MSI Eclipse SLI

Stability

We firstly installed the 965XE, two GeForce GTX 280s in SLI and 12GB (six DIMMs) of Corsair memory set to 1,066MHz, and reset the MSI Eclipse SLI BIOS to its optimised default values. We then ran Prime95 torture test across all cores to let the system warm up a bit, before adding 3DMark06 looping over the top of it. This was then left for 24 hours without additional fans on the motherboard, only a small 80mm one to cool the tightly packed memory.

We came back a day later to find the system still running and still responsive, and ending the stress test left the system still perfectly usable. This is an excellent result for MSI - with the current 132 BIOS delivers a very stable motherboard.

Overclocking

Overclocking options on the MSI Eclipse SLI are pretty good and we hit 200MHz QPI on the Core i7 920 with ease, and it sat at 4GHz all day providing the northbridge (and CPU) was appropriately cooled.

The only downside is that we couldn't adjust the northbridge (Uncore and L3 cache) frequency independent of base clock, so the CPU is likely to be limited sooner rather than the actual motherboard. There's no uncore voltage adjustment either, just "CPU voltage" and no indication whether this includes both or just the CPU cores. In the same way, increasing the QPI or PCI-Express voltage doesn't indicate whether this increases the X58 voltage as well or how these are linked. The Asus P6T BIOS, in comparison, allows this northbridge frequency, uncore voltage and X58 voltage adjustments.

On the plus side, at 4GHz and 200MHz QPI, the northbridge now runs at a fast 3.2GHz, up from 2.13GHz, with +100mV on the QPI, 1.65V memory and 1.35V on the CPU core voltage. In addition we actually managed to overclock the Eclipse SLI on base clock further than the Asus with the Core i7 920 and achieved a nice 220MHz, with the QPI frequency running at a huge 8GT/s, the memory at just 1,333MHz CAS-6 and the northbridge at a whopping 3.5GHz which was a superb result.

When we moved onto overclocking the memory, we got less than we were expecting though: we couldn't achieve a stable overclock above 1,700MHz at a higher 1.74V on the Corsair DHX+ with the unlocked Core i7 965 XE. With 6GB of G.SKill 1,600MHz HK we couldn't even make that - stuck at around 1,674MHz.

Thankfully, with a little time to evolve, MSI has made the latest 132 BIOS is orders of magnitude better than the older revisions for overclocking stability and catching bad overclocks. On early BIOS revisions, the Eclipse SLI would basically crap its pants and refuse to boot ever again. Resetting the CMOS didn't work and through some form of magic hardware swapping the board would finally restart. This is not the case with the 132 BIOS - if you push it too far the Eclipse SLI will try to restart three times, then reset itself. Very little fuss and it worked every single time.

Value

Getting value for money out of a £274 purchase is a big, big ask, especially as other boards have dropped in price £40 or £50 in the last few weeks, MSI's Eclipse SLI has stayed up at the price it was introduced at. Its value is helped by the fact MSI has one of the most comprehensive and varied bundles we've seen to date and affords the buyer even more stuff than an Argos catalogue. If you're a gadget nut then we've no doubt you'll be like a kid at Christmas with the extra toys, but unfortunately, like Argos, some of it is just plastic rubbish like the GreenPower Genie.

The EVGA X58 SLI can be found for around £300, the Asus P6T Deluxe OC Palm edition is about the same at £274.51 but the Rampage II Extreme is still silly money. We did find Gigabyte's most premium board, its EX-58-Extreme is under £250 though!

MSI's X58 Platinum is just £225.91 - that's a £50 saving but it's far more limited in its features: no SLI, only two PCI-Express x16 slots, no D-LED 2 or GreenPower Genie, two less SATA, one less eSATA and smaller heatsinks all provide a compelling argument to upsell yourself, especially if you're already thinking in the extreme end of the enthusiast wedge anyway.

Final Thoughts

This board is killing me because I want to like so much as the MSI team has clearly put in incredible effort and risk into designing the Eclipse SLI. Since just the P45 generation six months ago, so much has changed for the better which we need to give MSI credit for - the GreenPower core is excellent, the D-LED 2 is a good evolution, the board looks fantastic, it's stable with 12GB of memory and it's finally got a compelling market niche. The problem is that it's only 95 percent of the way there and it still needs attention to tidy up the loose ends - the BIOS and the software needs work, the cooling isn't wonderful, the D-LED 2 can evolve further, the X-Fi is either love or hate and the GreenPower Genie can go in the bin.

The difference between the MSI Eclipse SLI and Asus P6T Deluxe is that despite the Asus' shortcomings, underneath it was still very usable and yielded an eminently enjoyable experience. With the Eclipse SLI, we were using it and loving this or that feature then suddenly, BAM!, we hit a brick wall and were left to think "that could be better." There were enough of these moments to drop it out of a recommendation. Knowing the design schedule for X58 was even more incredibly intense than usual because it was a new platform, I just wish MSI had more time to sit back and think it through or use it more, before finalising things.

Buying one will still yield an enjoyable experience with tons to play with, but we reckon you'll still be having second thoughts about your £274 purchase when you look at other X58 boards on the market.

• Performance
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• 9/10

• Features
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• 8/10

• Value
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• 6/10

• Overall
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• 8/10

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