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MSI X58 Platinum SLI Intel Motherboards
Customer Reviews for MSI X58 Platinum SLI LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
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Review Summary (77 Reviews): Rating + 4
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Excellent Rating + 5 35ReviewsExcellent
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newegg
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newegg
5%
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newegg
5%
Very Poor Rating + 1 11ReviewsVery Poor
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Reviewer Product Review
nick_nolastname
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/2/2009 8:24:50 AM

Rating + 4 Works Well, Overall Satisfied With It


Pros: It works... thats a big plus. Bios is familiar to me and everything functions as it should as far as I know.

Cons: Some points of interest/concern:
1) "IOH" with passive heatpipe cooler was getting very hot, at times it hit 100C in a very well ventilated case. After running for a bit, this dropped to 75C or so. Maybe some thermal gunk had to bed in? I put a quiet fan in there facing the copper heatsink in the middle of the board, and the IOH temp dropped to the 50's.
2) I also had a problem where Vista64 only saw 4G of the 6G memory installed, though the bios reported it there. I reseated the memory and it showed 6G everywhere.

3) SATA connectors are low on the board: tall cases like mine may require longer SATA cables than the 18" ones it ships with.

3) There is a disk shipped with the kit labelled "MSI EXTRAS". There is NO DATA on this disk readable by windows. Small point but bloody annoying to find out through forum surfing that I wasnt missing out on something. Its for future use, somehow. Google it if you care, but its of no use to anyone at this time.

Other Thoughts: Cons.... continued.

4) Vista64 would not install in RAID0 using the driver provided with the Mobo. I had to not install the driver, and use the one that Vista comes with. I tried the MSI driver twice and each time, during install I got the BSOD on reboot where the OS should take over on the installed drive.

To summarize: It works. Its less expensive than others. This is my second success with the MSI Platinum line of Mobos, but next time I'm going to shell out a bit more for a company that can afford to hire someone to write better documentation. Good luck.

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Atech
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
10/1/2009 2:27:17 AM

Rating + 5 New platform growing pains


Pros: Its a solid board and with a BIOS flash the Platinum (not Platinum SLI) I have supports SLI anyways.
All X58 reverts to 1066 per the SPD but the RAM I purchased was rated 1333 which was an easy ratio setting to 5 change in the Cell menu of the BIOS.
I have had no problems with this board at all.
I installed a GTX260 core 216 and 6 Gigs tri channel kit Mushkin 1333 3X2 and it has run quite well for the past year.

Cons: MSI could make a decent Utility do NOT use M-Flash unless you enjoy taking chances.
Flash by USB only.
And MSI support sucks, but this board has not been a dissapointment by any means.

Other Thoughts: Great for the price, had a few growing pains but BIOS revisions have taken care of most of them.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

VoltagePCs
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/25/2009 10:51:54 AM

Rating + 4 A fair choice


Pros: If you need to get an x58 motherboard but don't want to spend a lot of money, this is the one to get. When running at standard settings without any bios changes, it seems to work just fine. Nice LEDs on the board, LOTS of USB ports, plenty of SATA ports and 2 full speed PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots with an extra slot between them for cooling.

Cons: BIOS is very finicky and can sometimes go into a constant reboot until you reset it if you change it. Chipset runs kind of hot. Doesn't come with Diagnostic LEDs for when something messes up. Does NOT overclock well (does memory just fine if you want to get it up to 1600, but other than that....)

Other Thoughts: If you want to overclock, spend the extra money and get a better board.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Jason32473
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/1/2009 6:02:35 PM

Rating + 1 Please dont ever buy an MSI Board


Pros: It looked like a working motherboard

Cons: This thing was nothing more than a paper wight form the moment it was installed. All was going well until I load the OS. Once it restarted after the OS was loaded the bios got amnesia. It could not hold its memory even after a battery change. Also if you allowed the bios to boot on default the onboard sound card that worked and was found during upload of the OS vanished and I dont mean the card show driver problems I mean the sound card was not their. After we took apart the computer, to check for installation errors on the memory (which there were none) we flashed the bios with the new version. This work for all of 2 restarts then the amnesia and sound card problem came back. Finally we sat the computer on it's side and magicly it worked. Stand the computer upright and it would fail again. It was apparent that there was a solder issue with this board.

Other Thoughts: After reading other posts I noticed that others had the same issue. Noticed the board was manufactured in China. Hopefully some poor line worker wont get shot over this review.

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/10/2009 9:01:42 AM

Rating + 4 hmmmm very interesting


Pros: the pci layout works for me perfectly when i go sli due to my x-fi titanium pcix 1 card all other mobo's except for the gigabyte do not accomodate for the pci express users that want to run sli.

Cons: very unstable with over clocking and chipset gets extremely hot. im used to my core 2 quad running at around 80 degree's F and now the i7 runs at 110 and the chipset at around 145-150

Other Thoughts: if you plan on watercooling dont go cheap and it will significantly improve the running temps

core i7 920
9800gtx bfg oc 1gb
msi x58 platinum sli
4 gb ddr3 ocz 1600 intel extreme edition

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Talderon
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
8/5/2009 3:44:32 PM

Rating + 5 Great X58 SLI Board


Pros: -X58 SLi Board
-7.1 Stereo
-PLENTY of USB Ports
-All the bells and whistles

Cons: Nothing of note

Other Thoughts: My only real fear when getting a motherboard is making sure there is enough room for SLi cards. Before I went with a pair of GTX cards, I didn't have to worry too much. Now that I bought these beastly cards, I did worry that they would not fit right. Well, MSI came through and I had no issues at all stuffing these cards into my case on this Mo-Bo.

The GTX Cards I have take up "2 slots", so they are pretty fat cards, and even with 2 of them installed, there is at least a cards space between the cards for more than enough ventilation.

I have not played with the overclocking features of this board, yet, but I have read many reviews and comments to lead me to think I will not be disappointed when I am ready to push my system a bit more. :)

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barley
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/5/2009 12:40:29 PM

Rating + 5 Another Great Board


Pros: Great board for overclocking. the little dip switched to raise the clock speed simplify overclocking. 2 pcie @16x is great to have at a fair price. The onboard audio sounds very good too. 2 lan ports & lots of usb ports

Cons: feels a little flimsy but works perfectly.

Other Thoughts: i7 950 @ almost 4GHz, Corsair 12GB @ 1333MHz, RAID 5 1.4TB, Quad SLI GTX 295, 5.1 onboard audio, Corsair HX1000, Windows 7 64 bit

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Garrett
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
8/5/2009 7:48:01 AM

Rating + 5 Another Fantastic Board from MSI


Pros: Easily overclockable, with the base clock dip switch on the bottom of the board it give the user the ability get ever single drop of power outta the CPU. It has the standard MSI board layout, and the side based SATA cables are a huge improvement of previous generation boards. The power/reset buttons on the bottom of the board are very convenient, as is the CMOS rest on the back of the board. As with all MSI products I have had in the past, this thing is rock solid stable (even for a Rev. 1.0 board) with no performance related issues.

Cons: The IOH gets unusually hot. . . especially since there is no memory controller on there. I recommend a couple 40mm fans to really keep this gig cool. Also, there are like 8 super bright blue LEDs on the board, if this goes with your color scheme awesome, if not . . . probably not the board for you.

Other Thoughts: Defiantly the best x58 based board for the money.

