MSI X58 Platinum Motherboard
BIOS Features
Published: 22nd December 2008 | Source: MSI | Price: £229.99 |
Upon POST we are greeted very briefly with an MSI Eclipse page, the Eclipse being the Platinum's bigger brother. Immediately afterwards the familiar DrMOS screen pops up, inviting you to enter the BIOS by pressing the 'Del' key.
Like all enthusiast MSI boards, the main section of the BIOS is the 'Cell Menu' and this is the section we will be concentrating on today as it's where you will find the overclocking settings of the MSI Platinum X58.
Straight away we an in unfamiliar territory with a host of new options not found on the LGA775 boards. C-State, Base Clock, QPI frequency and Turbo Boost Technology are all part of the new Core i7 BIOS found on most of the LGA1366 boards. Think of the Base Clock and QPI as FSB overclocking of old and you won't go too far wrong. The C-State feature is a new feature of Core i7 and it achieved by making the power and thermal control unit part of the core logic and not part of the chipset as before.
Straight away we an in unfamiliar territory with a host of new options not found on the LGA775 boards. C-State, Base Clock, QPI frequency and Turbo Boost Technology are all part of the new Core i7 BIOS found on most of the LGA1366 boards. Think of the Base Clock and QPI as FSB overclocking of old and you won't go too far wrong. The C-State feature is a new feature of Core i7 and it achieved by making the power and thermal control unit part of the core logic and not part of the chipset as before.
A host of voltage options are available on the Platinum and above (right) you can see the maximum allowed (not recommended!) voltages. I'd be interested to know why MSI thought that 2.3V on the NB was necessary, particularly as the memory controller is now 'on die'. Like most of the settings here, excess is not a bad thing and it's certainly nice to have the options available, even if it is unlikely that you will use them!
Moving on we see that at the stock Bclk of our i7 920 CPU we have 3 QPI frequencies to choose from along with 6 memory dividers. Unfortunately, when we first received the motherboard no amount of changing the dividers made any difference to the actual frequency of the DDR3 and it wasn't until a new BIOS was released that we could change the frequency.
As well as the standard 4 timings, the advance timing menu offers a multitude of memory sub-timings that will allow you to get the most out off your shiny new triple channel kit. Above right we see the 'Clockgen Tuner'. I don't know why but I expected a dazzling array of new features here but I was left disappointed with a few basic clock skew settings.
Flashing the BIOS was not an easy task. I decided to use the M-Flash utility which is a feature of the BIOS and although it all looks pretty straightforward, the manual was little help. A few minutes of head scratching and I finally figured the combination of settings that worked, enabling me to flash the BIOS from a USB stick which worked a treat.
Above right we see the power saving 'Green Power' feature of the MSI board. While this is a good feature for those who intend on running the board at stock, power saving features can interfere with the stability an overclock so these settings were disabled for this review.
Above right we see the power saving 'Green Power' feature of the MSI board. While this is a good feature for those who intend on running the board at stock, power saving features can interfere with the stability an overclock so these settings were disabled for this review.
Last of all, we come to the Health and Power monitoring section of the BIOS. Three fan headers as well as the CPU fan can be controlled from here using percentages as a regulator. Once you have all your settings fixed you can then back these settings up to one of four available slots which is always useful.
Let's move on to our test setup to see if these settings can overclock our Core i7 past its stock settings...
Most Recent Comments
Very good review, was a good read 
1.44V for 3.85gHz Now I'm even more proud of my UD5 doing 3.7@1.35 Did you adjust the VTT voltage too? It's just as important as vCore.
1.44V for 3.85gHz
Now I'm even more proud of my UD5 doing 3.7@1.35 Did you adjust the VTT voltage too? It's just as important as vCore.Great review. Think they're still crazy priced tho.
Hopefully they see some sense l8r in the 09.
Don't have much exerience with MSI mobos, but I am surprized there's no SLI.
Hopefully they see some sense l8r in the 09.
Don't have much exerience with MSI mobos, but I am surprized there's no SLI.
Quality review as always Rich. Bit miffed at lack of SLI seeing as it's such a massive selling point. Puts it at an instant disadvantage. Ah well.
