MSI Big Bang XPower Motherboard

Overclocking Options

MSI Big Bang XPower is clearly targeted to overclockers, providing gazillions of overclocking-related features.

Like other motherboards from MSI, it has a function called “OC Genie.” When this button is pressed, the motherboard automatically overclocks the system (it must be pressed when the computer is turned off). Previous automatic overclocking functions available by MSI and other manufacturers increased the base clock to preset values; OC Genie relies on a chip that overclocks the system on-the-fly, based on your hardware configuration. You can also manually increase or decrease the CPU base clock in 1 MHz steps by simply pressing “+” and “-” buttons located on the board.

In Figure 13, you can see all buttons available on this motherboard: OC Genie, the “+” and “-” buttons, reset and power.

Figure 13: Buttons.

MSI Big Bang XPower features voltage monitoring points, where the extreme overclocker can install a multimeter to manually monitor the CPU (Vcc – labeled “CPU” – and VTT – labeled “QPI”), memory (labeled “DDR”) and chipset (north bridge – labeled “IOH” – and south bridge – labeled “ICH”) voltages. The motherboard also comes with wires to facilitate the installation of your multimeter probes to these points.

The reviewed motherboard also has overvoltage switches to prevent you from increasing voltages above a dangerous level where you could burn components.

The voltage monitoring points and the overvoltages switches can be seen in Figure 8.

XPower comes with an overclocking panel called OC Dashboard. This dashboard is connected to the motherboard using two cables: a proprietary connection and a USB connection. Besides being able to control voltages and clocks, this panel can also monitor the CPU temperature and fan speed.

Figure 14: Overclocking panel.

Let’s see the overclocking options available on MSI Big Bang XPower setup.