MSI Displays its First Wave of LGA1155 Motherboards

[btarunr]

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

[cool_recep]

They have Highly Polymerized Capacitors which are better than Gigabyte's solid ones...

[theonedub]

I like HiC caps.

The midrange board is missing a heatpipe on the VRM setup, no? My bad, its intentional, but looks bad still

[bear jesus]

Originally Posted by theonedub

I like HiC caps.

I wonder what flavor of Hi-C they are?

[(FIH) The Don]

ASUS' heatsinks anyone???

and stupid placemtn of the pci-e slots on the m-atx

[TheLostSwede]

You got the SATA ports mixed up on the GD65, as it has two native SATA 6Gbps ports and two more via the Marvell controller...
So the eSATA are most like a third part chip and one of the eSATA ports is a combo USB/eSATA port

[cavemanthreeonesix]

does the p67 chip support sli or is it crossfire only?

[MadMan007]

Originally Posted by (FIH) The Don

ASUS' heatsinks anyone???

and stupid placemtn of the pci-e slots on the m-atx

It's a little stupid but using a graphics card in the secondary slot would be kind of *meh* anyway...it's x4 electrical. But you're right they should have alternated the full size and x1 slots, but at least there's no PCI wasting space!.

[(FIH) The Don]

Originally Posted by MadMan007

It's a little stupid but using a graphics card in the secondary slot would be kind of *meh* anyway...it's x4 electrical. But you're right they should have alternated the full size and x1 slots, but at least there's no PCI wasting space!.

right

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

[TheLostSwede]

Some boards will be dual x8, but it seems like a lot of them will be the x16+x4 setup which is just plain weird...

[Flanker]

Originally Posted by TheLostSwede

Some boards will be dual x8, but it seems like a lot of them will be the x16+x4 setup which is just plain weird...

would make sense if the x4 slot is used for an ssd, but then people who can afford that sort of ssd should be able to buy a higher end motherboard...

[RejZoR]

One of the reasons why i liked X58. Each slot is full PCIe x16, even when using SLI/CF.
Maybe Intel wil release X68 smetime later with such capability.

[HillBeast]

Originally Posted by (FIH) The Don

and stupid placemtn of the pci-e slots on the m-atx

Looks to me like they were using identical layout on all the boards for the PCIe slot layout. No idea why they would do that but that's just how it looks.

Maybe its to fit those triple slot GTX480s that are all the rage these days?

[Assimilator]

Originally Posted by HillBeast

Looks to me like they were using identical layout on all the boards for the PCIe slot layout. No idea why they would do that but that's just how it looks.

Maybe its to fit those triple slot GTX480s that are all the rage these days?

This layout gives a slot's worth of space between the primary and secondary graphics card, allowing the primary to "breathe". I've always preferred this setup to the standard 1-slot spacing because then the primary card's intake fan ends up pressed against the back of the secondary card, and that's no good for cooling.

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?