MSI Big Bang Trinergy LGA 1156 Intel P55 / NVIDIA NF200 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Dual FULL 16x PCI-Express 2.0 slots for full-power SLI or CrossFire, separate 7.1 channel PCI-Express (1x) Audio Card included, ...did I mention that the 2 PCI-Express slots were FULL 16x....AT THE SAME TIME!!!

Cons: Price, obviously, but hey...it's well worth it for the dual 16x lanes.

Other Thoughts: Very well suited for the ultimate gaming ring when mated with a high-speed i7 Quad and lots of high-speed memory. My gaming rig won't stop even under heavy load.

Pros: An outstanding board! I went through three Asus Rampage Boards, and two Biostar boards. This one rocked right out of the box. been running stable ever since. Using the same parts that were allegedly, "defective" by tech response from other companies.

Haven't tried to overclock yet, as I want to run it for awhile to check it out and make sure it's stable with no issues, especially with software. No problem with running it in crossfire and the setup was rather fun.

Pricey? You get what you pay for. All-in-all, a very enjoyable board and worth every penny.

Cons: Not really set up for future expansion in the 3.0 area. Also had to set up the ram in the Bios. Not really a con as it was really fun to tinker with, especially if you like messing under the hood.

Other Thoughts: Had to update the bios and was anticipating having/solving some issues there, and it was a simple breeze. No problem.

I'd definitely recommend this board and not go with a cheaper one.

Pros: By far the sweetest MB I've ever owned. Easy set-up, good bios, excellent build quality, sound card is great! Very very smart SATA placement, not finicky with regard to RAM, outlandish overclocking remote! This think ROCKS!!!!

Cons: Price
I wish the sound card's PCI slot wasnt right on top of the PCIe!

Other Thoughts: Antec 900
MSI Big Bang Trinergy
Intel Core i-5
ASUS 5850
WD Caviar Black 640GB X2
WD Raptor 150GB X2
G-Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1600 4G
Corsair 850W psu
Lite-On opticals

Pros: I have this board a little over a month, and so far am very impressed. Great quality components, very stable, full of features, well deigned layout, OC Genie is just amazing, personally I do not have a lot of time and using it saves me a lot. To get a max stable OC of your CPU, all you need is to push the button and wait for 5 seconds, and there you go - my i7 860 goes a little over 4ghz, so I am impressed. I use to love doing all manually, but now I just do not have time, so OC Genie comes handy. Also great package full of useful hardware...I can go for ever, but clearly this is the best 1156 motherboard in the market (look for the reviews over the net)

Cons: Ok, a BIG, big NO-NO to MSI last BIOS update (1.2) Why in the world you need to add a "safety feature" that will make your boot time longer. Here is the problem, after the last update of the BIOS to 1.2, every time you want to turn on your computer it takes 5-7 seconds, before actually lights up and boots, it is just sitting there like it is dead, for me absolutely annoying, even the Stand-By LED is not lighten anymore when you turn the PC off.
I contacted the MSI support, after filling in a very long form (took me more than 20 min, what happened to live chat, or phone call) and the explanation I received by the MSI tech was that this was added to the latest BIOS as a OC "safety feature"?!? I explained to him that I have no OC on the CPU at all, and he replayed that - it dose not meter...
I hope MSI is reading here and fix that issue, it is very annoying and I don't see the benefits of that safety feature! I wish that I can upload a screen shot from my correspondence with MSI here -

Other Thoughts: -> to back up all of my above claims.
MSI, wake up!

Pros: This has to be one of the best motherboards I have ever owned. Had some doubts about moving away from EVGA, but no regrets anymore. The Bios is very feature rich and offers more tweaking then you can shake a stick at. On top of its great performance, its just a great looking piece of hardware. Pictures do not do it justice. Phase LED's on the board are cool all lit up. Heatsink is hard core and keeps everything on the board chilly. Took my I7 860 on an H20 close to 4.2 Ghz with minimal effort. Came with bios 1.1 so it was ready for the clarkdales right out of the box. Well packaged and all the goodies included were a sight to behold. What's great is that I can run dual or triple SLI and still have room for my XFI fatality PCI card. Crossfire is also supported. You can run dual at 16x16 or triple at 16x8x8. Legacy IDE was a bonus too. Ive owned MSI products in the past, but this thing just blew me away. I'd give it 6 eggs if I could!