Couple of features I picked up on which I thought were great; the first being the right angled sata plugs.. Such a simple thing! But would make tidy cabling easy - it's just impossible to make the sata cableslook neat if they are sicking up out of the mobo.The other was the bios save feature, thats pretty cool! And a great feature, being able to swop from "warp speed overclock" to "mr easy going day to day" at the press of a button.. 10/10 for that one.
£240 though? Too much I think.. Needs to come with the kitchen sink at that price, and it doesnt.
A fine review.
£240 though? Too much I think.. Needs to come with the kitchen sink at that price, and it doesnt.
A fine review.
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Originally Posted by name='monkey7'
Very good review, was a good read
1.44V for 3.85gHz Now I'm even more proud of my UD5 doing 3.7@1.35 Did you adjust the VTT voltage too? It's just as important as vCore. |
.Quote:
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Originally Posted by name='Rastalovich'
Great review. Think they're still crazy priced tho.
Hopefully they see some sense l8r in the 09. Don't have much exerience with MSI mobos, but I am surprized there's no SLI. |
Quote:
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Originally Posted by name='Bungral'
Quality review as always Rich. Bit miffed at lack of SLI seeing as it's such a massive selling point. Puts it at an instant disadvantage. Ah well.
|
.Quote:
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Originally Posted by name='fruityness'
Couple of features I picked up on which I thought were great; the first being the right angled sata plugs.. Such a simple thing! But would make tidy cabling easy - it's just impossible to make the sata cableslook neat if they are sicking up out of the mobo.The other was the bios save feature, thats pretty cool! And a great feature, being able to swop from "warp speed overclock" to "mr easy going day to day" at the press of a button.. 10/10 for that one.
£240 though? Too much I think.. Needs to come with the kitchen sink at that price, and it doesnt. A fine review. |
There are actually two versions listed on MSI's website: one with SLI, one without. The SLI version still seems to be unavailable at the moment, and from what I recall it's still not known whether the current version could be converted with a BIOS flash or not
Iirc someone tried flashing a beta bios to the non sli version and got nothing but BSOD .
It will be nice if they do make it SLI capable tho.
.It will be nice if they do make it SLI capable tho.
I'm curious as to whether there's a difference built-in somewhere that did that. The two boards certainly look the same, though obviously that doesn't mean they are. Wouldn't hurt to perhaps ask them about that.
The Mediocre
- Overclocking could be better
Sorry guys, but i disagree. I have this motheboard and i got these results:
My Maximum Bclk for enter in O.S. Windows Vista X64:
valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=469171 ( Thanks WC Annihilus, now is correct )
My usual clock for 24/7:
valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=469143
Same processor, motherboard and memory of the review.
Sorry for my bad english.
- Overclocking could be better
Sorry guys, but i disagree. I have this motheboard and i got these results:
My Maximum Bclk for enter in O.S. Windows Vista X64:
valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=469171 ( Thanks WC Annihilus, now is correct )
My usual clock for 24/7:
valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=469143
Same processor, motherboard and memory of the review.
Sorry for my bad english.
What voltages? Is it prime stable?
Nice clocks regardless.
Nice clocks regardless.
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Originally Posted by name='webbo'
What voltages? Is it prime stable?
Nice clocks regardless. |
And the 4GHz I didn`t test with prime95, i used the OCCT for 1 hour and got stable. But i think is stable enough for me play my games.
Ow sorry the voltages:
Well for 4GHz I`m using:
CPU VOLTAGE +0.190 ( 1.39 )
QPI +0.180
MEMORY VOLTAGE 1.65
That's all
Well for 4GHz I`m using:
CPU VOLTAGE +0.190 ( 1.39 )
QPI +0.180
MEMORY VOLTAGE 1.65
That's all
You posted 2 links to the same validation
Quote:
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Originally Posted by name='WC Annihilus'
You posted 2 links to the same validation
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valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=469171
See now. I think is correct. :sleep:
Is this using the latest BIOS? I might have to give that a go as there has been a new BIOS released since writing the review.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by name='webbo'
Is this using the latest BIOS? I might have to give that a go as there has been a new BIOS released since writing the review.
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IOS Type AMI BIOS File Size 816KB
Version 1.1 Update Date 2008-11-12
But have the 1.2B ( beta )
CSS Valid
Read the review here