MSI Eclipse SLI
Posted 03/18/09 at 01:00:15 PM by Gordon Mah Ung
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An eclipse occurs when one celestial body obscures another. When MSI stuck its X58 motherboard with that moniker, we wondered just what it wanted to hide. Our guess is it’s the fact that the board supports ATI’s CrossFire X. Despite the Eclipse’s support for CrossFire X, MSI chose to change the name of the board at the last minute from simply Eclipse to Eclipse SLI. Regardless, the Eclipse SLI is jam-packed with features that would make any geek weep, including cross-platform GPU support, Core i7, six-slot DDR3, and onboard soft X-Fi audio.
We’ve now tested three X58 boards, and the Eclipse SLI has an edge over its closest competitor, the Asus P6T Deluxe, which we reviewed in January, as well as the stock Intel DX58SO board that we used for most of our Core i7 testing. The Eclipse SLI is technically able to run tri-SLI. We say technically because though you might be able to jam a GTX 280 into the third slot, you’ll probably have to saw off the end of the card to make it fit in your case—the card has to be seated in the bottom slot and hangs over the mobo by about an inch. We tested the Eclipse with a pair of EVGA GTX 280 cards but were unable to test it in tri, as our early board shipped without a bridge. MSI will include bridges with retail boards.
Right now, it’s difficult to compare the performance of the three X58-based boards we’ve tested, as it’s challenging to make sure the boards are all set to the same specs. We attribute most of the performance differences we’ve seen to how each vendor sets up the CPU, not to the performance differences with each board. One thing in the Eclipse’s favor: There’s no need to activate the X-Fi drivers on the board, which is necessary on the Asus boards that feature host-based X-Fi drivers.
So what board would we stick our Core i7 in? It’s hard to say at this point, but if we were forced to choose, the Eclipse SLI would just edge out the Asus P6T Deluxe. But to be honest, with BIOS updates coming out in near real time for the new CPU and new chipset, the answer to that question might be different next month. –gordon mah ung
Strider
Tri-SLI capable, six DIMM slots, and no X-Fi activation required.
Buck
Questionable placement of third x16 slot; flaky USB support.
Benchmarks
| MSI Eclipse SLI | Intel DX58SO | |
|---|---|---|
| PC Mark Vantage x64 | 7,204 | 7,082 |
| ProShow (min:sec) | 9:08 | 9:12 |
| MainConcept (min:sec) | 17:58 | 18:00 |
| 3DMark Vantage CPU | 11,257 | 11,239 |
| 3DMark Vantage GPU | 46,410 | 45,424 |
| HD Tach (MB/s) | 219 | 185 |
| Valve Particle Test (fps) | 160 | 155 |
| Quake 4 (fps) | 237.5 | 224 |
| Everest Ultimate Copy RAM (MB/s) | 19,766 | 19, 182 |
| Everest Ultimate Latency TAM (ns) | 32.5 | 31.9 |
| Sisoft Sandra Bandwidth (GB/s) | 27.03 | 26.3 |
Best scores are bolded. Our test bed consists of a Core i7-965 Extreme Edition CPU, 6GB of Corsair DDR3/1600, an EVGA GeForce 280 GTX videocard, a PC Power and Cooling TurboCool 1200 power supply, a WD Raptor 150GB drive, and Vista Home Premium 64-bit. HD Tach scores were achieved using an Intel X25-M SSD.
Best of the Best?
Submitted by major_tom on Fri, 09/25/2009 - 4:15pm
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this board has been the Best Core i7 Socket LGA 1366 Motherboard for six months now... Surely there is something better by now, especially if you can get better audio from a sound card. I just got an i7 920 and I'm trying to figure out which mobo to get. EVGA, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI... It's difficult to compare all the choices. I'm hoping someone can simplify this by the end of the week, or that I can at least figure it out by the end of the month. I'm thinking I'll get the ATI HD Radeon 5870.