Cons: No USB 3.0. Huge Vdroop enabled offset for processor VCore. Full processor load voltage in OS is sometimes 0.13V below what you've set in BIOS. I disabled mine which results in voltage being raised by around 0.03V under full load. Ram has to be set for each channel seperately, which is kind of a pain in the $$$ if you like to tweak your ram frequently. But if your using XMP memory it picks it right up and sets all the channels for you. JMicron still cant build a raid controller, used the intel chipset instead. Even with all that said, its still the best P55 board out there and very overclocker freindly.

Other Thoughts: Lets face it, your looking at this board because you just cant decide if you should go socket 1366 or 1156. My personal thoughts are that the P55 platform might have a little bit longer run than the X58 platform. X58 has been around a bit now. Even though P55 is considered mainstream, believe me this board is not. It is definately a high end product. It easily hangs with my EVGA E760 and a 920 with 6 gig of ram. I loved it so much i made it my main pc! MSI really did their homework on this one. Great Job!!!!

Pros: Well to start I was completely impressed when I say how "Big" just the box was. All cables needed to run in just about any configuration is included. The MSI worked straight out of the box and It has been kicking #^%$ ever since.

I purchased this board to replace 2 defective ASUS P7P55D Deluxe MB's I received back to back. ASUS claimed they could not help with shipping expenses I incurred sending their defects back. Sorry ASUS, I would rather spend the extra $ on a board that works than spend the same amount on the board and return shipping until I actually got one that worked.

Cons: This board is "pricey". In my opinion worth every penny. Almost every review or search I looked at when researching what to buy when building your own system.
Spend as much as you can on the processor and the mother board. I am a 100% firm believer now.

Other Thoughts: My Build:
i7-870 CPU, Hyper 212Plus CPU Cooler, MSI Big Bang Trinergy MB, G.Skill 4Gb DDR3 RAM, (2) EVGA 9800 GTX VGA's, 60Gb SSD, 1Tb HDD, Corsair TX950W PSU, CM Storm Scout Case, Scythe Fan Controller, Sony Light Scribe CD/DVD, Samsung LCD, Logitech Wave Keyboard and 518X Gaming Mouse.
I spent about 1/3 of what I would have spent had I went to a retailer and purchased a prepackaged system.

It really pays to do your research.

Pros: ZERO problems

Cons: no USB3 or SATA3

Other Thoughts: price is high, but it is worth it

Pros: Is there any way to give a 6 egg review? This board was the easiest and cleanest install I have done in over 6 years. The features and functionality are phenomenal. I am impressed with every aspect of this board. The x16/x16 SLI is flawless and the options for overclocking are as good as I have seen.

Cons: I can afford to put these in all of my builds.

Pros: Whoa this board has almost everything. Able to run @ 4.156Ghz on a i7-860 and 2 XFX GTX 275 in SLI. Upgraded from a Phenom 2 940 BE @ 3.8Ghz because I won a Intel CPU....

Cons: Price was a little high but well worth it...

Other Thoughts: I am able to run BFBC2 beta with all the bells and whistles turned on. On the old system I was running DX9 mode

Pros: This is the BEST P55 motherboard out there! Works great out of the box, no adjustments had to be made to use any of the components for this rig. Core i7 870 (which i could push to run @4.1GHz Stable!!!, using it right now!) A pair of HD 5870s BOTH running FULL x16 speed thanx to this motherboard, NO other except for the other MSI novelty have that capability, so sorry this rig is for a friend and not mine! In the near future i intend to build a new rig, maybe not P55 but X58 and that's the ONLY rason keeping me from buying this motherboard.

Cons: NONE, this one oozes performance. Maybe like 30 or 50 dollars cheaper wouldn't hurt MSI, even though it's worth every penny.

Other Thoughts: MSI ROCKS!!!