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Mike
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/2/2009 8:16:57 PM

Rating + 1 Not what I expected from MSI


Pros: OK board, but that's all. Ordered and ASUS P6T to replace. I expected much more from MSI.

Cons: Chipset Cooling is horrible. Why MSI left behind there circuit pipe design from the P35 and P45 boards I will never understand. Also the PWM signal to my CPU fan quit working. MSI blamed it on the fan. I replaced the fan and still no modulation. MSI tech support is horrible.

Other Thoughts: I have several older MSI boards and am absolutely 100% satified with them, but when it comes to there X58 lineup they are just not a competitor anymore.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

vovo
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/24/2009 4:35:46 PM

Rating + 5 Has all bells and whistles


Pros: The idea was to build a 'stereo station' with 120Hz monitor and NVidia 3DVision glasses. All works just fine.

Core i7 and SLI - is what I wanted.
2 video cards get in easy with enough space between them. Supports up to 24 Gig of memory - should be enough for several years. Currently using G.SKILL 3x2GB (F3-10666CL7T-6GBPK) - no problem.

Has ON/OFF and Reset buttons right on the board - handy for quick bench testing. The board even has a second LAN and optic jack - I don't use it so far.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Software utilities look too fancy and can not restore settings after reboot. Uninstalled.

CPU fan speed auto adjustment started to work only after BIOS update.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/19/2009 3:09:55 PM

Rating + 4 Works great once I fixed it.


Pros: Bought for a medai server and home automation system. Cheap, does what it says. Overclocks well for me at a low level. I used the dip switch to get 3.2 Ghz out of my 920 chip. I like the bios reset button on the back panel and the power and reset button on the MB inside. It also has exactly the combination of PCI-E and PCI slots that I needed. Cuyrrently using the onboard audio while I wait for Asus or Azuntech to firgure out their stuff.

Cons: When it arrived and posted the bios hardware manager said that the chipset temperature was 127C. So I took it all apart and focused on the copper heatsinks, there are two connected with copper heat pipes into an L-shaped bracket, held down with spring-loaded plastic push pins. The heatsinks were not flat (each was flat but the two were not coplaner by <5 degrees). The heat sinks would make surface contact with only one chip at a time, and only make good contact if I pushed down over the chip. I removed the OEM thermal paste, bent the heat pipes by hand (the corner of the L) so the two heatsinks sat coplaner. Then with some arctic silver paste and using the stock plastic push pins I get about 60C on the chipset with 40C on the CPU.

Other Thoughts: I probably should have RMA'd the board, but I felt that as long as it was fixed and no damage had been done to the chipsets in the first post, that it would be okay. It has worked great for the last month. I would buy it again, but in the future I'll check these kinds of things prior to putting the system together.

Antec 182 case
MSI x58 Platinum Motherboard
EVGA 9800 GT
Antec TP-550 Powersupply
Intel i7 920 (now runinng ~3.2 GHz at 44C)
Xigmatek S1283v CPU cooler
OCZ platinum 6GB DDR3 1600
Seagate 7200.12 1TB drive x1 in Raid 0
Seagate 7200.11 1.5Tb Drive
LG blueray-HDdvd drive

4 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Perry
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/9/2009 10:01:49 AM

Rating + 1 Nothing but problems


Pros: Pretty easy to setup and configure.

Cons: Poor placement of SATA connectors which are difficult to reach if you have a big Video card, (GeForce 285 in this case).

1st Board
Intermittently powered off and then eventually would not post. Thought it could be thermal related, but BIOS reported nothing greater than 60C, which was the IOH.

2nd Board
Worked for about 7 hours and then unexpectedly shutdown. Restarted and worked for another two hours and then couldn't boot period.

Removed from case and setup on card board with no luck getting it to power with Corsair Pro 850W supply.

Other Thoughts: NewEgg customer service was great on the RMAs for this. I was going to give it a 3rd shot but then decided to purchase an ASUS board in its place.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/8/2009 12:34:24 PM

Rating + 5 Good less expensive MoBo


Pros: From first power to loaded working OS was 11 minutes. SATA placements are in such a way that long vid cards do not cut them off. Sound is terrific, very nice for onboard.

I also like the way that MSI includes a set of pins for your front mounted USB, Audio etc. Plug the wires into this block, then plug this block into the motherboard.

Slap the parts in, tell the BIOS to boot from your optical drive, and away you go.

Cons: Did not include a SP/DIF connector, and they are a pain to find online.

Really, that is the only complaint I have.

Other Thoughts: Paired with an i7 920, 6GB Corsair RAM, XFX 260, WD 300GB Raptor. Usig stock fans and no overclocking. OS is Windows7 RC build 7100

There is a ton of OC that you can do with this system if you use good memory, but I've been too busy with Windows7 to start tweaking. Also the stock cooler that comes with the i7 feels and looks cheap, so I will need to get another air cooler to begin my OC adventure.

This was my first MSI motherboard, and so far I have a great first impression.

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Jim
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/8/2009 7:48:05 AM

Rating + 4 SLI Questionable


Pros: Price,easy to set up

Cons: SLI does not work with PNY Quadro FX3800's, did not try with Non-Quadro Nvidia graphic cards

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Higgs Boson
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/1/2009 8:08:32 AM

Rating + 4


Pros: An inexpensive x58 board. Booted up first try with no problems. Excellent features. Excellent layout.

Cons: All included software utilities (i.e. greenpower, oc center, msi live update) have caused my system to crash without fail. Greenpower sets mem voltage to 1.8v (my memory is supposed to be at 1.6v) when opened on default settings.

Other Thoughts: It's my first build so it took me a while to get used to the BIOS. I haven't tried to OC yet.

Core i7 920, MSI Platinum sli x58, 6 GB OCZ 1333, HIS 4870 IceQ 4+ Turbo 1GB, Corsair 750TX, WD Caviar Black 500 GB, CM Storm Scout

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Era
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/30/2009 4:27:23 PM

Rating + 4 Fairly Decent - on the 2nd try.


Pros: Inexpensive compared to other boards, with lots of options.

Supports both SLI and Crossfire, oodles of USB ports, Dual-NICs, 6 DIMMs, etc. Decent warranty.

Contrary to other reviews I did not have a problem with the bios nor should any enthusiast user.

Cons: First board was DOA. Internal short. It happens.

It's also why I'm not giving it 5 stars. The RMA service with newegg was excellent however. I'm not going to say it will happen to you, the 2nd board I received is worth every penny of what I paid.

Other Thoughts: Read the manual, make sure you check memory configurations and have a power supply greater than 18A on the 12v rails.

Be especially careful to not bend the pins of the processor socket.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

nickname
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/30/2009 3:05:46 PM

Rating + 4 nice board


Pros: good price for the board compared to other x58 boards. the OC switch on the board makes it a breeze to do some simple overclocking which is more or less exactly what i was looking for. changing the switch from the stock 133 to 200 boosted my 920's speed from 2.6 to 3.6. didnt need to adjust anything else.

Cons: First unit i received would not post, no matter what i changed. Newegg was great with the RMA.
I quickly threw the second unit in there just to see if it would post and it worked great. Once i organized my wires and fit everything in there the way i wanted, it was back to not booting, just like my first unit.

it turns out my board was grounding out to the chassis. i reseated the board, re-ran some cables and now it runs like a champ.

Other Thoughts: the first unit that i returned may have had the same grounding issue...hard to tell now...

if you are having a problem where you are not getting a POST, it may be a grounding issue like mine.

