Friday, November 5th 2010
MSI Displays its First Wave of LGA1155 Motherboards
MSI seems to be ready with its first wave of motherboards for socket LGA1155 processors, based on the Sandy Bridge architecture. At this point the lineup is quite simply three models - P67A-GD65, the performance segment offering, the P67A-GD55, upper mid-range, and H67MA-ED55, a micro-ATX board ready for integrated graphics. All three motherboards seem to carry high-grade components such as solid chokes (that don't whine), high-C capacitors, and offer a level of overclocking headroom enhanced by OC Genie II.
The P67A-GD65 features two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x8/x8 when both are populated), three PCI-E x1, and two PCI slots. Connectivity includes six SATA 3 Gb/s ports from the P67 PCH (of which four are internal, two eSATA), two SATA 6 Gb/s ports provided by a Marvell-made controller, and two additional SATA 3 Gb/s ports by a third-party controller; two USB 3.0 ports, 8-channel HD audio, FireWire, and gigabit Ethernet. There are several overclocker-friendly features such as consolidated voltage measure points with proper sockets to hold multimeter leads, OC Genie controls, and a heat pipe distributing heat evenly between the VRM heatsinks.The P67A-GD55 uses the same exact PCB as the GD65, it's a scaled down version in terms of features. There's two less SATA 3 Gb/s ports from addon controllers, no eSATA, the voltage measure points lack that nifty socket (yet they're there, and labeled), and the two VRM heatsinks aren't connected to each other. Down the line is the H67MA-ED55. This board is based on the H67 chipset, and hence supports Intel Flexible Display Interface (FDI). Display connectivity includes DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. As far as other components go, there are four SATA 3 Gb/s and two SATA 6 Gb/s, two PCI-Express x16 slots (electrical x16, x4), two PCI-E x1, USB 3.0 ports, FireWire, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. MSI's boards will be out with Intel's launch of compatible processors.
Source:
Guru3D Forums
The P67A-GD65 features two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x8/x8 when both are populated), three PCI-E x1, and two PCI slots. Connectivity includes six SATA 3 Gb/s ports from the P67 PCH (of which four are internal, two eSATA), two SATA 6 Gb/s ports provided by a Marvell-made controller, and two additional SATA 3 Gb/s ports by a third-party controller; two USB 3.0 ports, 8-channel HD audio, FireWire, and gigabit Ethernet. There are several overclocker-friendly features such as consolidated voltage measure points with proper sockets to hold multimeter leads, OC Genie controls, and a heat pipe distributing heat evenly between the VRM heatsinks.The P67A-GD55 uses the same exact PCB as the GD65, it's a scaled down version in terms of features. There's two less SATA 3 Gb/s ports from addon controllers, no eSATA, the voltage measure points lack that nifty socket (yet they're there, and labeled), and the two VRM heatsinks aren't connected to each other. Down the line is the H67MA-ED55. This board is based on the H67 chipset, and hence supports Intel Flexible Display Interface (FDI). Display connectivity includes DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. As far as other components go, there are four SATA 3 Gb/s and two SATA 6 Gb/s, two PCI-Express x16 slots (electrical x16, x4), two PCI-E x1, USB 3.0 ports, FireWire, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. MSI's boards will be out with Intel's launch of compatible processors.
13 Comments on MSI Displays its First Wave of LGA1155 Motherboards
The midrange board is missing a heatpipe on the VRM setup, no?My bad, its intentional, but looks bad still :Dand stupid placemtn of the pci-e slots on the m-atx
So the eSATA are most like a third part chip and one of the eSATA ports is a combo USB/eSATA port
but if i were to put my gpu in the bottom slot due system setup/my own config, its pretty bad placement
they should have moved it up one bit and made both 16x electrical, but if one card were inserted in one of the 16x slots the other would go 4x :)
Maybe Intel wil release X68 smetime later with such capability.
Maybe its to fit those triple slot GTX480s that are all the rage these days?
As for the H67 board, I have to agree that the slot spacing is bad... installing any graphics card in the bottom PCIe x16 slot will block the motherboard headers and the power on/reset buttons. Would have made a lot more sense to have a standard PCI slot there instead IMO.
And a VGA-out port on a motherboard that has voltage measuring points? WTF MSI?