Conclusion

I think it is obvious that MSI Eclipse Plus mainboard is not an ideal solution. There is a number of more or less serious drawbacks that we revealed today in our review. However, the more we learned about this board, the more I started to like it. And by the end of the review I can admit that I consider it a very good solution.

Before the test session, I assumed that the biggest drawback of MSI Eclipse Plus mainboard would be Nvidia NF200 PCI Express controller. Then I decided that the worst issue was different implementation of Turbo Boost technology during overclocking. However, now I tend to believe that the biggest drawback is poor work with the memory subsystem. Most users do not need Nvidia NF200 controller today. But later on it may do some good. The current Turbo Boost implementation may actually be even “more correct” than on most other mainboards. We managed to make this peculiarity of MSI Eclipse Plus mainboard work to our advantage due to another great feature – fully operational Intel processor power-saving technologies that remain up and running even if we adjust the CPU Vcore.

Of course, it would be nice to have the option to get back to more familiar Turbo Boost implementation. For example, DFI LanParty JR X58-T3H6 mainboard allows it. Especially since MSI Eclipse Plus mainboard will lose to its competitors in multi-threaded applications dealing with 3D models, sound, images and video as well as creation and processing of multimedia content. And that is exactly the type of work that Intel Core i7 processors are best cut for. However, this drawback won’t really matter for a regular mainstream user. Our example shows that with a little more effort you can actually turn it into a benefit due to higher overclocking results. If we could only add here the good work with the memory subsystem of most other mainboards, MSI Eclipse Plus mainboard would look way more attractive.

In conclusion I would like to say that despite our unfortunate experience with MSI Eclipse mainboard 6 months ago, I was very pleased to see that the new MSI Eclipse Plus managed not only to compete successfully against its rival in our today’s test session, but even to outperform it in several tests. We hope this is a sign of steady improvement and look forward to seeing even better MSI products.