Layout

MSIs Big Bang Marshal comes with a black PCB and blue expansion slots as well as aluminium cooling blocks which have been provided with an anthracite color. Overall this board generates a harmonic impression despite the fact that MSI managed to put a countless number of components onto this PCB. Totally the Marshal comes with no less than eight PCI-Express x16 slots. Customers should be aware that not all slot haven been forseen to be used in combination with graphics cards. In fact only slot number one and five can rely on 16 PCI-Express lanes. Slot number three and five each got eight PCI-Express lanes and all the other slots got one PCI-Express lane. But still, with this layout it is possible to build a 4-way SLI rig.

The Big Bang Marshal comes with an incredible 36 phase power design which should guarantee exceptionally stable current supply and overclockability. Therefore the CPU is being powered by 24 phases and the memory got three phases. But still ther are nine phases left. MSI decided to provide CPU I/O, PCH and SA with three phases to provide all the critical components with a stable current supply.

Totally you'll find four DIMM-slots on the Big Bang Marshal. Officially supported are DDR3-2133 (OC) / 1866 (OC) / 1600 (OC) / 1333 / 1066 with up to 32 GByte capacity. The DIMM-slots are well positioned which allows the installation of big CPU cooler without incompatibilites with memory.

The Southbridge has been equipped with a passive cooling block and the the current converters as well as the northbridge are being held at adequate temperatures via a passive heatpipe cooling solution. The fact that the cooling blocks around the CPU socket aren't too big makes it comfortable to install a big aircooler. We also noticed the very high manufacturing quality of the cooling blocks.