CONCLUSION

To be frank, I do not have much experience with other X79 mainboards as I had only tested a few boards. Out of the four models I tested, this is the board that I like the most. The most significant difference is the CPU speed as I can make the CPU boot at 5.2GHz while others were struggling to get to 5GHz. I am aware that 5.2GHz is not very high to some but that is the best the CPU can do on water cooling.

Overall the overclocking experience on this mainboard is good and I have yet to find any memory compatibility issue. Although I do not have a 2400MHz capable Quad Channel memory to test the real memory overclocking capability but at least an acceptable speed was obtained for respective memory kits.

This board is priced around RM1500 here in Malaysia which makes it more expensive than the ASUS X79 Rampage Extreme. I believe this mainboard is the direct competitor for the ASUS X79 Rampage Extreme therefore I think it is fair for me to compare them both. Features wise, this board may be enough for a gamers and a average overclockers like me but for an extreme overclocker, it is clear that the ASUS X79 Rampage Extreme would be a better choice.

 MSI Big Bang Xpower II received the Editor’s Choice Award from OCDrift.com