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

teddybearbones
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
6/29/2009 4:08:52 PM

Rating + 5 works enough


Pros: Was the least expensive i7 compatible board at the time of purchase. Runs well, doesn't give me guff.

Cons: It's really picky about the order you install your RAM in. I apparently had installed mine in the backwards order and it was giving me memory error beep codes.

Other Thoughts: works for what I need it for

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goofazoid
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/29/2009 4:04:52 PM

Rating + 5


Pros: Easy build, I found everything to be well located. The manual had the information I needed and was easy to understand.
I really like the reset and power switches on the board as well as the CMOS reset on the I/O pannel.

Cons: I don't really have any cons.

Other Thoughts: The easy OC switches seem to work just fine. Change the positions (to match diagram in book) and go form base clock of 133 to base clock of 166 or 200. With the i7 920 that put me at 3.3mHZ (166 setting) and 3.6 (200 setting). It was stable at those settings and the only issue I had was temperature on stock i7 cooler. Idle temps went up 5-6c at 166 and 8-10c at 200. Under max load (prime95) the temps, at 166 setting, went to 90-93 (stopped the test once it hit 93). Did not run prime95 at 200 setting and will not until I have better than stock cooling. (for comparison at the 133 setting the temps with prime95 running were 84-86)

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/27/2009 11:53:29 AM

Rating + 4


Pros: So far, so good! No issues whatsoever. Not an OC fan, but DrMOS makes it really easy for those who want to. High end production at mid level price! New egg delivered in 2 days!

Cons: Only 2 USB connections on board...3 would be perfect!

Other Thoughts: If not using all memory banks...make sure you use the ones designated as 0 first (no brainer).

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

sandhog
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/25/2009 5:25:01 PM

Rating + 5 Great product for the price


Pros: Easy setup, easy overclock...overall, a well thought out board. One of the easiest setups on any build I've done.

Cons: Difficult bios upgrade, some stock drivers not compatible with Windows xp 64.

Other Thoughts: For the money, a great buy!

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rocnred
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
6/25/2009 9:01:57 AM

Rating + 2 Quality Issues


Pros: After reading many great reviews from tech magazines, I decided on this board. It has many great features. It does perform very well once it is booted. It has many options for expandability and overclocking.

Cons: I was hesitant since my last MSI board (3 years ago and an AMD board) had some quality issues also. But I decided how can it happen to me again? Well this one had issues also. I could not boot unless I clear the CMOS every time from a cold boot. I changed memory, changed the battery, disconnected devices, and read tons of forums, sent my concerns to MSI, etc., etc. No resolution. Also, the onboard audio is noisy. It picks up fan noise. Not a big deal since I use an audio card.

I like the board, it does some amazing things and does not disappoint in the performance sector. But this is the last MSI product I will ever buy. It is too much of a hassle to clear the CMOS ever time I start my computer.

Other Thoughts: I did lots of research before I purchased. At the time of purchase there were only 7 boards that supported LGA 1366, now there are over 50. I guess that is the price you pay for being on the cutting edge of technology. I am waiting for a BIOS update and I guess I will have to flash the BIOS. I am a bit leery since it will kill my mb if it does not go right. I have flashed many a mb. It is not me I am worried about; it is the MSI update that I am hesitant about. I do not trust them. Too bad, it is a good board.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Jimbo
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/24/2009 4:11:56 PM

Rating + 1 RMA


Pros: Nice mobo

Cons: I had problems setting this board up. Turns out it was damaged. I had already sent off for the rebate, so I couldn't RMA w/ Newegg, but they were very apologetic. I contacted MSI and did an RMA. They said they wouldn't accept the board because it was damaged and were going to send the board back. Very, very, poor support from MSI in my opinion.

Other Thoughts: Newegg has always been great to me, this my was fault for sending off for the rebate before thoroughly testing out the board. I can understand Newegg's reluctance due to the circumstances, but MSI's position is inexcusably. They sent me an email w a very poor quality photo, saying it showed the damage. I replied, saying what damage, they sent the original email again, no explanation- damaged. I have been a system builder for over 15 years and have never run into a problem like this. If MSI isn't going to stand by their product, I can't recommend purchasing any of their proucts.

4 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/24/2009 8:11:22 AM

Rating + 5 great


Pros: see item specifications and price. :D

Cons: the rear stereo out on my on board sound was broken (only played to the right side)

I was hardly going to tear up my computer, be computerless for a month or more to RMA a broken (Rear only) sound jack, but newegg amazingly gave me credit for a sound card; even though msi is to blame. Thanks newegg!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Benfea
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/16/2009 9:32:12 AM

Rating + 3 Warning: IOH overheats


Pros: Update: still a good board with great features for the price

Cons: I'm getting high IOH temperatures (in the 70s Celsius idle, hits well into the 80s under load). After doing a bit of research, many have been reporting similar problems. The response they get from MSI is generally "It's less than 100 deg. Celsius, so you're fine."

People with this problem were able to correct it just by taking off the IOH heatsink, scraping away the gunk, then applying a bit of thermal paste. After the paste sets in 3 days or so, they report temps around 40 deg. C. Others opted to replace the chipset heatsinks with 3rd party aftermarket heatsinks. Another option is getting a spot-cooling fan (can get temps down below 60 deg. C).

Other Thoughts: MSI may very well be right that people like me will be fine as long as the operating temp of the IOH remains below 100 deg. C, but I'm concerned about long term stability. Not all MSI X58 platinum/pro boards are experiencing this issue, and other than the IOH temps, this is an excellent board: stable and feature-packed.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Cowboy
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/16/2009 7:09:14 AM

Rating + 3 Nice board, but....


Pros: Great board w/ lots of features. Loaded, like the way the sata slots are on the side and not covered by by GPU, great to have 8 usb ports on back, cmos reset, etc.

Cons: I had a hell of a time getting this board to post. It took me about 3 days. I figured it was something in my setup from the other reviews. If I hadn't sent off for the rebate and thrown out the box I would have done an RMA. I changed, PSU's, GPU's, RAM, unplugged all my devices, reset cmos, etc, etc. I'm not exactly sure what I did to make it post, but if you aren't familiar w/ mobo's and their problems, this isn't the board for you- stay away novices.

Other Thoughts: Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz, GIGBYTE Radeon HD 4850 1GB, CoolMax 700w SLI Modular PSU, 6GB G.SKILL (3 x 2GB) DDR3 SDRAM 1600, Stock Cooler, Seagate 1TB HDD, 2 LG 22x DVDRW's, Cooler Master CM690 Case. Going to set up crossfire after I'm sure board is stable.

CHECK LIST OF COMPATIBLE HARDWARE AT THE MSI SITE B4 BUYING THIS BOARD. I'm not sure it's up to date, but a few of my components were not listed.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/13/2009 7:42:38 PM

Rating + 5 Can't beat it at any price


Pros: It just works and works well. Over clocks with little to no effort!

Cons: Mflash via BIOS is buggy

Other Thoughts: I have to counter the user that says 6 dimm modules won't post. I'm using 6 dimms and it posts first time every time. I'm using Corsair 3 channel 1600 modules of 3 ea 1 GB and 3 ea 2 GB. All totaling 9 GB. Not only that but I'm OCing the modules to 1333 MHz. That puts my I7 920 at 3.32 GHz. With the addition of a Zalman CPU cooler it stays cool and has yet to miss a beat. Just to see if all the components would do it I pushed it to 4 GHz one day without error. However, the CPU got to 70 C under load. As such I backed back down to 3.32 GHZ and a much cooler 40 C under load. Kudos to MSI for making a mobo that is this flexible and solid! Don't hesiitate to buy!