I'd wait if you basing your
Submitted by Nurface on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 6:25am
I'd wait if your basing upgrade off maximumpc post for this motherboard. The msi board has been reported as one having higher temps on IOH than other X58 chipsets. X58 for Asus, Gigabyte and Evga have been very competitive boards compared to MSI. I used to be a big MSI fan until started taking a closer look at temps, tools, overclocking and performance (benchmarks). Do a search for IOH temps as another post suggested.
Submitted by anonuser on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 9:42am
"dont make retarted comments"
Ironic ones are apparently fine though.
I would give an MSI board a try. I've been very pleased with the Wind and Asus mobos have gone down the crapper in recent years. If your not into over-clocking and want reliability, Intel all the way.
All of these boards are to expensive however. Wait a year, better stuff is on the way.
Submitted by singlesamurai on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 6:34pm
It would have been nice to see the benchmarks for the P6T since that was the one stated as being the closest, instead of the DX58SO. But still, its nice to see MSI making a board that can give ASUS a run for its money.
Ahh Crap
Submitted by GreenTurtle on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 4:13pm
I thought I knew EXACTLY what board I would go with...... Now I'm not so sure. I will hold back awhile and think this through a bit more. I currently have an ASUS Maximus Formula SE with a pre-plumbed North Bridge water block that is a pefect feature for me, Anyone have an idea if any manufacturers will offer anything like that in the future?
No because with the CoreI7
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 4:29pm
No because with the CoreI7 there no longer is a north bridge. So no need to water or air cool a northbridge that doesn't exsist.
As for upgrading keep your Core2 rig another year and wait for the new processors that will replace the Core I7. Right now the Core I7 is basically a Penryn Core2 with a built in memory controller and hyper threading. The chips that come after Core I7 will be an entirely new core completely new and different from I7. I'm running an E8400 Core2 Duo Penryn chip and I'm waiting for Core I8 or whatever it's going to be called. The 2010 chip.
That is so cool. 2010 is less than a year away and Intel has completely let us down. What I mean is that Intel for a long time promised to have a 10ghz chip by 2010. Intel hasn't even release a 4ghz chip.
Submitted by GreenTurtle on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 10:48am
Thanks for the info Keith. I agree that it is best to wait for the prices to drop a bit as well before I change platforms, I do like to dream though LOL!!!!
Also, I wasn't pointing directly at the North Bridge (like you said there is none) as much as using my board as an example. Do you know of any other potential hot spots on the i7 boards? I have not familiarized myself with the i7 platform and wasn't sure if there were any other "hot spots" on it that might be pre-plumbed for water cooling that anyone might know of. Have you (or anyone else) heard of any ?
Your right about the Core 2, my overclocked Core 2 Duo works great for me ........ for now . LOL!!! But like everyone else here I can't leave my rig alone LOL!!!!
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 4:13pm
Well there is still a south bridge that controlls the networking and SATA controller and all the value add stuff thats stuff is integrated in the south bridge but the southbridge hasn't ever really been known for getting hot. The hottest part of the motherboard outside the ram and CPU would be the VRM or voltage regulation circuitry. All those capacitors and black plastic rectangular chips standing on end with three posts going into the mobo those are the VRM modules and they get really really hot. now if you can figure out a better way of cooling those off you will increase the over all life span of your mobo but not by much because with the standard factory setup I've never had a single issue with VRM modules dying. I'm sure they do die after about 5years but who keeps their mobo that long? In fact I've never seen anyone with a dead computer because of faulty VRM modules so it doesn't really do any good to improve the cooling of your VRM modules unless you have a water cooled cpu you would want to have a fan blowing on your VRM modules.
Submitted by GreenTurtle on Fri, 03/20/2009 - 4:19am
Thanks Keith! That helps me out. Like I said I haven't really looked into i7 yet (money issues) and have been upgrading my current rig. Oil submersion the final frontier?
