1 00:00:07,279 --> 00:00:14,639 Welcome to my proper unboxing of the MSI Big Bang M Power. This is a Z77 2 00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:17,760 motherboard that changes the game of overclocking. And I'm actually sort of 3 00:00:16,240 --> 00:00:21,760 on board with what they're doing here. So, has a three-year warranty. It's got 4 00:00:19,520 --> 00:00:26,480 all the usual Z77 features, including support for the latest Intel Core i3, 5 00:00:23,279 --> 00:00:29,199 i5, and i7 processors on LG 1155, 6 00:00:26,480 --> 00:00:33,200 Windows 7, and Windows 8 compatible. There's that new logo right there. AMD 7 00:00:31,279 --> 00:00:36,960 Crossfire, NVIDIA SLI are supported. Virtue MVP is also supported, which 8 00:00:35,600 --> 00:00:40,719 means you've got things like their virtual VSYNC as well as performance 9 00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:43,840 boost. I haven't had that much experience with it being compatible with 10 00:00:42,239 --> 00:00:47,120 a wide variety of different titles, but hey, if you find it out that it works 11 00:00:45,280 --> 00:00:52,399 for the games that you play, then great enhanced components. So, you got their 12 00:00:48,640 --> 00:00:54,000 driver MOSFETs, you've got their OCPCB, 13 00:00:52,399 --> 00:00:59,280 that's an interesting thing to call it. Solid caps, uh, super far chokes, high-C 14 00:00:57,199 --> 00:01:03,199 caps. Great. So this is all their usual military class 3 stuff. Hybrid digital 15 00:01:01,199 --> 00:01:07,600 power. Interesting. Enhanced PWM design with hybrid digital power. Designed for 16 00:01:05,119 --> 00:01:12,560 overclocking on K SKU CPU. So yes, overclockable CPUs. 8 pin power for the 17 00:01:10,240 --> 00:01:16,320 CPU with a six pin auxiliary power for video cards. These are useful and I 18 00:01:14,080 --> 00:01:19,759 prefer a six pin to a Molex just because these days I hardly have any Molexes in 19 00:01:18,240 --> 00:01:24,159 my system and it's hard to like route one up there. Enhanced thermals. Okay. 20 00:01:22,240 --> 00:01:28,880 Twin frozer fourbased design. Interesting. total fan control with all 21 00:01:26,560 --> 00:01:32,000 four pin PWM fan connectors on board. You can customize them in the BIOS or in 22 00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:35,280 Windows and monitor and record all the fan speeds. You got your V check points 23 00:01:33,840 --> 00:01:41,040 so you can actually use a multimeter to check your voltages because softwarebased ones are not useful. 24 00:01:38,799 --> 00:01:45,040 Multibios 2. This has saved my bacon at least once before. Easy buttons, onboard 25 00:01:43,439 --> 00:01:51,040 power and reset. Clear SIMOS button on the back and a debug LED. Bluetooth and 26 00:01:47,759 --> 00:01:52,000 Wi-Fi are included as well as SATA 36 GB 27 00:01:51,040 --> 00:01:56,640 per second. You know what? All this information is stuff that we could see 28 00:01:54,640 --> 00:02:00,960 by just opening up the board. So, I'm sort of done with the outside of the box 29 00:01:58,960 --> 00:02:05,520 for now. Here's an overclocking guide. Very cool to have something like that 30 00:02:02,920 --> 00:02:10,479 included. Neat stuff. Okay. Next, we've got the IO shield, four SATA 36 Gbit per 31 00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:19,520 second cables, although it doesn't really make a difference. Antenna for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi 32 00:02:15,480 --> 00:02:21,760 presumably. Cool. All right, we got a 33 00:02:19,520 --> 00:02:24,879 flexible black SLI bridge. my very favorite kind and connectors to make 34 00:02:23,360 --> 00:02:30,959 those front panel connectors a little bit easier to do. Driver's disc, uh, 35 00:02:27,680 --> 00:02:33,920 quick installation guide, certificate of 36 00:02:30,959 --> 00:02:36,720 quality and stability. Now, actually, I'm going to set this aside and we are 37 00:02:35,519 --> 00:02:40,959 going to talk about it more later. Software and applications users guide, 38 00:02:38,640 --> 00:02:44,760 motherboard users guide, and V checkpoint cables so that you can 39 00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:50,720 actually, you know, plug something into them. All right, motherboard itself. 