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KrisN
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/12/2009 3:53:08 PM

Rating + 5 Great Product


Pros: In my opinion this motherboard has all the options you need and cuts cost on alot of the unnecessary options that most people won't use. This is one of the cheapest MB's around and well worth the cost.

Cons: If you don't read about a product before you buy it you may think its broke, this MB may require BIOS tweaks to boot with six sticks of RAM. MSI's technical support on the website does seem very limited to what is on hand, but with only one BIOS setting this MB was up and running.

Other Thoughts: Tried to boot with six sticks of RAM in, would not post (this is where most people RMA). I took out three sticks set RAM timing, put in the three sticks of RAM i took out and went on to enjoy the best bang for my buck MB. If you RMA this board without troubleshooting a possible configuration issue you may pay about 100 dollars more for a MB that doesn't perform as well.
i7 920, 12 gig OC ram, 260 GTX 216 core, MSI X58 Plat, Corsair 64G SSD, Windows 7

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MuZiKm0n
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/31/2009 6:32:57 PM

Rating + 5 FANTASTIC


Pros: I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AN ASUS MBORD USER. THIS MB IS FANTASTIC. INSTALLED WITHOUT A HITCH. HAVE NOT OCLOCKED YET BUT EXTREMELY STABLE.

Cons: NONE YET

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Tedflip
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/31/2009 2:18:22 PM

Rating + 5 MSI is good


Pros: Well, this is only my second computer build. And I'm quite impressed with this boards capability. MSI is a smart/clever company. I like how they make their products.

I recommend this board for beginners and advanced users. Whats good with this board is, not only its handy features, but its also very stable.

Also, it has something called DrMOS (something MSI includes in their mother boards). I don't know much about DrMOS, or how it actually works. But its able too keep the processor at a low temperature along with my heatsink. DrMOS, combined with my heatsink and my thermal compound, keeps my i7 processor at 29°C. And that is more than good!

Cons: The only thing that kind of confuses me is the slow start up on post. I turn my computer on and it takes 5-10 seconds for the screen to post. I am not worried though, cause everything appears to run fine. I have ran several test on this mother board to be sure.

Other Thoughts: MSI makes good boards. As I said, I recommend them to people new to building computers.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Red_Card
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/29/2009 8:22:47 PM

Rating + 4 Not bad


Pros: Price in comparison to other X58 models. Decent open layout. Lots of SATA connections. Bios options are numerous however could be confusing if new to X58

Cons: The sata 7 and 8 must be raided if your going to use them. They are no faster that the rest of the sata ports and they could get in the way if your vidcard takes up 2 spots and your case is small. Even though the price/performance was better than most boards I think all X58's are too high!

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N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/25/2009 12:47:08 PM

Rating + 3 Just OK for me--some bios issues


Pros: Looks nice, good layout, runs fine when it actually starts up.

Cons: I am not an overclocker; I run everything at stock speeds. Half of the time when I startup my system, I get the "The Previous Overclocking has Failed" message and the bios settings are reset. The system will then startup normally, and run fine. But maybe 2-3 startups later, the same thing happens. I tried everything I could think of (bios update, memory settings, incompatible video or sound cards), but the problems persist.

MSI's tech support was unhelpful. Their official response was to have me figure out the problem by swapping components (I don't have a spare i7 CPU lying around). I may just try to RMA and sell it and buy an ASUS or Gigabyte, which I've always used in the past with success.

Other Thoughts: This was my first experience with an MSI product, and I'm not impressed. They system works fine when it actually starts, but hate having to wait as it fails to post and then blindly F10 setup every few days.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
5/15/2009 8:30:48 PM

Rating + 1 Do not buy


Pros: Wouldn't know, board has never worked... Even after an RMA

Cons: Got this board and it would never post, no matter what components I put in (mem, vid card, etc). Sent the MB back for an RMA, just tried installing it again and same problem, no post.

Other Thoughts: Never buying MSI again, used to like their MBs (I have three others), but getting a board back from RMA that has the same problem is unacceptable, for any company. It's ashame too, I run my own computer biz now, but I'll only use EVGA or Gigabyte from now on.

1 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Jrac86
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
5/11/2009 11:19:26 AM

Rating + 5 Good Motherboard


Pros: Took a chance and bought this as an open box. Came with everything and works nicely. The spacing works well with everything...

Cons: I did have some problems at first. The computer was running extremely slow and I didnt know why.. after checking the functionality of many different components, I noticed that the Bios was not updated. After updating, the computer was super fast. SO, if you're having problems, try updating the Bios

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Benfea
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/10/2009 12:16:07 PM

Rating + 4 No beep codes in manual


Pros: Cheap for an X58 board, otherwise so far, so good.

Cons: Occasional RAM-related boot problems, but that may be my fault. Still trouble-shooting that particular issue.

The main problem is that the included user manual does not list beep codes for troubleshooting (or if it does, I completely missed that section). Unfortunately, the only place to get a listing of beep codes is from the MSI web site, and if you're having that kind of trouble, you may not be able to get to the web site.

I strongly recommend you print out the troubleshooting guide from the MSI web site BEFORE you install this product.

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N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
5/8/2009 11:42:37 PM

Rating + 4 Nice upgrade from older Athlon 64 rig


Pros: As others have mentioned, some hits and misses with this board. It's my first Intel build, and I too am impressed. After initial RAM issue was solved, she does run like a champ. All the connectivity/expandability I need, plenty of room to work at a great pricepoint, especially when coupled with a rebate. The blue LEDs look great.

Cons: Not much to complain about, although like some I discovered that this one seems to be somewhat picky about the RAM. My build did not seem too happy with 12GB (6x2), so I backed off to 6GB (3x2) and had no problems afterward. I did not attempt a BIOS tweak or troubleshoot the issue too much, so I guess I cannot definitively say it was an issue with the MB, but the memory I removed was new and tested OK.

Other Thoughts: Stable, quick and cool running @2.67 under the stock fan, with a single BFG GTX260 MaxCore Vid Card, 6GB of Corsair XMS DDR3, a WD 500GB 'blue' HD, a Corsair 750W PSU, all in an Antec 900 two case.

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bremstone
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/1/2009 7:57:57 PM

Rating + 5 Very Impressive.


Pros: Runs SLI and Crossfire, comes with 2 Crossfire bridges and 1 SLI. Directions are clear and to the point, the board set up is very nice and clean and yes you can run 2xGTX295s, the spacing is just right for them, has plenty of fan connectors dispersed from north bridge to south. You can deffinately put this board through the ringer and it will last a long time. I have seen OC's done on this board that blow Rampage out of the water.

Cons: I will update my comments once I start or if I start to have problems with it.

Other Thoughts: Alot of people have seem to have problems with this board. I wonder if they came around when this board first came out, but all the problems that were mentioned below me I have yet to see. This board does support SLI I already have mine installed and working just fine, you have to read the directions in order to understand anything. I can tell from the comments below me there were very few people who knew what they were doing. The bios isn't as difficult as most have said, and my ram is 6gigs of G skill and they run perfect, so people read the directions and I mean all of them stop being lazy and stop giving bad reviews unless you know what it is you are talking about. MSI did a really good job and I recommand this board to anyone thats doing there first build or are OC addicts.

