MSI Big Bang Marshal Gaming Motherboard Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
2,320 words · ~11 min read
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Bang. Yeah. Okay. Sort of related. This
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is the Big Bang Marshall. So, this has a
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three-year warranty. It is an MSI motherboard for gaming. It uses the B3
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revision chipset, which means that it doesn't have the SATA 2 bug that plagued
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the original P67 boards. And it supports
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Intel Core i7, Core i5, and Core i3 processors on the LG 1155 platform. from
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Crossfire X and SLI technology are both
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supported by this particular motherboard. And this is all about
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gaming. Check out that board. It looks
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awesome. But we'll look at the board more later. Let's look at the features
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first. So, here we go. It features the military class 2 concept from MSI, which
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means you got super farite chokes, uh, highly conductive tantelum core
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capacitors, as well as solid capacitors for up to a 10year lifetime on this
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particular board. Top stability and quality. That's good. Ultimate 3D gaming
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performance. You can see they got four graphics cards installed on it right here. Okay. USB 3.0 and SATA 6 3 GB or
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SATA 36 GB per second. Click BIOS which
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means it has a UEFI BIOS which is fully compatible with your mouse for changing
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all your BIOS settings and inner workings and whatnots. Okay. Finally, uh
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this I already outlined when we were talking about military class 2 Sound
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Blaster XY MB2. So it features EAX
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Advance. I don't know what MB2 stands for. If anyone knows what MB2 stands
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for, please leave it in the comments and somebody thumbs it up, please, so we can
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all see it. Next on the back, we have
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Dr. Moss 3in-1 server grade MOSFETs. MSI
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has been using these for a number of generations now, and they keep stepping
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up their game, providing better power delivery to your CPU with every
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generation of products. Super Pipe is something I'm a big fan of. Uh, it
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probably performs better, but really it just looks sweet because it's got big
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old fat thick heat pipes. OC Genie 1sec overclocking. This is another feature
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I'm actually a big fan of. You just press the button and it overclocks and
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then you can grow into the more advanced overclocking features of the board that
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you choose. OC dashboard is kind of useful. I have one with my Big Bang X
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power. You can like press the button and change the B clock and whatnot. 24 phase
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Dr. Moss PWM. So 24 power phases on this board. Is it overkill? Yes.
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Is it cool? Yes. Eight PCIe 60 slots. Is
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it overkill? Yes.
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Is it necessary? No. Is it cool? Yes.
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Multibios. So, we have multiple BIOS chips on this particular board. PCIe
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ceasefire is what they're calling their switches for turning on or off your PCIe
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slots. This allows you to more easily diagnose your uh any video card issues
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or display issues you may be having with your motherboard. Dual eight pin CPU
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power connectors allow you to deliver a whole lot of juice to your CPU should
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you desire. And let's go ahead and open up the box, shall we?
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First, we have
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dramatic pause accessories,
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including a big start guide, which is the size of me
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and the size of the board, but bigger. It shows you all the whatnotss that are
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on it. Okay. more of the exactly the same stuff that was already on the
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packaging. Thank you, MSI. All right, so let's put this over here just in case we
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can't, you know, see the board well enough on our own. All right, next we
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have the OC dashboard right there. Plus, minus mode. You can use it to change a
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bunch of different settings. It plugs in via this. Okay, it's actually kind of
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useful. I have used it in the past. There's the cable for it. Okay, next we
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have one of those ESATAs as well as uh
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an adapter plug from the Molex power here which plugs into your power supply
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to dual SATA powers. So, this is actually a really cool little thing cuz
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you can just take bare hard drives and plug them into the back of your system and easily access the data with the
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included ESATA cable. Is that an ESATA cable? It's not even SATA cable, is it?
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What in the heck? Oh, yeah, it is. Okay. ESATA to SATA cable and then um this
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particular little power adapter. All right, good feature. Next, we have a USB
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3.0 IO panel as well as another one. So,
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you can plug in two via the internal headers for up to four additional ports
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coming out the back of your case. We've got one, two, three, four SATA 36 GB per
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second uh SATA cables as well as a couple of Molex power to SATA powers. Uh
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we have an IO shield. We have uh V
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checkpoints. Okay, so these can be plugged in to check voltages. We've got
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the M connector, which allows you to plug in your front USB, your speakers,
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your front power, all that good stuff a little bit more easily. SLI connector.
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No idea, guys. Sorry. Looks like a pass through for something. So, there's a
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little rubber grommet and then there's a little spot to put the rubber grommet and something probably passes through to
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the back. Okay. Uh, quick installation guide, drivers and utilities. 3D Mark 11
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serial. Very nice inclusion so you can benchmark your new high performance
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system as soon as you get your Big Bang Marshall setup. Here's an overclocking
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guide. Look at that. That's kind of neat. I've never seen this included
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before. Overview, some OC info about the new P67 platform, military class
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materials, multi graphics cards, gaming design, PCIe ceasefire. So, they show
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you how to use the overclocking features of this board. That's actually a very
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helpful inclusion because a lot of guys produce uh overclocking boards, but not
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a whole lot of them actually document in such a detailed manner what to do. Huh.
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So, it supports up to four-way ATI Crossfire X and NVIDIA SLI. So, it does
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not prov it does not support
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uh who as well as uh yeah, it does not support greater than two-way NVIDIA SLI
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because it actually uses a Lucid Hydrolologics chip in order to get all
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those PCIe lanes split out rather than using an NF200 chip software
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applications as well as the Big Bang Marshall user guide.