40 00:02:49,040 --> 00:02:55,519 Okay, I haven't even gotten into what's good about this board yet, you guys. 41 00:02:52,160 --> 00:02:57,920 This is a very, very exciting board for 42 00:02:55,519 --> 00:03:02,400 one particularly important reason, and that is the gorgeous matte black PC. No, 43 00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:05,760 that's not actually it. So, the matte black PCB is good, but let's go let's 44 00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:09,040 talk about what makes this board special. So, this certificate of quality 45 00:03:07,760 --> 00:03:15,280 and stability, we've seen this with products before. However, MSI has really 46 00:03:12,480 --> 00:03:19,840 stepped up their game with the M Power being OC certified. That's the 47 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:24,959 terminology they're using here. OC certified performance power and PWM 48 00:03:22,400 --> 00:03:30,560 cooling. However, they really take it to the next level. Check this out. Military 49 00:03:27,120 --> 00:03:32,879 class burn-in test. Every single board, 50 00:03:30,560 --> 00:03:37,280 that means this board, the board you buy, the board your friend buys, has 51 00:03:35,040 --> 00:03:42,799 gone through strict tests to guarantee stable overclocking results. So they 52 00:03:40,239 --> 00:03:47,200 actually take every board, they install a CPU liquid cooler, which means the PWM 53 00:03:45,360 --> 00:03:54,480 is not getting any particular incidental air flow from their test bench. They 54 00:03:49,200 --> 00:03:56,000 overclock a K series CPU to 4.6 GHz or 55 00:03:54,480 --> 00:04:00,000 more depending on the CPU. Not every test platform is exactly the same. So a 56 00:03:58,080 --> 00:04:04,159 real overclock, like not, you know, an OCG overclock, like a real overclock. 57 00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:08,480 Then they put it in an unrealistically high temperature environment and they 58 00:04:05,840 --> 00:04:12,439 run Prime 95 to beat the snot out of the CPU at that overclock setting for 24 59 00:04:11,280 --> 00:04:17,440 hours plus. Crazy, right? Every single board 60 00:04:15,519 --> 00:04:24,360 is overclocking validated with an overclocked CPU. The odds of getting a 61 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:26,639 dud empower board is basically nil 62 00:04:24,360 --> 00:04:31,680 because every single board is hand tested. That doesn't happen on regular 63 00:04:28,919 --> 00:04:35,120 motherboards. Very, very cool stuff. really stepping up their game right now, 64 00:04:33,120 --> 00:04:38,560 these MSI guys. All right, so let's cover the layout. There's your LG 1155 65 00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:42,560 socket. Lots of room around it for big coolers. Eight pin CPU connectors in its 66 00:04:40,880 --> 00:04:48,000 ideal location at the top left. You got your four uh DDR3 slots supporting dual 67 00:04:45,520 --> 00:04:50,960 channel memory. You've also got your onboard power connectors. This is my new 68 00:04:49,919 --> 00:04:54,639 favorite spot for them. There's your OCG, your reset, and your power. Uh 69 00:04:53,120 --> 00:04:59,199 because once you've got a bunch of cards installed, it's kind of hard to reach the ones that are down here or around 70 00:04:57,199 --> 00:05:03,040 here. 24 pin power connector in its ideal location. There's the auxiliary 71 00:05:00,720 --> 00:05:06,960 six pin for your graphics cards as well as your V checkpoints for checking the 72 00:05:04,880 --> 00:05:11,440 voltages. There's your post debug LED. And again, this is my new favorite 73 00:05:09,440 --> 00:05:15,039 location for this. The onboard USB3 headers at a right angle on the right 74 00:05:12,880 --> 00:05:20,800 hand edge of the board. Perfect. SATA 3 6 GB per second. Four SATA 2 3 GB per 75 00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:24,240 second ports. There's your multibio switch to switch between the two 76 00:05:22,160 --> 00:05:29,199 physical BIOS chips. You've got a couple front USB 2 ports, a couple uh headers, 77 00:05:27,360 --> 00:05:33,120 normal ones, and you've also got a high-owered one for charging things like 78 00:05:30,800 --> 00:05:35,840 an iPad. Okay, you've got aha due to bandwidth allocation limitations. 