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Ltooz_audis
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
4/27/2009 10:43:47 AM

Rating + 5 Amazing budget board


Pros: MSIx58Platinum open box (NOT SLI) + Corsair 6GB triple channels 1333 from Newegg is great. Downloaded latest drivers from MSI and power on without a hitch.
OC to 3700 (185MHZ BCLK) with only +.05V increment from both VCORE & PQI and DDR3 only running @ 1.55V. This is the safest setting for both CPU and DDR3.
Running WINDOWS XP 64 solidly for days and encode blu-ray 20GB to 1920x1080 @9000 kbs on 2 hours movie in less than 3 hours (Unbelievable). Internet download is fast 920kb/s using wireless card (Not direct connect).
Idle @ 37C, power @ 20watts EIST is great.

Cons: Bios update is a pain... Didn't even want to update because it's working fine.

Other Thoughts: Bios is still @ V1.10, although V1.14 already came out. But everything is working fine and online update is scary, not very supportive with x64 bit and doesn't support firefox browser, only IE which I don't like.
If you don't need all to hook up 3 video cards, this motherboard is the one.

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The Malt King
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/27/2009 10:14:51 AM

Rating + 4 Plug and Play


Pros: Dropped in components, posted and booted on first effort, as it should. LED status lights are nice and compatibility with Windows 7 seems stable so far. Have yet to try overclocking.

Cons: First board had memory issue and was RMA'ed. returned and received replacement within a week. I've read and experienced memory problems with some OCZ sticks prior and I used 6GB of 1600 Gskill stick this time with complete success. Your results may vary.

Other Thoughts: Don't assume "all" 1366 motherboards have low memory gap settings. They don't. Do the research.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Adion
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/22/2009 3:32:34 PM

Rating + 5 Awesome


Pros: Manual is written in clear and easy to understand *english*. No engrish. It goes into detail on all the BIOS options, explaining what they do, better than the on screen in the BIOS itself does.

It has a ton of LEDs, mostly telling you nothing important but it's still cool to know that your CPU is running at 1/5th max power most of the time. It also has handy power and reset switches on the motherboard for testing it without dealing with the front panel lights.

On the topic of the front panel, they include a really handy little adapter piece that you can plug all the cables into first, then plug into the motherboard, saving you the hassle of squeezing your fingers in there blind. A nice feature.

Cons: The manual says nothing about running SLI, but has a couple pages to Crossfire. Suspicious.

The IDE connector is kind of low, I had to move my DVD drive down two bays to get it to reach. Not a big deal, just wish I didn't have to.

Other Thoughts: It comes with two crossfire bridges and an SLI bridge, but I don't have two VCs to check out if that all works.

To the people having trouble with RAM, make sure you put them in the BLACK slots first, not blue. 2,4,6,1,3,5. That's the order to put the memory in.

System Specs:
Intel Core i7 920 @ stock 2.66GHz.
6GB of OCZ3P1600LV6GK (had to manually set timings)
NVidia 8800GTS

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veredko
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/21/2009 10:59:07 PM

Rating + 1 Very frustrating!


Pros: Very pretty, nice design, if it worked it would have had lots of great features.

Cons: Dose not work

Other Thoughts: Bought new parts to build a brand new system, MOBO – MSI X580 platinum SLI – looked great – didn’t boot…obtained an RMA from NewEgg no problem. Took about a week to do all the shipping back & forth & I got the second one – same problem !!! For a few days I tried every thing including MSI support (phone & email) they told me to send it back. Very frustrating! I called NewEgg & explained the problem they will give me credit/refund so I can get something else. Dealing with New Egg proved once again the peace of mind I have when shopping with them – as soon as I get the refund I’m going to get new parts, till then I’ll do some research as to a more reliable MoBo (Asus or AVGA probably).

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MB
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
4/21/2009 10:45:59 PM

Rating + 5 Memory Low Gap Settings


Pros: *A note to anyone with the last posters particular problem: When using more than 2GB of RAM on any of these 1366 boards, check the "Memory Low Gap" settings in the BIOS. You'll want to set it to 3GB when using 6GB or more. This is not made clear at all by the MB manufacturer.

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: Do the research before assuming you have a bad product.

4 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/18/2009 8:24:58 PM

Rating + 1 Might be nice if worked...........


Pros: nice LEDs. Screws were well lined up with posts.

Cons: Won't recognize more than 1 stick of RAM. Tried three different memory makers and packages, flashed BIOS twice. Won't post with more than 1.

Other Thoughts: Will see if the replacement is any better. RMAing is a PIA!!@

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

mothow
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/16/2009 6:02:26 PM

Rating + 5 Great board imho


Pros: I think the reviewers that are havig problems with this board have no clue what they are doing.This board works great for me.Raid was a breeze to setup.Heck the board was easy to setup.Overclocking is confusing but thats my fault not the boards.I havent took the time to learn the setting's and what they do yet.But once i figure them out i know ill get a decent OC.Maybe its not a high end board but its not a low end board either.I love this board so far.I do miss the floppy disk port but other than that this board is great,Dont let the negative reviews steer you away.Take your time and install every thing and you will be happy

Cons: None seriously the board works great

Other Thoughts: The NB does run hot but its nothing good airflow wont fix or a antec spotfan

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Kurtmo
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/10/2009 3:07:22 AM

Rating + 4 No complaints


Pros: A good budget board. I'm not a big one for hardcore OC'ing so I don't really use the easy to do BIOS altering but the option is there for someone that does.

I wanted a cheaper mobo for my Core i7 and this one fit the bill. It is SLI compatible for down the line.

The board was very easy to put together. Everything was straightforward and simple in the instructions and the fold-out diagram was helpful for a quick build.

Cons: It is really more of a case issue, but my USB/Firewire/Audio wires were a stretch to plug in all the way on the bottom left corner of the board. With my hulk GPU in there they barely make it.

No real complaints.

Other Thoughts: A good board for the money so far. If you want to build a Core i7 system for as cheap as possible, this board should get you there.

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JGplanes
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/5/2009 7:37:27 PM

Rating + 1 Resistor solder failed


Pros: Simple to OC. Ran well @ 3Ghz with stock I7 920 cooler. Lots of SATA ports.

Cons: One of the resistors near the PCI-E slots popped off while I was unplugging the IDE cable and not anywhere near it. Bad solder? I've had it for a little over 60 days, so I'm not sure what can be done about it. I have had them burn, but never had this happen before. Arrrgh! The PCB seems a little flimsy, as the board has a tendency to make cracking noises, even when being held securely with one hand.

The board is named "SLI", there is a SLI certified sticker on the board, but it only does crossfire. There was a SLI sticker on the outside of the box, but it appears that it has been torn off. Some forums mentioned there was a bios update that turned the SLI feature of these boards off.

Also, the bios can be a little confusing.

Other Thoughts: Good looking board from a distance, but I'm not impressed with the quality.

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/29/2009 9:58:39 AM

Rating + 4 decent I7 mobo


Pros: Good solid board good layout I like the esata cmos reset is on the rear pannel. On board sound is good enought xfire or sli...

I liked the bundled cords that came with it and supplies

Cons: What I don't like and why it gets 4 vs 5 is I had to flash the bios right out of the box to add support for the I7 920. It would crash before post 2 or so times and tell me my overclock settings had failed. So if you have that problem try flashing to the newest bios.

Another thing, only a small problem, but one that I finded annoying while installing. The board takes 8 to 10 seconds to post so 8 to 10 seconds in addition to post. And double that for a restart. Like. I said its no big deal just annoying when your setting it up to see if it works.

