Gaming-

FarCry 2

Featuring fantastic visuals courtesy of the Dunia Engine, this game also features one of the most impressive benchmark tools we have seen in a PC game. We set the performance feature set to Very High, graphics to High, and enable DX10 with AA set to 2x. The in-game benchmark tool is utilized with the Ranch Small level and we report an average of three test runs.


Gaming Performance - Far Cry 2

FarCry 2 CrossFireX


FarCry 2

Left 4 Dead

This game is a blast and addictive to boot - provided you like killing hundreds of zombies while trying to take care of your teammates and sustaining high blood pressure rates. We enable all options, set AA to 2x and AF to 8x, and play back a custom demo of a game session from the Runway Finale chapter within the Dead Air campaign.


Gaming Performance - Left 4 Dead

Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II

We are big fans of the Warhammer franchise, especially Dawn of War II. One of the latest RTS games in our library is also one of the more demanding titles on both the CPU and GPU. We crank all options to High, enable AA, and then run the built-in performance benchmark for our result.


Gaming Performance - Dawn of War II

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

While not a true flight simulation or even serious air combat game, it is a lot of fun and looks visually stunning on a 30” monitor with all options turned up. In our case, we set all options to high, enable 2xAA and DX10, and then use FRAPS to time a custom demo sequence. We run three loops of the benchmark and average our scores for the results.


Gaming Performance - H.A.W.X.

Crysis Warhead

We utilize the Ambush level for our game test. We set the resolution to 1680x1050 with 2xAA, DX10, and 64-bit enabled.


Gaming Performance - Crysis Warhead
General Applications Networking / Storage
Comments Locked

43 Comments

View All Comments

  • petergab - Saturday, October 17, 2009 - link

    Do they use a foxconn socket on this motherboard?
  • Gary Key - Thursday, October 22, 2009 - link

    Yes, Foxconn socket. We are compiling a list of motherboards with each socket manufacturer along with whether they launched with the revised Foxconn socket or the old one (which seems to be the primary problem child). It has been difficult getting straight answers as you can imagine. ;)
  • thermbug - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link

    Pardon the brain freeze but what does the color coding inside the performance charts indicate?
    I see 3 i7's and i5 and an AMD chip for comparison.
    Am I interpreting correctly that the i5 750 is the light green, dark green is the I7 860?
    The utilization of color doesn't seem to be consistent on the various graphs.

    The MSI board is consistently highlighted as dark green in the latter several graphs. But which CPU is being used in that case? It looks like the I7 860 is the standard test but I can't quite grok it.
  • thermbug - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link

    Pardon the brain freeze but what does the color coding inside the performance charts indicate?
    I see 3 i7's and i5 and an AMD chip for comparison.
    Am I interpreting correctly that the i5 750 is the light green, dark green is the I7 860?
    The utilization of color doesn't seem to be consistent on the various graphs.

    The MSI board is consistently highlighted as dark green in the latter several graphs. But it mentionsBut which CPU is being used in that case?
  • strikeback03 - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - link

    I'm guessing that all results which don't specify a processor use the 750.
  • haplo602 - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link

    OMG another P55 board review ... how about a 785G one ? there was NONE since it launched, yet you are covering P55 like the next best thing to sliced bread ...

  • maomao0000 - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link

    http://www.myyshop.com">http://www.myyshop.com

    Quality is our Dignity; Service is our Lift.

    Myyshop.com commodity is credit guarantee, you can rest assured of purchase, myyshop will

    provide service for you all, welcome to myyshop.com

    Air Jordan 7 Retro Size 10 Blk/Red Raptor - $34

    100% Authentic Brand New in Box DS Air Jordan 7 Retro Raptor colorway

    Never Worn, only been tried on the day I bought them back in 2002

    $35Firm; no trades

    http://www.myyshop.com/productlist.asp?id=s14">http://www.myyshop.com/productlist.asp?id=s14 (Jordan)

    http://www.myyshop.com/productlist.asp?id=s29">http://www.myyshop.com/productlist.asp?id=s29 (Nike shox)
  • ipay - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link

    That generally sums up my experience with every MSI board I've ever used. Unfortunately, while the warts are few, they're usually significant enough that they overshadow all the good features, and you end up with a board that's frustrating to use.

    Buy an ASRock or Biostar instead. You'll get a similar layout, similar overclocking options and fewer "warts" at a lower price.
  • yacoub - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link

    My MSI P6N-SLI Platinum (c2d) board has been flawless since day one. It is my first MSI motherboard and has been running great (overclocked, no less) ever since.
  • crab nebula - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link

    If you insert a device in the PCI Express x4 slot, then the other two PCI Express x1 slots are disabled automatically (because the mb has an extra PCI Express Gb LAN controller and a PCI Express IEEE 1394 controller). Somehow this is not mentioned in any review of this mb.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now