Bang. Yeah. Okay. Sort of related. This
is the Big Bang Marshall. So, this has a
three-year warranty. It is an MSI motherboard for gaming. It uses the B3
revision chipset, which means that it doesn't have the SATA 2 bug that plagued
the original P67 boards. And it supports
Intel Core i7, Core i5, and Core i3 processors on the LG 1155 platform. from
Crossfire X and SLI technology are both
supported by this particular motherboard. And this is all about
gaming. Check out that board. It looks
awesome. But we'll look at the board more later. Let's look at the features
first. So, here we go. It features the military class 2 concept from MSI, which
means you got super farite chokes, uh, highly conductive tantelum core
capacitors, as well as solid capacitors for up to a 10year lifetime on this
particular board. Top stability and quality. That's good. Ultimate 3D gaming
performance. You can see they got four graphics cards installed on it right here. Okay. USB 3.0 and SATA 6 3 GB or
SATA 36 GB per second. Click BIOS which
means it has a UEFI BIOS which is fully compatible with your mouse for changing
all your BIOS settings and inner workings and whatnots. Okay. Finally, uh
this I already outlined when we were talking about military class 2 Sound
Blaster XY MB2. So it features EAX
Advance. I don't know what MB2 stands for. If anyone knows what MB2 stands
for, please leave it in the comments and somebody thumbs it up, please, so we can
all see it. Next on the back, we have
Dr. Moss 3in-1 server grade MOSFETs. MSI
has been using these for a number of generations now, and they keep stepping
up their game, providing better power delivery to your CPU with every
generation of products. Super Pipe is something I'm a big fan of. Uh, it
probably performs better, but really it just looks sweet because it's got big
old fat thick heat pipes. OC Genie 1sec overclocking. This is another feature
I'm actually a big fan of. You just press the button and it overclocks and
then you can grow into the more advanced overclocking features of the board that
you choose. OC dashboard is kind of useful. I have one with my Big Bang X
power. You can like press the button and change the B clock and whatnot. 24 phase
Dr. Moss PWM. So 24 power phases on this board. Is it overkill? Yes.
Is it cool? Yes. Eight PCIe 60 slots. Is
it overkill? Yes.
Is it necessary? No. Is it cool? Yes.
Multibios. So, we have multiple BIOS chips on this particular board. PCIe
ceasefire is what they're calling their switches for turning on or off your PCIe
slots. This allows you to more easily diagnose your uh any video card issues
or display issues you may be having with your motherboard. Dual eight pin CPU
power connectors allow you to deliver a whole lot of juice to your CPU should
you desire. And let's go ahead and open up the box, shall we?
First, we have
dramatic pause accessories,
including a big start guide, which is the size of me
and the size of the board, but bigger. It shows you all the whatnotss that are
on it. Okay. more of the exactly the same stuff that was already on the
packaging. Thank you, MSI. All right, so let's put this over here just in case we
can't, you know, see the board well enough on our own. All right, next we
have the OC dashboard right there. Plus, minus mode. You can use it to change a
bunch of different settings. It plugs in via this. Okay, it's actually kind of
useful. I have used it in the past. There's the cable for it. Okay, next we
have one of those ESATAs as well as uh
an adapter plug from the Molex power here which plugs into your power supply
to dual SATA powers. So, this is actually a really cool little thing cuz
you can just take bare hard drives and plug them into the back of your system and easily access the data with the
included ESATA cable. Is that an ESATA cable? It's not even SATA cable, is it?
What in the heck? Oh, yeah, it is. Okay. ESATA to SATA cable and then um this
particular little power adapter. All right, good feature. Next, we have a USB
3.0 IO panel as well as another one. So,
you can plug in two via the internal headers for up to four additional ports
coming out the back of your case. We've got one, two, three, four SATA 36 GB per
second uh SATA cables as well as a couple of Molex power to SATA powers. Uh
we have an IO shield. We have uh V
checkpoints. Okay, so these can be plugged in to check voltages. We've got
the M connector, which allows you to plug in your front USB, your speakers,
your front power, all that good stuff a little bit more easily. SLI connector.
No idea, guys. Sorry. Looks like a pass through for something. So, there's a
little rubber grommet and then there's a little spot to put the rubber grommet and something probably passes through to
the back. Okay. Uh, quick installation guide, drivers and utilities. 3D Mark 11
serial. Very nice inclusion so you can benchmark your new high performance
system as soon as you get your Big Bang Marshall setup. Here's an overclocking
guide. Look at that. That's kind of neat. I've never seen this included
before. Overview, some OC info about the new P67 platform, military class
materials, multi graphics cards, gaming design, PCIe ceasefire. So, they show
you how to use the overclocking features of this board. That's actually a very
helpful inclusion because a lot of guys produce uh overclocking boards, but not
a whole lot of them actually document in such a detailed manner what to do. Huh.
So, it supports up to four-way ATI Crossfire X and NVIDIA SLI. So, it does
not prov it does not support
uh who as well as uh yeah, it does not support greater than two-way NVIDIA SLI
because it actually uses a Lucid Hydrolologics chip in order to get all
those PCIe lanes split out rather than using an NF200 chip software
applications as well as the Big Bang Marshall user guide.