Other Thoughts: This is by far the most expensive motherboard, I have bought, I have never had to flash my computer. To make it work...

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/23/2009 11:38:04 AM

Rating + 4


Pros: worked right out of the box

Cons: none really just wish it supported dual channel memory for sli

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
3/21/2009 8:48:35 AM

Rating + 5 Very good motherboard great bang for the buck


Pros: Has everything you could possibly need, fan headers like crazy, large solid copper N/B cooler, easy overclocking dip switches, bios reset switches on the back of the board. 10 USB ports. Quick setup pin header plugs for your power buttons etc. Several cool looking on board Led's. Crossfire and SLI support. A easy to use bios that takes you to 3.8 to 3.9 ghz no problem with a decent air cooler. That's 1200+ mhz for free.

Cons: Yes I know there are other boards that will take a a I7 920 to 4.0ghz with less voltage , but in most cases they cost 60.00 to 200.00 dollars more for 100 mhz is that worth it ? The only thing holding this motherboard back is it's phase power (5) and that's why it won't do 4.0ghz with HT on and a air cooler 24/7. That's also why these other motherboards cost a arm and a leg. They can use less voltage when overclocking causing less heat because of the better, more expensive power phases.

Other Thoughts: For one of the cheapest I7 motherboards out there is a great motherboard that doesn't break the bank. At 3.8 ghz that's a 47 percent overclock, using default voltage 1.36v, how could anyone say this is a bad deal.

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/18/2009 10:17:41 PM

Rating + 1 Check Your Ram


Pros: Board has some nice features.

Cons: They put stickers all over the board so you pull them all off without reading them. You stick the RAM in slot closest to the motherboard like you would with DDR2 ram and your board doesn't POST.

Technical support did not seem to be very knowledgeable on troubleshooting either.

Other Thoughts: Make sure you put the RAM in slot 2,4,6. It will save you a lot of headache. That is the only reason the review is low. I really like the board, go for it.


i7 940
2x 300gig Velociraptors
6gigs Corsair tri-channel DDR3 ram.
9800gtx+ SSC

1 out of 26 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

E.
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
3/18/2009 10:26:06 AM

Rating + 5 Works Well


Pros: Very easy to install. Wide range of options to play with. Seems sturdy, durable. It installed with no problems, read all my ram, posted without a hitch. The CMOS reset button on the back is very good for failed OC'ing attempts. The board overclocks well, managed to get my 920 to 3.3ghz without taxing the system too much and using only stock cooler and 2 additional fans.

Cons: The board runs hot... if you have your computer stored in a cabinet or something, you might be able to get away with that on other boards, but not this one. I recommend buying an aftermarket cooler so you can take full advantage of the overclock. The board I bought is not SLI ready, but can be made so by a mod. I dont use SLI, but the option is nice to have.

Other Thoughts: Recommendable 100%. Unless you get a DOA, be it on the board or the memory or proc, this board is a surefire bet. Cheers to MSI.

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N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/17/2009 12:23:32 PM

Rating + 5 Love it


Pros: Does everything very well with an emphasis on overclocking

Cons: Needs a couple more PCI slots

Other Thoughts: With 2 video cards the PCI slots are covered up

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
3/16/2009 3:39:37 PM

Rating + 5 Flat out great !!!!!


Pros: This MSI motherboard is flat out great for the bundle it comes with and it's performance, man did MSI come through. In the past MSI was not up to snuff but this board is every bit as good as my old ASUS Rampage and it has a hell of a bios

Cons: none not a single thing man can MSI accessorizes or what

Other Thoughts: super good way to go MSI. With good cooling easily does 3.9 to 4.0ghz at 1.375vdefault voltage with a I7 920 .

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kaputnik
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/16/2009 10:20:56 AM

Rating + 4 solid board, nice options


Pros: this board has lots of USB ports and the spacing of everything on the board fits well in my case (Lian-Li). was easy to install and the default BIOS configuration worked fine. Product has been 100% stable with Vista x64.

Cons: Some of the BIOS settings are confusing, even with the manual description. they all seem to work as expected though.

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N/A
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/12/2009 7:41:55 PM

Rating + 4 Good second one


Pros: Over clocks very well, easy to update BIOS and easy to over clock.

Cons: First board was DOA, but newegg has me covered. There's a reason I stick with them.

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samthefish
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/11/2009 7:20:30 PM

Rating + 5 Great board - tons of features for the price


Pros: Excellent features for the money - I do embedded linux development so I love having the extra network port and the tons of SATA connections for the spare drives I have kicking around.

I paired this with an i7 920 for my machine at work and can do linux kernel compiles in less than half the time than I can on my Wolfsdale 8500 (3.16 ghz core2) at home. It's silly fast. Maybe with all the extra free time I could take up gaming again...

Layout of the board is good, was able to accommodate a massive scythe 120mm fan heatsink with no clearance problems for the memory. The 4pin cpu power supply header was a little tricky as it sat right under the side mounted fan on the heatsink, I removed the fan to get at it.

I normally don't overclock but seeing the substantial "easy" overclocks reported I couldn't help but turn mine up to eleven - I'm running the 6 MB OCZ DDR2 platinum memory at 166 bclk for 3.320 ghz and it's running solid as a rock.

Cons: Well, I've seen others say the the northbridge runs hot. Since it's the same northbridge as on other lga1366 boards it's probably just a fact of life. The heatsink looks nice and I'm taking care that I have good airflow over it.

Initially I loved the idea of the side mounted sata ports for cable routing ... I only wish I had connected the ports before I had installed the motherboard.

Other Thoughts: I remember trying to overclock my 120 mhz pentium to 133 with no luck back in the day ... I get the feeling that Intel could EASILY produce a 4mhz part if they felt like it - but since there's no competition why bother? They can easily bump up the clock rate if they feel any future heat from AMD. The i7 is a real monster. I've been an AMD user for quite a while now but just can't argue with how fast this thing is.

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RodDogg
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
3/10/2009 6:31:52 PM

Rating + 5 SOLID BOARD


Pros: OVERCLOCKS GREAT!! Plenty of SATA ports- 6 on the ICH10 and 2 SAS ports on the Jmicron chip works with my old SATA 150 drives in RAID 0.(RAID 0 or 1 only) 6 DDR3 slots. Blue LEDs on board everywhere! Tricky at first, but easy to flash BIOS through USB flash drive. Good layout of PCI-E/ PCI slots.(I am running an X-FI titanium through the top PCI-E x1 slot, along with 2 8800GTXs in SLI) BIG VIDEO CARDS DON'T BUMP INTO OR KEEP ANYTHING FROM BEING CONNECTED. However, if you need to disconnect a hard drive, you will need to pull video cards if they are of the large variety. TONS OF BIOS TWEAKS. Will run my Corsair Dominator 1600 at 1600 by adjusting memory divider, after BIOS was flashed. Lastly, I need to say that the Coolermaster V8 has plenty of room on this board, and feels right at home. I didn't even waste my time with the stock heatsink. Maybe I'll toss it in a golden goat and see if I can make some money back! :o

Cons: Board did not work as expected out of the box, SATA ports are a little confusing as to their numbering. (the six on the ICH10) BIOS did not recognize all my drives at first, so I had to re-arrange them. Also, the north bridge runs warmer that I am comfy with. (68-70c stock) So, I took the heatpipe off the board, cleaned the area that touches the north bridge and applied some Arctic Silver 5. I did not mess with the thermal pad on the south bridge. After re-assembly, I installed a small, 40mm fan using 2 screws. Now, temps have never gone above 60c at 4GHz! Another strange thing that I discovered was the absence of a floppy connector. The BIOS level that it shipped with was down-level and the LIVE UPDATE UTILITY did not flash it to the latest - it only re-flashed it to the same level! External floppy was too complex, so I used the M-Flash utility within the BIOS. DO NOT TRY TO BOOT TO THE USB DRIVE!- Just put the BIOS file by itself on the flash drive and go to the M-flash in BIOS.