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The box got a little bit demented in shipping, but we'll we're not going to
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take off any marks for that one today. I mean, I never take marks off a product.
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That's just not really something I say. Oh, marks off for this. So, I won't be
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taking off any marks. It's okay. Just let it fall. It's all good. Okay. The
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Big Bang Marshall. This is a massive,
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massive motherboard. So, actually, give me two seconds. I'm going to go find a
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board to compare for you guys. This is an XLATX board, which makes an ATX board
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look like an MATX board. So, this is a standard size motherboard.
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And this is not a standard size motherboard. So you will need a special
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case in order to run your Big Bang Marshall motherboard if you get one,
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which you lucky dog. Good work. Okay,
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I'm just going to take off the 1 second overclocking
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sticker so we can have a more clear look at the motherboard itself. So why don't
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we start right here in the middle with the socket. This is our LG 1155 socket.
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It uses a load socket, which is good, I'm led to understand. Okay, we have our
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24-phase power design all around it. But you can actually see that all of the
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heat sinks, all of the power components, all that stuff is actually very low
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profile around that socket. So, you should be able to install some pretty
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exotic cooling solutions on this board without any clearance issues whatsoever.
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I love the overall look of MSI's recent
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uh MOSFET North Bridge uh heat sinks. Look at this super pipe. It's like
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ridiculous. It's like look at it compared to like a thick stubby finger.
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It's like huge. like awesome. I love super pipe. Probably does nothing for
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performance, but it's there and it's cool, so let's not knock it. All right,
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let's have a look here. So, we've got our two eightpin CPU power connectors.
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Okay, moving along, we have our Where is
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the CP? Oh, yeah, our CPU fan connector. We've got support for dual channel DDR3
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memory. Okay, this allows us to turn on
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and off PCI graphics 1 2 3 or 4. Okay,
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so this is on. So clearly this is not on. Okay, we have um moving down we have
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our voltage checkpoints which hopefully there's some documentation somewhere in
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the motherboard manual or something like that for which ones are which. We have
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our 24 pin power connector in its ideal location along the right hand edge of
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the board. We've also got a couple of USB 3 front panel connectors. So these
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can be used to plug into the front of your case or into those included back
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panel brackets. SATA 36 Gbit per second
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port. So we have two running off of the
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Intel chipset as well as two running off a third party looks like a Marll
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chipset. Then we have four SATA 2 3 GB
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per second ports as well. Front panel USB. This is an innovation.
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Here they are at the front of the board. I like that. So this is actually closer
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to your front panel than having it all along the bottom edge where we would
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typically find USB 2 headers. I like that a lot actually. We've got a power
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connector reset or power connector power switch reset switch. We've also got OCG
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button as well as a multibios button. So presumably this will select one of our
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multibios chips to boot from. And this one is going to one-touch overclock your
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system. Here we have our uh post indicator LED. So that'll tell
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you if you have any problems with your board when you're trying to boot up. And
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finally moving along, we have our front panel connectors. So, that's your power
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switch, power LED, all of that good stuff. We have uh some more LED stuff.
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We've got FireWire. We've got front panel audio. There's the X5 MB2 sticker
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that appears to be on the board. Okay. PCI Express slots. So, eight. Because
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this is a non-standard board, it is actually nine PCI slots high, but
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they're not using the first one that there's potential for here. There are 1
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2 3 4 5 6 7 eight PCIe
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16X slots. However, they do not all run
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at PCIe16x. So, let us pull up the manual and we'll go through that for
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you. So, running in two-way mode, you would use the top PCIe1x
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top PC1 top PCIe 16X slot and then the 1
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2 3 and then the fourth PCIe1X slot. So
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that means if you're running two-way, you could all you could use even triple
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slot graphics cards such as the ASUS um
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triple slot GTX 470. So remember it supports Crossware, Fire, and SLI in
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two-way mode. In three-way mode, you would use this one, this one, and this
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one running in 8,8 mode. And in four-way, you would use
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this one, this one, this one, and this one. All running in 8X mode. So for the
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full guide, you can actually consult this. I mean, this is fantastic. their
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little overclocking guide here to find out what bandwidth each slot is going to
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run at in the various graphics configuration modes. Okay, so here we
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have an an auxiliary power connector. This is a six pin PCIe power connector.
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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
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power connector from getting fried from so much current running through it to
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power these cards. Other than that, I think that's pretty
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much everything there is to say about the Big Bang Marshall. On the back, you
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find more power circuitry. You find your standard back plate as well as not a
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whole lot else. You can see that all of the coolers are held on with screws. So,
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that means you don't have to deal with any stupid push pins, which I hate. And
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I really do prefer to see these spring-loaded screws because you won't
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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
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a thermal compound or whatever else the case may be. on the back. Yes, that is
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eight USB 3.0 ports. Yes, this board
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supports a total of no fewer than 12 USB
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3.0 ports. Pretty sweet. Okay, so we've
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got a PS2 uh keyboard mouse combo port. We've got uh digital audio out in
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coaxial and optical flavors. FireWire,
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esata x 2, gigabit Ethernet x 2, as well
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as 7.1 audio. So, thank you for checking
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out my unboxing of the MSI Big Bang
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Marshall. Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for unboxings, reviews,
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and other computer videos.