MSI X79A-GD80 Looks Monstrous

[btarunr]

Meet the X79A-GD80 from MSI, where active component cooling is making a comeback to motherboards. The Sandy Bridge-E LGA2011 socket dwarfs everything around it, in the upper-half of the board. Typical of LGA2011 motherboards,the X79A-GD80 has two DDR3 DIMM slots on either sides of the CPU socket, supporting quad-channel DDR3 memory. The VRM area is above the socket, MSI used a 40 mm fan-heatsink to cool the VRM. Further, a fan-heatsink is used to cool the X79 PCH. With the PCH heatsink the use of fan is more of an effort to keep the heatsink small in size, so active air-flow can compensate for its size. That aside, expansion slots are all-PCIe, including three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (x16/x8/x16), and four PCI-E x1 in middle. All 10 of the SATA 6 Gb/s ports from the PCH are internal ports, with just the one eSATA. Other connectivity includes 8+2 channel HD audio, dual gigabit Ethernet, and USB 3.0.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[theJesus]

Oh dear, those fans are probably ridiculously high-pitched and loud. If the one on the VRM is 40mm, then the other one looks like it might even be 30mm

 

[xenocide]

Oh dear, those fans are probably ridiculously high-pitched and loud. If the one on the VRM is 40mm, then the other one looks like it might even be 30mm

Yea, not exactly sure what they are going for there. This thing is like the Frankenboard, a patchwork nightmare from another world...

 

[Yukikaze]

Yea, not exactly sure what they are going for there. This thing is like the Frankenboard, a patchwork nightmare from another world...

Probably an early engineering sample without the elaborate final cooling. We use such makeshift coolers on engineering samples at work as well.

 

[arnoo1]

Whats wrong with those mb engineers?? All x79 boards looks like shit, and why fans? Make a bigger heatsinks, plz make a board that looks like rog boards or 790i by xfx/evga

 

[95Viper]

Probably an early engineering sample without the elaborate final cooling. We use such makeshift coolers on engineering samples at work as well.

+1 My guess, too.

I am sure they will pretty it up, before shipping 'em out.

The thing ain't that big, if you actually look at the mounting holes... it is a spec board.

 

[jalex3]

guys... its pretty unlikely the final version will have fans.

 

[mustang9]

guys... its pretty unlikely the final version will have fans.

Ofcourse this is not the final version, its an enginering sample. This wont even look like the GD80 at all when its finished!

 

[Sihastru]

Still an ES board. So look at it and then forget about it.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

yeah. LGA2011 is looking ridiculous to me. Why is Intel trying to put everything on the CPU die? The boards for LGA2011 look retarded. My platform upgrade will probably be Z68 and Ivy bridge on one of those or Bull dozer. I know they are ES boards but they still look lame with the memory slots around the CPU and the CPU socket looks giant!

 

[Yukikaze]

yeah. LGA2011 is looking ridiculous to me. Why is Intel trying to put everything on the CPU die? The boards for LGA2011 look retarded. My platform upgrade will probably be Z68 and Ivy bridge on one of those or Bull dozer. I know they are ES boards but they still look lame with the memory slots around the CPU and the CPU socket looks giant!

Because it is cheaper to make a system out of one piece of silicon with everything on it, rather than make multiple ones and interconnect them on the motherboard PCB. That increases profit margins.

 

[1freedude]

Whats wrong with those mb engineers??

ATX is the problem, not the close-minded engineers.