Performance testing overview -
Our testing is a little different than most. We combine both synthetic and real-world applications to simulate the types of performance common to the individual products. For motherboards this means that we run roughly six synthetic tests and two real-world. We will be expanding the real-world testing in the near future.  But there is more to performance than just the raw numbers. As there are multiple components and sub-components on a motherboard there each item can have a distinct impact on the way the product will perform once you get it in your system. It is important to note not only the actual results but what they mean to you as a potential consumer. We will try to give this information to you. But we do not just cover the performance aspects that are measurable. We also talk about the components that might not have a direct benchmark. These are items like Audio Quality, ease of use and installation.  

Section 1 Subsystems -
Memory -
Memory performance is very important on a motherboard, especially when you have a CPU with multiple cores and threads. If you have slow memory your cores and threads can become starved for data to execute. To test memory performance we run both Sisoft’s SANDRA and AIDA64. These two combine to not only give us accurate numbers but to validate each other. For testing at stock speeds the memory is hard set to 1333MHz while overclocking testing is done at the highest stable speed for the voltage of 1.65v this is due to the different memory dividers for each CPU. As such, the memory speeds will vary greatly. This means that the overclocked numbers are a little misleading and while they can show a trend are really only included to show if a board has a problem with memory performance at high clockspeeds.

The Marshal does very well in our memory performance testing. This is not surprising as most of the Intel CPUs we have tested since the Second Generation Core CPUs hit the market. Still with these scores we can expect to see good performance in out rendering tests. When we overclock the Marshal we lose a little bit of this though as we only see our memory speed step up by a very small amount.

ADIA64 gives us more detail on the memory performance we get with the Marshal. We see that it has some good latency scores (something that many AMD CPUs have an issue with). We also see excellent read speeds with the CPU and memory we have chosen.

AIDA64 Stock Speeds	AIDA64 Overclocked

Drive performance -
Drive performance is also one of the major subsystems that goes to make up the performance of a motherboard.  For our testing we use Sandra and AIDA64 again.  We only test with single drives for each type of controller present on the motherboard (unless it is a professional product where we will use RIAD 5 and/or 10). We have also begun using a Seagate PS-110 USB 3 external HDD for our USB 3.0 performance.  As a side note, we include the overclocked numbers here to make sure  (again) that you are not going to see a major drop in performance due to minor instabilities at high clock speeds.

The MSI Big Bang Marshal has some of the fastest SSD speeds we have seen on a P67 motherboard, we were (and are) very impressed with what it can do. We were seeing speeds that were up in the area of 220MB/s which is not bad at all when you look at some of the other boards we have in our test group.

AIDA64 Stock Speed	AIDA64 Overclocked

Power -
Power efficiency is another of those misnomers that we get caught up in. We hear about idle states and power gates. But what does that mean to you and I?  On the surface having power management that reduces idle power sounds great and can be a benefit to someone that leaves their system on for long periods of time (and inactive) but how a system handles power under load and the delta between the two states is often more important than the idle power usage numbers. We use only P3 Kill A Watt instruments for measuring power.

As we mentioned before the Big Bang Marshal has a level of efficiency, but not one that really keeps it from pulling a lot of power from your house when you put it under load. There was an even bigger draw of power when we overclocked the board. I would not let this worry you really. The components on the board are designed to take this and keep going and, like I said before, this is an enthusiast’s board. It is not meant to sit in the corner and play solitaire on.

Cooling (Board Level) -
Board level cooling is an important factor in product performance and longevity. Components like the chipset, VRM modules and even capacitors need to be kept relatively cool to prevent failure. As these parts are made of silicon, they have a thermal breakdown threshold; or melting point. At that temperature the actual transistors built into chip will begin to deform and break down. Granted, the threshold is often very high, but you still need to make sure that components stay away from this level of heat for longer product life.  

Once again we find the Marshal in the middle in terms of heat generation. It was not bad in terms of temperature, but it was at the upper edge of where it should be for a P67 based product. Of course this will change if you buy this and put it inside a case with good cooling at that point the heatsinks should be able to keep things under control.

Audio -
Audio is highly subjective. What we find pleasing may sound “off” to you. That is always going to the problem with testing audio; results will vary too widely depending on the tastes of the listener. However, there are ways of measuring the audio output with an objective ear. There is also the issue of audio causing performance issues in gaming and video playback. The reason this is a potential source of concern is that all onboard audio CODECs (Compression/Decompression) are CPU controlled. This means that while the audio chip controls the audio levels and effects of the audio the actual work is done on the CPU. Usually this will not be a problem with today’s powerful CPUs. Even the lower and consumer level products can handle high-end audio these days. But again there is the chance that a bad design or software will hinder your system and performance. On the other side the limits of board space, cost, etc will also prevent the level of audio quality you can get from an add-in board.  We test all audio parts with three media types, Movie (DVD), MP3 Music, and Gaming. These are pushed to our Tec On model 55 Tube Amp to see if we can detect any signal issues in the reproduction.

The Big Bang Marshal comes complete with a THX audio software pack. With this installed our gaming and media experience was… well it was the same as it was without it. THX does not really translate through the DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) found in our Tech On Model 55. To be sure about this we plugged in a decent set of gaming headphones and retried. The audio was a little better… not great but the software tried to add more depth and vibrance to it. It is still good audio for a built in CODEC but it is not going to win any awards.

Networking -
This one is something that is a requirement anymore. If you have a computer, the chances are good (like 99%) that you are also connected to high-speed internet.  With this you need a good and solid LAN chip to make sure that your data flows properly out and back.

The Marshal has dual RealTek GBe LAN chips on the board. These work well and should be more than enough to handle almost any gaming or networking situation you get yourself into. We also played around with the RealTek teaming utility that MSI rebranded. Once again this is a nice utility, but… unless you have a switch or router in your house that actually supports real teaming you are not going to get any true benefit from it.