Introduction

The X58 chipset has been introduced to the market for 9 months, and is still on top-of-the-range of Intel product line. For some main board manufacturers, Micro ATX is no longer a low-priced product. Ever since DFI released its first Micro ATX X58 in January, MSI and Asus started to include Micro ATX in high performance product category.

I believe most of you have basic understanding of X58 Micro ATX. This time, we have MSI X58M which is a rare X58 Micor ATX in the market. The lowest price for X58 ATX is below US$200. We would like to introduce you MSI X58M which is a price-valued Micro ATX. The spec of X58M changes the concepts of cheap, less function, just enough performance, and low grade for Micro ATX. X58M allows Micro ATX users to experience high grade computer structure, in the meantime, the expandability and support have greatly improved.

Let’s take a look at the package



User’s manual. Driver and software CD. Cords. CrossFire connector.



Closer Look At The Board




Lower left of the main board
2 X PCIE X16 supports CrossFire and SLI, bandwidth X16+X16
1 X PCI
There is a power button down below.



Lower right of the main board
7 X SATAII(ICH10R, Raid 0/1/5)
1 X Floppy
1 X IDE



Upper right of the main board
6 X DIMM DDR3, DDR3 800/1066/1333(OC)
power input



Upper left of the main board
6 phase power supply. Active Power Switch
Cooling device also provides LGA775 which only can be found on FOXCONN X58 before.
This will save consumers’ money on purchasing high-end cooling device.



IO
6 X USB 2.0
1 X 1394a
1 X eSATA



MOSFET material



Northbridge cooling module

BIOS Explored

Screen shot when system is turned on.



BIOS main page



Cell Menu



CPU Voltage -0.320~+630mV
CPU PLL Voltage 1.00~1.85V
QPI Voltage 0.88~1.83V
DRAM Voltage 1.20~2.77V



Through MEMORY-Z, detail setup of SPD can be viewed.



DRAM advanced parameter setup



H/W Monitor



The BIOS setup above is what I usually use on X58M which the CPU is quite stable when external clock is set to 218MHz. Different CPU has different results from different BIOS setup.

Testing platform

CPU: Intel Core i7 950

MB: MSI X58M

DRAM: CORSAIR XMS3 TR3X6G1600C8

VGA: GIGABYTE GTX260 OC SLI

HD: CORSAIR CMFSSD-64GB2D

POWER: CORSAIR HX1000W Modular Power Supply

Cooler: Megahalems

Performance Tests

CPU OC 218 X 19 => 4150Mhz
DDR3 1748 CL9 9-9-24 1T

Hyper 8 X PI 32M 13m 48.734s
CPUMARK 99 650



CrystalMark 2004R3



CINEBENCH R10



PCMark Vantage : 16444



X58M has quite good OC performance. Compare with X58 ATX, the performance is nearly no difference. External clock is one of its advantages as well. During the test, it is easy to reach 218 MHz.


DDR3 1748 CL8 8-8-24 1T
Sandra Memory Bandwidth-29895MB/s
EVEREST Memory Read-18845MB/s

Performance Tests Continued

CORSAIR P64 SSD, MLC 64GB



When raise the clock of DDR3, the performance is not as good as expected. ICH10R Southbridge chip equips with CORSAIR high performance MLC SSD, the bandwidth is amazing. ATTO reaches 227/153 MB/s.

GTX 260 SLI
3DMARK VANTAGE 21189



Crysis Benchmark



StreetFighter IV Benchmark
1680 X 1050 : 21963



StreetFighter IV Benchmark
1920 X 1200 18735



Biohazard5 Benchmark

Conclusive Thoughts

The major issue of X58M is in DDR3 OC performance. As indicate in the spec, DDR3 1333 can be achieved under the condition of overclocking. The default 133 MHz CPU clock can only reach DDR3 800 or 1066. Compare with other competitors, MSI X58M will require some improvement in this part.

Intel new LGA1156 CPU will become available in the market in two months. For the entry level X58, the price is around US$200 which is still quite competitive comparing with P55. My wild guess of the price for the middle to high grade P55 is around US$150-250. P55 will not be price competitive at beginning.

Pros
+ High performance Micro ATX of X58 product.
+ All Japanese made solid capacitors. Debug signal. Built-in power botton.
+ Support ATI CrossFire and NVIDIA SLI.
+ Rich BIOS options. Wide range of power voltage. Outstanding external clock.
+ Price competitive amongst available M-ATX X58 in the market.

Cons
- No cooling module above MOSFET
- DDR3 OC performance is not as good as expected.
- The temperature of northbridge is a bit high. Adopt larger cooling pipe will solve the problem.



The price of the MSI X58M is fairly competitive. The price of X58 is NT$5000, equivalent to US$152 ($170 @ Newegg.com) which is very attractive to the users who are looking for X58 platform with limited budget.