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Fri, 03/20/2009 - 2:32pm
All that is just too much for me. I've overclocked in the past and I have to tell ya that to me at least it's not worth the hassle to go beyond good air cooling and running everything at stock clocks. I came to this conclusion after realising that I was only seeing an increase of a few FPS in my games but my system was unreliable. So I'm happy with a stable and reliable 40Frames per second over an unstable and unreliable 43frames per second. And look at oil submersion like this. I upgrade my PC as technology advances and surpasses what I'm running right now. But it's got to be crazy faster than what I've already got and with oil submersion it's not going to be easy to upgrade and what are you going to do with your old oil drenched hardware?
Submitted by malebolgia on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 12:44pm
"But to be honest, with BIOS updates coming out in near real time for
the new CPU and new chipset, the answer to that question might be
different next month."Updates you say, don't suppose you could elaborate on this some more.
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 10:01am
I really like this mobo but I also really really like the Asus P6T Deluxe mobo Ver2 which does away with the mini lcd and on board scsi wuzzy support. But I still like the Asus board of the MSI but only slightly. The MSI is a kickass mobo. As far as soft xfi I really don't care because I've never used an onboard sound solution that I didn't hate. Come on I've heard that you can really tell the difference between Soft Xfi and the real deal and that is with poopy speakers.
my cousin bought this board
Submitted by johnny3144 on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 9:06am
my cousin bought this board and had problem with the little LCD(can't remember the exact name, it's suppose to display system info like temperature) came with the board. appearently the board refuse to boot and give weird post message when the LCD is attached. have you guys experience any issue with the little LCD?
Submitted by warpark on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 5:14pm
I had that exact problem, so I had to ditch the LCD. I suspect it has something to do with the bios being a beta version. That brings up another problem: I can't update the bios. I currently have the version 1.4B2 and my understanding is that it is the beta version of 1.4. So now that 1.4 has been officially release by MSI, I cannot seem to get the Live Update to find anything later than 1.2. The problem with my current bios is that it does not allow for certain overclocking abilities, contrary to the manual and forums... I am thinking I should have gone with the Asus...
RSS FEED
Submitted by funkyp56 on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 8:32am
FIX YOUR FUCKING RSS FEED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT IS NOT 11:00AM
I SWEAR TO GOD I AM GONNA CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTION TO YOUR MAGAZINE!!!!!!!
Submitted by hzmax97 on Mon, 05/25/2009 - 12:42pm
Well I, for one, do wish that you would cancel your subscription and never post useless trash talk again.
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 9:49am
I'm sure MaxPC will stay afloat without you.
BTW I gave up on using RSS feeds. It appeared to be a huge mess. I couldn't keep up with all the RSS updates. I gave up on them and I live in perfect bliss. Whenever I want an update on a website I "get a clue" visit the website I'm interested in. I know it's the old fashioned way but it's also the easy way.
funkyp56 reminds me of liberals that made the threat to leave the USA if Bush were re-elected. For the life of me I can not figure out how easy it is for alot of people to lose their patriotism simply because who is president.
I myself will always be proud to be an american irregardless of who ever is president. I would fight and die for my home, my country. So anyone that would leave their country simply because who is president isn't much of a patriot and earns a spit in the face from me. And I get the feeling funky is that kinda person. Someone willing to quit it all of the slightest misstake or percieved accident.
funky56 go screw off. MaximumPC is the greatest PC enthusiast magazine out there. Go ahead and cancel your subscription and if MaximumPC needs more money I'll make up the difference.
Submitted by DePat on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 9:28am
Just because you paid $24 for the subscription does not permit you to be an ASS. Display your stupidity somewhere else
To maximumpc. I am willing to pay an extra $24 if you want to boot this idiot
DePat
Dude there is a section in
Submitted by killerxx7 on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 8:34am
Dude there is a section in the forum for complaints,pleas STFU and dont make retarted comments ok!
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Sun, 04/05/2009 - 8:28am
Yeah that's my job to make retarded comments.
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