MSI X58 Eclipse Overclocking Core i7 920 4.1GHz without changing voltage!
18 February 2011. Author: mas_sas
Once you open the front panel of the box, you get a lot of details on what features the board provides - and you get to see thru the box and catch a glimpse of the copper heatsink, and the "GreenPower Genie".
SLI and CrossFire on one board...! Our graphics guy, Kevin, is already drooling. Before the X58 chipset, this wasn't possible in all but the most specialized platforms, such Intel's Skulltrail.
The back of the box is quite understated by comparison.
Here are the specifications, straight from MSI's global site:
| Socket | 1366 |
|---|---|
| CPU (Max Support) | i7 |
| FSB / Hyper Transport Bus | 6.4GT/s |
| Chipset | Intel® X58 |
| DDR3 Memory | DDR3 800/1066/1333/1600 |
| DIMM Slots | 6 |
| Max Memory (GB) | 24 |
| PCI-Ex16 | 3 |
| PCI-Ex1 | 2 |
| PCI | 2 |
| IDE | 1 |
| SATA | 10 |
| RAID | 0/1/5/10/JBOD |
| LAN | 10/100/1000*2 |
| TPM | 1 |
| USB ports (Rear) | 8 |
| Audio ports (Rear) | 5(Creative® SB X-Fi Xtreme) |
| 1394 ports (Rear) | 1 |
| eSATA | 2 |
| Form Factor | ATX |
| DrMOS | Y |
| SLI | Y |
| 3-way SLI | Y |
| CrossFire | Y |
The Board
The motherboard is black - and it means business. The copper heatpipes and attached heatsinks are moderate in size, implicitly assuming that the X58 chip, VRM's and Southbridge won't get too hot.
The new Socket 1366 mount looks tough with its four corner hold-down screws.
Solid state caps abound.
MSI was good enough to provide six DIMM slots - so you could easily put 12GB of memory into this monster. Do yourself a favor, and if you only have three sticks, use the black sockets - otherwise you will likely hang during post with a DDR error.
Ten SATA2 ports here... and an IDE connector.
A COMM port header! How quaint!
There is also a TPM module header -- a waste of board space if you ask me.
I liked the power, reset and d-led buttons!
The overclocking dip switch did not work too well. Better to set the B clock in the BIOS.
Three GPU, two PCI and two PCIe 1x slots. Enough for almost anyone.
Another look at the slots!
The back panel is ugly, but highly functional. Eight USB 2.0, one FireWire, two PS/2, two eSATA, two Gigabit LAN, and Cmos-clear.
Here is the back of the board - note the heavy plate for the socket mount.
Here are the GreenPower Genie, Xtreme Audio, and D-LED2 for your viewing pleasure.
Lots of driver CD's and dead tree manuals.
Some information on the D-LED2 and what it can display:
And the rest of the stuff - GPU bridges, SATA cables, USB brackets etc.
The BIOS
MSI chose to include not one, but two BIOS splash screens!
The main menu is pretty standard:
As is the Advanced menu:
And the Integrated Peripherals:
Power management is also very familiar:
As is the hardware monitor:
Green Power is new - it lets you control how the different phases are controlled
More BIOS
Ahh... the Cell menu - where all the overclocking controls live!
It won't even fit into one screen height, it takes two to show you all the top level controls; this menu gives you a ton of control over voltages and timing.
The CPU Specifications gives you just that - information about the specifics of the processor installed in the motherboard.
The QPI configuration lets you slow down the default QPI setup:
MEMORY-Z lets you look at the SPD information for all installed DIMM's:
Advanced DRAM configuration lets you control the timing parameters:
Here is the Memory Ratio popup:
The ClockGen Tuner:
MSI is kind enough to give us FOUR sets of user settings!
M-Flash worked fine for me - I updated the BIOS to the latest beta before testing the board:
Here is the pop-up CPU specs, from a function key:
And the popup Memory-Z from another function key:
Test Setup
For this article, we used the Core 2 Quad QX9770 and Core i7 920 data from our Core i7 review which used the equipment listed below. We used the same benchmarks, and the same hardware (video card, SSD etc) with the only difference being the i7 motherboard and using a Noctua 12P with the new Socket 1366 mounting kit on the MSI Eclipse.
Hardware used for testing the motherboard:
Benchmarks Used For now, here is a listing of the tests performed: For the additional gaming tests we used
- World In Conflict
- Devil May Care 4
- Crysis
- Dynasty
Video drivers used were the latest Catalyst drivers 8.10.
Business Winstone
Very interesting. At stock speeds, the MSI Eclipse X58 was slightly slower than the Intel DX58SO, however it overclocked further and obtained a better overclocked result.
Content Creation
Again, the MSI Eclipse X58 was somewhat slower at stock speeds, but it was noticeably faster when overclocked.
CineBench
The MSI Eclipse X58 at stock speeds is 0.4 seconds slower than the Intel DX58SO, however the Intel board ends up being 0.7 seconds slower than the MSI board when overclocked due to the greater processor speed the MSI reached.