79 00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:38,560 Strongly recommended. Okay, so you want to use an Ivy Bridge processor if you're 80 00:05:37,360 --> 00:05:45,520 going to use this bottom slot. Otherwise, these ones will run at PCIe 81 00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:47,759 28x8x with a Sandy Bridge or PCIe 38X8X 82 00:05:45,520 --> 00:05:54,000 with an Ivy Bridge chip. You've got this is a fully PCIe board. So you got four 83 00:05:50,400 --> 00:05:56,840 PCIe 1X slots and then three PCIe 16X 84 00:05:54,000 --> 00:06:01,520 slots. However, physically they're 16 or 88 4 and this four runs off the chipset. 85 00:06:00,240 --> 00:06:05,759 So it's not as good of a four. So basically this is a dual cardboard. 86 00:06:03,680 --> 00:06:09,680 Moving right along to this is actually I think this is the best matte black PCB 87 00:06:07,520 --> 00:06:13,440 I've yet seen. Slick's giving me the thumbs up because it's so clean. Like 88 00:06:11,199 --> 00:06:16,240 you can hardly even see the traces. It just looks like if I change the angle a 89 00:06:15,120 --> 00:06:21,600 little bit you can see the traces sometimes probably but then other times you can't. It's like very stealthy 90 00:06:20,160 --> 00:06:24,800 looking. Let's have a look at the Twin Furer 4 inspired cooler. So, it's got a 91 00:06:23,520 --> 00:06:30,720 very neat shape to it that actually gives it a lot of surface area even though you can't see a lot of it. And 92 00:06:28,240 --> 00:06:34,160 it's using a nice thick heat pipe. I think MSI's branding for this used to be 93 00:06:32,880 --> 00:06:37,919 super pipe, but I haven't seen them really use that lately. Check it out. 94 00:06:36,160 --> 00:06:42,560 Phase LEDs. So, you can see how many of your 12 power phases are uh are active 95 00:06:40,960 --> 00:06:46,080 on the CPU at any given time. So, when you're doing something intensive, those are going to crank up to the top. And 96 00:06:45,120 --> 00:06:50,400 when you're not, they're going to stay right down near the bottom, which is kind of neat stuff because when you're 97 00:06:48,880 --> 00:06:53,600 not consuming a lot of power, fewer power phases being active is actually 98 00:06:52,080 --> 00:06:57,520 more efficient. So, there you go. You learned something today, unless you already knew that, in which case you 99 00:06:56,000 --> 00:07:04,240 didn't learn something today. All right, let's have a look at the back IO. You got your PS2 port. I still like to see 100 00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:06,080 that. Two USB 2.0 ports, six USB 3.0 101 00:07:04,240 --> 00:07:10,720 ports, your Bluetooth, your Wi-Fi, gigabit Ethernet is builtin, display 102 00:07:08,319 --> 00:07:14,560 port and HDMI to handle your a or your video out. Remember guys, you can use 103 00:07:12,479 --> 00:07:17,840 the onboard video here for your video transcoding functionality, and you can 104 00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:22,720 use your dedicated graphics card for gaming. You've got optical audio out as 105 00:07:20,080 --> 00:07:28,319 well as 7.1 audio out. So, thank you for checking out my unboxing of the Z77 M 106 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:32,720 Power from MSI. And I think Slick's letting the camera fall a little bit 107 00:07:29,759 --> 00:07:35,440 there. And uh don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, 108 00:07:34,160 --> 00:07:41,520 reviews, and other computer videos. And don't forget the most important thing about this board, hand tested. You want 109 00:07:38,479 --> 00:07:43,960 a board that works 100%. Okay, I can't 110 00:07:41,520 --> 00:07:50,440 say 100% but 99.99% it will work if you buy one 111 00:07:46,560 --> 00:07:50,440 because it's hand tested.