MSI P67 Big Bang Marshal Review

Introduction

At the New Year we were all delighted to see the performance that came from the latest LGA1155 socket. Intel definitely had refined the LGA1156 into a fine art throughout its short life and those improvements were carried over into the P67 chipset.

So impressive was it we couldn’t wait for the second wave of motherboards to arrive which would have all the major features we love to see.

Then it all stopped.

It was discovered that the P67 Chipset had a problem with it’s 5 and 6 SATA ports that would cause data loss, and so everything was halted whilst Intel beavered away to fix the problem. After our months hiatus the B3 revision boards are upon us with that problem fixed and a few nips and tucks here and there, so it’s time for us to get back in front of the bench rig and see what the long-awaited second wave brings us.

Today it’s courtesy of MSI with their P67 Rev B3 Big Bang Marshal motherboard. Big in more than name only, how does it perform?

Technical Specifications

Generally the Marshal is exactly what you’d expect a modern MSI motherboard to be. It’s got the classic blue and gun-metal heatsinks, OC Genie, and everything is well designed and in the right place. It sounds simple, but it’s often over-looked.

The major feature it has over its contemporaries are more PCIe slots than you can shake a stick at.

 

Let’s grab a look then.