POV-Ray
Again the MSI Eclipse X58 is slightly slower at stock, however it is noticeably faster when overclocked!
WinRAR
Once again, the MSI Eclipse X58 is slightly slower at stock - and again, noticably faster when overclocked!
HDTach
This time the MSI Eclipse X58 is a smidgen slower at both stock and overclocked speeds.
HDTune
Here the MSI Eclipse X58 beats the Intel DX58SO at stock!
LAME MP3
Once again the MSI Eclipse X58 loses by a small amount at stock to the DX58SO - however it manages to win by a not so small amount when overclocked :-)
TMPGEnc
Same story as above.
Call of Duty
Well what do you know... this time the MSI Eclipse X58 beats the DX58SO both at stock and very badly when overclocked!
Commanche 4
Same old story... the MSI Eclipse X58 is slightly slower at stock, and quite a bit faster when overclocked.
Doom 3
Umm... this is getting repetitive. Somewhat slower at stock, however the MSI Eclipse X58 beats up on the DX58SO when overclocked.
Quake 4
Rinse. Repeat.
Halo
Once more into the breach... the MSI Eclipse X58 is again slower at stock, but much faster overclocked.
Jedi Knight
Same old story.
UT4K
Yet again.
Sandra CPU
Very interesting! This may explain the rash of "a bit slower at stock" results for the MSI Eclipse X58.
Judging by the Sandra CPU tests, it looks like the MSI BIOS might not be kicking into "Turbo" mode, keeping the multiplier at 20, whereas the DX58SO seems to be upping the multiplier.
Needless to say, the MSI Eclipse X58 is slower at stock, but faster overclocked.
Sandra Memory Bandwidth
Again, at stock the MSI Eclipse X58 is a bit slower, and this time it is also slower when overclocked due to the higher DDR3 speed used on the DX58SO test.
Sandra Latency
Interesting - the MSI Eclipse X58 had a better (lower) latency at stock, but tied when overclocked.
RightMark Read
Nothing new here. The MSI Eclipse X58 is slightly slower at stock, and faster when overclocked.
RightMark Write
Interesting. Here the MSI Eclipse X58 is faster both at stock and overclocked!
RightMark Latency
Something seems familiar... what could it be?
Oh yeah... the MSI Eclipse X58 is slightly worse at stock for latency, and better when overclocked.
RightMark Bandwidth
Ooohhh... the MSI Eclipse X58 spanks the DX58SO at both stock and overclocked tests!
World In Conflict
Pretty noticable differences between the Core i7 and the Core 2 Quad QX9770 at low resolution, no AA... but the differences between Core 2 Quad, Core i7, and clock rate virtually dissapear at high resolution, high AA!
If you are a gamer, a really good video card is your limit -- you just need a decent CPU to get the job done, it won't get you very far to spend the extra money on an extremely fast processor, such as the Core i7.
Crysis
Once again, like we've been telling you: if you game at high rez, high AA, what you need is the ultimate GPU - not the ultimate CPU.
Devil May Cry 4
Interesting!
Effectively very little difference at any resolution.
Dynasty Warriors 6
The MSI Eclipse X58 badly beats the DX58SO at both stock and overclocked for this benchmark!
Overclocking
The MSI Eclipse X58 is a great overclocker.
All I had to do in the end is make sure that the memory was happy, and the LED2 display was very helpful in showing where (usually DDR) the system was hanging during post.
To get to the maximum stable overclock, 4.095GHz, all I had to do was:
- Set the memory multiplier to "3" (actually 6)
- Set memory timing to 7-7-7-20-1T
- Fix PCI at 37.3MHz
- disable spread spectrum
- Enable EIST
- disable C-state
- Enable "Turbo" boost
- set base clock to 195MHz
- set QPI to Full-Speed
- leave it at 4.8GT
- use a Noctua NH-U12P with their new Socket 1366 adapter
I did not have to change the voltages at all!
The maximum temperature I observed under PovRAY was 89'C, and the Vcore was at 1.448V
I was very pleased, as the DX58SO was only able to handle a 174MHz FSB with this same Core i7 920 processor.
Power Consumption
Interesting - the MSI Eclipse X58 is a bit more power efficient than the DX58SO, and that's even without their GreenPower Genie!
Conclusion
The MSI Eclipse X58 is one nice motherboard.
It overclocks very well, has a ton of SATA and USB ports - not to mention three PCIe GPU slots that support not only CrossFire, but also SLI!
The memory performance is excellent, and I really like the LED2 on the motherboard along with the switches for power, reset and LED information. The dip switches for overclocking did not turn out to be useful, but they don't hurt in any case. The inclusion of a Creative Labs X-Fi sound card is in my opinion far superior to using a "standard" audio codec - the board just feels, looks and behaves like a quality board.
I was even able to boot into Windows XP at 4.2GHz, however it blue screened almost immediately... but I would not be at all surprised if it could be stabilized with extreme cooling and more Vcore at even higher core speeds. (William Henning)
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