MSI to Release the H87I AC Mini-ITX Motherboard

[Cristian_25H]

In addition to the Z87I GAMING AC model seen last week, MSI is set introduce another mini ITX LGA1150 motherboard, the H87I AC. Seen below, this H87-based board features two DDR3-1600 memory slots, four SATA 6.0 Gbps ports, one PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot, Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1 channel audio, four USB 3.0 ports, DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, plus Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11ac WiFi.

The H87I AC makes use of Military Class 4 components and is available for pre-order at €102.



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[Freedom4556]

Oh, look, it comes with a free pair of Rubber Dummy Loads™. I'd rather they give me a pair of wire antennae like are inside a laptop so I can just tape them to the inside of my case. It'd save me space on the i/o panel for something more useful.

 

[xxxduoxxx]

is the AC wifi the only difference between this and the original MSI H87i?

 

[las]

Can someone explain why all these mITX boards only use AC867 instead of AC1300? And when will we see HDMI 2.0 capable boards?

 

[Freedom4556]

Can someone explain why all these mITX boards only use AC867 instead of AC1300? And when will we see HDMI 2.0 capable boards?

It's the difference between 2 and 3 MIMO. If 802.11n is anything to go by, the desktop equipment will be overwhelmingly two-antennae parts. As to why, only the motherboard OEMs can say for sure, but if I had to guess, I would bet it has to do with the fact that antennae cannot be integrated in a build-your own setup, so they go for fewer antennae to save cost since diversity is not guaranteed and there is a large chance that the extra antennae are going to be redundant. In a laptop, the OEM can dictate the physical arrangement of antennae, so they know that there will be a definite benefit to having more.

As for HDMI 2.0, that depends on the CPU as that is where the display controllers are (for Intel anyway).