The box got a little bit demented in shipping, but we'll we're not going to
take off any marks for that one today. I mean, I never take marks off a product.
That's just not really something I say. Oh, marks off for this. So, I won't be
taking off any marks. It's okay. Just let it fall. It's all good. Okay. The
Big Bang Marshall. This is a massive,
massive motherboard. So, actually, give me two seconds. I'm going to go find a
board to compare for you guys. This is an XLATX board, which makes an ATX board
look like an MATX board. So, this is a standard size motherboard.
And this is not a standard size motherboard. So you will need a special
case in order to run your Big Bang Marshall motherboard if you get one,
which you lucky dog. Good work. Okay,
I'm just going to take off the 1 second overclocking
sticker so we can have a more clear look at the motherboard itself. So why don't
we start right here in the middle with the socket. This is our LG 1155 socket.
It uses a load socket, which is good, I'm led to understand. Okay, we have our
24-phase power design all around it. But you can actually see that all of the
heat sinks, all of the power components, all that stuff is actually very low
profile around that socket. So, you should be able to install some pretty
exotic cooling solutions on this board without any clearance issues whatsoever.
I love the overall look of MSI's recent
uh MOSFET North Bridge uh heat sinks. Look at this super pipe. It's like
ridiculous. It's like look at it compared to like a thick stubby finger.
It's like huge. like awesome. I love super pipe. Probably does nothing for
performance, but it's there and it's cool, so let's not knock it. All right,
let's have a look here. So, we've got our two eightpin CPU power connectors.
Okay, moving along, we have our Where is
the CP? Oh, yeah, our CPU fan connector. We've got support for dual channel DDR3
memory. Okay, this allows us to turn on
and off PCI graphics 1 2 3 or 4. Okay,
so this is on. So clearly this is not on. Okay, we have um moving down we have
our voltage checkpoints which hopefully there's some documentation somewhere in
the motherboard manual or something like that for which ones are which. We have
our 24 pin power connector in its ideal location along the right hand edge of
the board. We've also got a couple of USB 3 front panel connectors. So these
can be used to plug into the front of your case or into those included back
panel brackets. SATA 36 Gbit per second
port. So we have two running off of the
Intel chipset as well as two running off a third party looks like a Marll
chipset. Then we have four SATA 2 3 GB
per second ports as well. Front panel USB. This is an innovation.
Here they are at the front of the board. I like that. So this is actually closer
to your front panel than having it all along the bottom edge where we would
typically find USB 2 headers. I like that a lot actually. We've got a power
connector reset or power connector power switch reset switch. We've also got OCG
button as well as a multibios button. So presumably this will select one of our
multibios chips to boot from. And this one is going to one-touch overclock your
system. Here we have our uh post indicator LED. So that'll tell
you if you have any problems with your board when you're trying to boot up. And
finally moving along, we have our front panel connectors. So, that's your power
switch, power LED, all of that good stuff. We have uh some more LED stuff.
We've got FireWire. We've got front panel audio. There's the X5 MB2 sticker
that appears to be on the board. Okay. PCI Express slots. So, eight. Because
this is a non-standard board, it is actually nine PCI slots high, but
they're not using the first one that there's potential for here. There are 1
2 3 4 5 6 7 eight PCIe
16X slots. However, they do not all run
at PCIe16x. So, let us pull up the manual and we'll go through that for
you. So, running in two-way mode, you would use the top PCIe1x
top PC1 top PCIe 16X slot and then the 1
2 3 and then the fourth PCIe1X slot. So
that means if you're running two-way, you could all you could use even triple
slot graphics cards such as the ASUS um
triple slot GTX 470. So remember it supports Crossware, Fire, and SLI in
two-way mode. In three-way mode, you would use this one, this one, and this
one running in 8,8 mode. And in four-way, you would use
this one, this one, this one, and this one. All running in 8X mode. So for the
full guide, you can actually consult this. I mean, this is fantastic. their
little overclocking guide here to find out what bandwidth each slot is going to
run at in the various graphics configuration modes. Okay, so here we
have an an auxiliary power connector. This is a six pin PCIe power connector.
So if you are going to load it up with graphics cards, it's definitely a good idea to plug that in to keep your 24 pin
power connector from getting fried from so much current running through it to
power these cards. Other than that, I think that's pretty
much everything there is to say about the Big Bang Marshall. On the back, you
find more power circuitry. You find your standard back plate as well as not a
whole lot else. You can see that all of the coolers are held on with screws. So,
that means you don't have to deal with any stupid push pins, which I hate. And
I really do prefer to see these spring-loaded screws because you won't
run into any issues with them getting worn out if you ever have to take them off and put them back on, say to replace
a thermal compound or whatever else the case may be. on the back. Yes, that is
eight USB 3.0 ports. Yes, this board
supports a total of no fewer than 12 USB
3.0 ports. Pretty sweet. Okay, so we've
got a PS2 uh keyboard mouse combo port. We've got uh digital audio out in
coaxial and optical flavors. FireWire,
esata x 2, gigabit Ethernet x 2, as well
as 7.1 audio. So, thank you for checking
out my unboxing of the MSI Big Bang
Marshall. Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for unboxings, reviews,
and other computer videos.