I'm not sure why you would want to turn cores off? I'm guessing it is for lower power consumption though and your current choice hits the spot. Intel and MSI motherboard often have low power consumption compared to other brands. I don't know if it's even possible to turn off cores, I don't think so (correct me if I'm wrong though). But I don't think you will gain much by turning them off. The idle state of the cpu will not be affected a lot (in terms of power consumption), and by turning cores off you will lose cpu performance, increasing the time your cpu remains under load, where the real big power consumption is. You're probably better off with all cores turned on so it can 'rush to idle' faster. Regarding your current choice, MSI makes excellent power efficient boards, and the platform you've chosen is already very power efficient so I think you're pretty spot on