Other Thoughts: Overall, I am very pleased with this board. I expexted a couple of issues being that it is a new platform and all. Once I updated the BIOS and cooled the north bridge, I was comfortable cranking up my i7 920. Folks- It's time to consider MSI, because for the money, you really can't go wrong. I am very picky about motherboards, and this baby fits the bill. I have smashed all of my benchmarks by far. I am running a PC Power & Cooling 750, and while running 3DMark 06 during deep freeze, my system was peaking at over 675 watts, according to my P3 kill-a-watt! SO. READ THE MANUAL, and BE SURE YOU HAVE A SOLID POWER SUPPLY, especially for BIG-DOG SLI SETUPS!! For every adjustment while you OC, you MUST take extra time to do multiple tests to ensure stability. READ THE REVIEWS OF ALL YOUR COMPONENTS FROM REPUTABLE SOURCES BEFORE MAKING A PURCHASE! I like MSI because of the excellent performance vs. value. U don't need an expensive board - just solid components around it! Just BUY IT

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

James
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
3/6/2009 9:53:35 PM

Rating + 5 Works great!


Pros: I bought this board in an Open Box deal from Newegg. I was lucky to get all the accessories. The board works great. Booted up and recognized everything without a problem. It has some nice features on it as well. I don't use any of the included software, but I'm sure they would be kinda handy. I overclocked my Core i7 920 to ~3.3 GHz by just changing the Base Clock and Ram divider. Everything else is on default. Has SLI! Haven't used SLI yet, but I will as soon as I get money for another GTX 280. The price is right on this board, looks like it's one of the cheapest SLI boards right now.

Cons: The only thing I don't like about it is the fan controlling system. I had an Abit IP35 Pro before, which handled fan speed really well. It could support up to 5 fans. The MSI board has 5 fan power connectors, but only the ability to monitor 3 fans. The CPU fan speed goes straight up to high when it reaches high than the desired temp. No big deal at all really, I'm just being nitpicky.

Other Thoughts: Seems some people have had problems with it but luckily I didn't. Make sure your RAM is on the supported memory list. I am using this board in a Cooler Master HAF 923 case, with a Core i7 920, EVGA GTX 280 SSC, 3 GB OCZ 1333 DDR3, Corsair HX750, Zalman 9700 NT

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Mesatay
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/6/2009 9:42:03 AM

Rating + 1 DOA


Pros: None

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Arrived DOA. Tried to RMA and they were out of stock so I received a refund and bought a different mobo.

1 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Curtieson
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: less than 1 day
3/6/2009 9:33:43 AM

Rating + 5 In Reference to RAM issues


Pros: Everything you can ask for in a board, has all the settings of a high end, $300-$350 board with a fancy $230-$240 price tag!

I didn't buy newegg because I had $100 in Giftcards to the local store ("Small"-Center if you will) but they pricematched down to NewEggs price.

Cons: No on board video...I wanted a week of running everything before I bought a card; and most people buying an i7 are throwing in a $200 Graphics card anyway.

Other Thoughts: In respect to the RAM issues in other comment. With these new boards, the RAM is in TRIPPLE CHANNEL. If you get into one of these, you need either 1, 3, 4, 6 sticks. 2 or 5 do not work!!! (And don't quote me on 4 either...that is a guess that it will allow 1 Tripple Channel and then 1 Single Channel)

The reason...you will notice 3 slots are black, 3 are blue...the system won't boot when there are 2/3s of one of the channel filled. It WILL boot when there is only 1/3...and it will boot when there are 3/3s. Keep that in mind when you are dropping $90 for a 2x2GB kit of ram...you need a 3rd!!!

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Joeschmo
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
3/6/2009 5:40:45 AM

Rating + 1 You would be gambling if you buy this.


Pros: It ran the intel i7 extreme core processor while hyperthreading was enabled.

Cons: Numerous flaws, integral errors, failing critical components. Overclock failed from the slightest changes. Almost as soon as the first month ended the board began to crash randomly, leaving me with nothing but what happened to be displayed on my screen at the time. Disabling hyperthreading seemed to appease the errors but eventually the board began crashing again until eventually winding down to the point where a month of downtime was acceptable over restarting the computer.

Also upon recieving: Core Voltage was low and temperature levels were shockingly high. Until I realised that the board somehow swapped some of the statistic in its bios I thought it was going to burst into flames.

Other Thoughts: The board was bent after I installed the processor fan since the board was so far out of spec. An RMA returned a 'fixed' but completely non functional motherboard after 4 weeks. MSI seems it is very good at turning a blind eye to what a customer believes they're agreeing to when a warranty has only been in effect for 2 months.

0 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
3/6/2009 12:37:55 AM

Rating + 3 OK if not planning to overclock


Pros: Cheaper than most X58 motherboards. Clean layout. Stable for normal use.

Cons: Buggy BIOS and/or Utility software; Sytem temp and Nothbridge temp are swapped. Northbridge (IOH) temp is reportedly very high (64C ~ 78C) at idle on a non-overclocked system. Very hard to overclock to get above 3.5GHz.

Other Thoughts: High Northbridge (IOH) temp is either due to incorrect value being reported due to buggy BIOS or heatsink being too small or not getting good contact due to push-pins being used to secure it. I have not heard complaints from people using other X58 boards about Northbridge temp problem, so pay a little more and get something else.

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Mike S.
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/2/2009 9:26:58 PM

Rating + 5 Nice Motherboard


Pros: This motherboard was easy to overclock the ram and CPU. Once installed it booted up right away. Installed vista ultimate with ease.

Cons: None so far.

Other Thoughts: Just a reminder to anyone planning on using this board. If you have problems getting video display, make sure that you use the black slots instead of the blue slots. Older motherboards have the primary slot closest to the cpu. Not the case here. The second slot is the primary. Make sure you update the drivers and bios.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

HFB1217
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/28/2009 2:23:19 PM

Rating + 2 One DOA second has boot problems


Pros: Nice Box!
I like the lay out and design but it leaves a lot to be desired as far as functionality.

Cons: Bought this as part of a donation to the Space Science Lab at Berkeley (Seti).

First board they received had the Layers of the board delaminated and flaking. Second board has not been able to boot fans spin up and nothing else happens.

Other Thoughts: For a top of the line company there quality control is poor. Box looks nice but packaging of components stinks.
The platinum board I purchased for myself had the contents looking like they were in a Tornado. Come on MSI lets get your act together PLEASE!!

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Zen
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
2/26/2009 4:18:17 PM

Rating + 5 Excellent


Pros: Excellent Motherboard for the price. When th 4GB sticks of DDR3 come out this thing will be unstoppable!

Cons: Only one slight problem, I am running 2GB corsair XMS3 and when I have the second stick in the MOBO it wont boot correctly. It always says Overclocking has failed when I finally get it to boot. Works just fine with one stick.

