking Team (Brazil)

Overclockers were asked to log scores primarily using SuperPI 32M and 3DMark 2011. Keep in mind that the Big Bang-Xpower isn't part of MSI's newest line-up, which is called Big Bang Marshal -- a Sandy Bridge P67 based lineup coming out soon.

You can watch a live stream of the event on justin.tv here.

Check out some photos of the show!

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Tuan An Nguyen
17 Comments Comment from the forums
  • IzzyCraft
    MSI over the past few years has made a nice transition in my mind up to making quality products similar to asus, gigabyte, evga etc.
    Reply
  • mister g
    Wish that was backed up by decent driver support. Their updating tool doesn't even support Windows 7 64-bit.
    Reply
  • Wikiality
    Where's the babes?
    Reply
  • blibba
    MSI is coming out and saying in a press release that it has a shit reputation? Incredible.
    Reply
  • ares1214
    MSI FTW! They have been making massive steps in the right direction lately. Them and Asrock have been impressing me lately. Asus is charging a pretty penny for its boards, and Gigabyte is losing build quality in my experiences.
    Reply
  • techseven
    whatever pre-conceived notions that you had about MSI motherboards can be chucked out

    I have always had high opinon of MSI, rock-solid motherboards.
    Reply
  • woshitudou
    I wonder what type of sandwich that was
    Reply
  • buzznut
    ares1214MSI FTW! They have been making massive steps in the right direction lately. Them and Asrock have been impressing me lately. Asus is charging a pretty penny for its boards, and Gigabyte is losing build quality in my experiences.
    I agree with this statement completely. Only other thing I would say is Biostar has always served me well for a budget brand, they get kicked around a lot like msi, but offer compelling budget products.

    The only ASUS board I've bought was a crosshair 1 for $240. Biggest piece o crap I've ever dealt with.

    Thanks for the link, it is actually mildly entertaining. Can only watch LN2 smoke for so long though...
    Reply
  • dogman_1234
    Only thing I can think of is the song,"Push it to the Limit."
    Reply
  • ben850
    Have been seriously considering an MSI mobo over Asus for my next build.. this article is only making things in my mind more complicated!

    I love Asus to death but i am also a firm supporter of using products that do 95% of the performance for 75% of the price. Always support the underdog!
    Reply