An monstrous board with 4-way SLI/CrossFire support and 22-phase power

Jan 3, 2012 08:42 GMT  ·  By

After almost two months have passed since Intel’s introduction of the first Sandy Bridge-E high-performance processors, MSI has finally launched its Big Bang-XPower II motherboard for CPUs using the LGA 2011 socket.

As most of you know, MSI’s Big Bang line is reserved for high-end enthusiast friendly products and since the XPower II is no exception to this rule the board comes with all sort of bells and whistles targeting gamers and overclockers.

These include not only the usual features like on-board Power and Reset buttons, but also some more advanced options such as dedicated voltage measurement points, dual-BIOS support, 4-way CrossFireX and SLI support, as well as a special LN2 boot mode.

Furthermore, a series of DIP switches placed along the edge of the motherboard, allow its users to enable or disable four out of the seven PCI Express x16 slots installed.

All of these four slots are driven by the Sandy Bridge-E processor and are PCI Express 3.0 compatible, while the remaining three are controlled by a PLX PEX8608 IC are just PCIe Gen 2 complaint.

The rest of the expansion options include a total of eight DDR3 memory slots, as well as no less than 10 SATA ports, six driven by the X79 PCH and 4 by an ASMedia 1061 controller.

On the back, users will find four USB 3.0 ports powered by a NEC IC, two Gigabit NICs, 8 channel audio with digital and optical S/PDIF out, a Clear CMOS button and a Firewire port. Two additional USB 3.0 ports are available through an on-board header.

Power to the Big Bang-XPower II motherboard is provided via two 8-pin CPU power connectors and a regular 24-pin power plug, while the PCI Express slots can get some additional juice thanks to an angled 6-pin PCIe connector placed right near the SATA ports.

According to MSI, the 22-phase PWM design with Hybrid Digital Power installed on its latest creation is capable of delivering up to 770W of power, 2.4-times more than the reference 9-phase design used in such boards.

Sadly, no info regarding the pricing of the Big Bang-XPower II motherboard was provided by MSI.

Photo Gallery (4 Images)

MSI Big Bang-XPower II LGA 2011 motherboard
MSI Big Bang-XPower II LGA 2011 motherboard - CPU socketMSI Big Bang-XPower II LGA 2011 motherboard - PCIe slots
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