Other Thoughts: When I have 2 sticks in, most of the time it wont display and video output and the PC will continually restart.

0 out of 8 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/23/2009 9:39:29 AM

Rating + 2 Just my bad luck?


Pros: Good design and very nice accessories included such as the jumper cable guide making installation a breeze.

Cons: After 10 minutes I get a blue screen, then after that every 5 minutes or at random. At first I suspected it may be the bad memory. Took about a total of 12 hours to diagnose to narrow it down that it wasn't the memory or the cpu but the motherboard. It is such a pain to RMA because having to take everything apart again. I ended up getting a new board because I didn't want to deal with the downtime.

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

JohnFT
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/20/2009 9:56:30 PM

Rating + 5 MSI x58 Platium SLI Review


Pros: Solid construction with solid state capacitors. Board supports more than one soundcard at a time. With the stock Intel heatsink, I'm getting the following while overclocking:
BUS 170Mhz X 20 = 3.4Ghz
Mem Mult = 5
170 X 2 X 5 = 1700Mhz using 1866 OCZ Triple MEM
CPUID reports DRAM Freq as 850Mhz, QPI Link at 3070Mhz, and Timings 7-7-7-24 1T.
Using Nvidia 9800GT 1GB

CPU Cooler coming soon...

Cons: OC alittle limited with this OCZ memory? Don't know why I can't get it up to 1866Mhz?

3 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/20/2009 6:50:01 AM

Rating + 2 You get what you pay for


Pros: Could have been an OK MB if it worked

Cons: I bought this because at the time it was the cheapest X58 on newegg. Mine was DOA - and after much fussing with it and testing, I could never get a POST screen at all.

I researched on the MSI forums and it looked like several other people had this issue as well.

I'd recommend paying a little bit extra and get a better quality board

Other Thoughts: It wasn't the case with mine, but also this MB seems to be very picky about the type of RAM you use, so double check your ram is on the supported list.

3 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/8/2009 9:54:20 PM

Rating + 5 Extremely happy!


Pros: DrMos...cool leds on the mobo...so far it is everything I have hoped for! I have used MSI for the past 10 years at home and at work...I will continue so. MSI has been very solid in my experience. GO MSI,inc for another great board! Thanks!

Cons: none so far.

Other Thoughts: great board, but check the memory settings to make sure you are running at the proper Mhz. Also, make sure to set your boot priority to CD->HDD. Had the black screen+blinking cursor in the upper left corner and it would not detect my vista cd. A quick change in priority fixed the problem.

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

1234asdf
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
2/8/2009 5:01:08 PM

Rating + 4 Non-SLI platinum review


Pros: I think the egg stopped selling the non-SLI version of this mobo, I bought an open box one for a benjamin and a grant to pair with a 920 i7. Setup is great. MSI's utilities don't work though, but the value for dollar is extremely high and I've got a 4.2Ghz rock solid OC going. Can't really complain.

Cons: Not all of MSI's utilities work with my XP 64-bit install.

Other Thoughts: Glad I bought this. There were other 2x more expensive options, but this is holding up fine and works great for the build I have.

4 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
2/4/2009 5:32:15 PM

Rating + 4 Great MOBO..... Except.....


Pros: Excellent board for the price and all around for the most part. I would recommend this board. This is the first MSI I have bought and I am impressed....

Cons: 4 out of 5 eggs however, One problem I have had and I have read forums of others with the same problem is the IOH Temp run HOT. Mine is not as bad as what others have reported (65C compare to others around 75C to 90C). This is without overclocking. I have yet to find a real solution other that some extreme modification to the board. The plastic pins that Hold in the heatsink should be replaced by MSI if you ask me.

Other Thoughts: All in all it's a great board just one problem. I installed a Tri-Cool Antec 120mm fan to my Antec 900 case on the side panel at full blast it hits both my Graphics card and the Heatsink. With the added airflow my IOH temp now reads 55C to 57C a bit more livable but not perfect.

4 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Eric
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
2/4/2009 1:26:58 PM

Rating + 4 Great Board


Pros: Seems to be a solid board so far. Love the onboard 8.1 audio. Very easy overclock switch with three options right on the board, as well as Power and Restart buttons. The bios has great features, not confusing and easy to navigate.

Cons: Not for dual video cards that are fairly large in size.

Other Thoughts: Sapphire ATI Radeon 4870 512 MB DDR5
Cooler Master Tower (big)
WD Velociraptor 300 GB OS Drive(10000rpm)
Seagate 500 GB Backup (internal, 7200rpm)
Core i7 Nehalem 2.66
Havent overclocked anything yet

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

BarnDog
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/31/2009 5:39:33 AM

Rating + 5 Rock Solid


Pros: Everything about this board is high quality. I have not tried any overclocking features yet. It runs exceptionally well and took all of my hardware without a hitch. Excellent price, SLI AND crossfire. Came with the very latest bios.

Cons: There is no utility for fan / cpu temp monitoring.

Other Thoughts: I had to swap out my Abit IP35 Pro board after lessthan a year because the onboard network failed. What a huge disappointment. I am thrilled it did.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Rocshop
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/26/2009 3:15:14 PM

Rating + 4 Nice looking board


Pros: Great MoBo can use pci slot and a pcie slot after installing two 260gtx that takes up two slots. dual net card aplus for me.

Cons: Couldn't run sli mode maybe they sent me the wrong board. Only 4 because mobo didn't work for me.

Other Thoughts: Good board wish i didn't have problems with it.
Next build will be crossfire and I think this board will be great.

4 out of 10 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/20/2009 1:14:51 PM

Rating + 5 GREAT BOARD


Pros: Great board, East over clock, I had a gigabyte and it failed on my with no OC, just died on me when i installed, guess bad luck, but gigabyte bios had less option then this MOBO!

Cons: None, Get this board!

Other Thoughts: Great board for the money, you will not be unhappy!

2 out of 13 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

~>X<~
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
1/18/2009 7:02:59 AM

Rating + 4 DUH


Pros: This is a good mobo for the price.Anyone expecting more will be sorely dissapointed.My freind bought one and i set it up for him>Will overclock a 920 to 4GHZ depending on chip and cooling.

Cons: If u dont read internet reviews.M&I in my opinion leaves to many options out of bios,although bios may be more familiar with many peeps.G_gabyte may be better but takes a much more knowledge.

Other Thoughts: M$I has lost a lot since there platinum 939.Platinum is now there #2 MB behind there gold or whatever.I think it might just be the bios and not the hardware that holds this board back.B-5 at 3.4V still has better BW then non tweaked ddr3. LOL go twinboss

2 out of 29 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Shopper
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
1/14/2009 7:12:24 PM

Rating + 5 Shopper


Pros: This is an installation note for all x58 motherboards..

It is strongly suggested to check with the motherboard manufacturer on tested memory.

Intel QPI specifications for both the 920 and 940 is 133mhz.
Any memory conforming to jdec specs for the i7, and seen by the bios as such, will run at 1066mhz on a 133mhz QPI.

If you can change just the clock speed of the memory in the bios (which will change the memory multiplier) then great..
If not.. you will simply need to change the multiplier manually OR change the QPI bus speed to 166mhz.
It is simply that the anufacturer chose to set base Intel specs, not some fault with the motherboard.

btw.. Changing the QPI clock method will also result in a rather gentle oc of your CPU..

So have fun, and research the issue before negatively rating a product for working exactly as it is supposed to.. =)

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: none

17 out of 27 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

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