Here are the first pictures of MSI's non-reference design GeForce GTX 680 Twin Frozr III graphics card (model: N680GTX Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC). The card features an NVIDIA reference design PCB, augmented with MSI's signature Twin Frozr III cooling solution, which has been used on several high-end GPUs till date, including the Radeon HD 7900 series, and previous-generation GeForce GTX 500 series.

The cooler appears to be tailored to fit the length of the PCB perfectly. It uses a large aluminum fin array, to which heat is fed by five 8 mm-thick nickel-plated copper heat pipes, ventilated by two 70 mm fans. The card comes with out of the box clock speeds of 1058 MHz (core base), 1124 MHz (core boost), and 1502 MHz (6.00 GHz GDDR5 effective) memory, so while the memory clock remains untouched, the core (base/boost) have been upped from 1006/1058 MHz (reference). The card uses 6+6 pin PCIe power inputs, and has display output layout identical to that of the reference design.

Celebrating its 5th anniversary, MSI's Master Overclocking Arena (MOA) joins the most stable Military Class III components with record-breaking overclocking performance. Themed "Steel World", MSI has forged the first evolution starting with the American Regional Qualifiers on the world-class overclocking community website HWBOT.org on April 13, 2012.

The American Regional Qualifiers this year consist of three stages: 3DMark11, 3DMark03 and SuperPI 32M. Each with a different point scheme. There will be no model limitation on MSI mainboards and graphics cards, however entries are limited to single CPU and GPU setups. A cut-off elimination will be applied on May 4th (75% of the contest period) after which the qualifiers will continue with only the best 15 overall participants.

MSI, the manufacturer of World's fastest mainboard and graphics card is happy to announce the availability of the new MSI Intel 7 Series mainboards for the LGA1155 socket, powered by MSI's renowned Military Class III components.

The new Intel Z77, H77 and B75 chipset based mainboards support both 2nd Generation Intel Core CPUs as well as the upcoming 3rd Generation Intel Core CPUs. Built on this basis of Quality components and technology the MSI Intel 7 series mainboards have overclocking features to match with OC Genie II. Not only does OC Genie II enhance CPU, Memory and hard-drive speed but now, in combination with Lucid Virtu MVP, also Discrete DirectX 11 Graphics performance can be boosted! Well-known for its power saving hardware features such as Active Phase Switching (APS) and DrMOS II, MSI Intel 7 series mainboards can combine its performance with best-in-class power saving. MSI's Intel 7 series mainboards are truly one of the most well-rounded mainboards ever created and will surely find its way in many PC builds.

MSI released pictures and performance numbers of its in-house SuperRAID storage design that's implemented in its GT70 gaming notebook. The GT70 has two drive bays, one of which holds a 500 GB WD Scorpio Black hard drive, and the other, the SuperRAID module. The hard drive is tasked with just storage and a system recovery partition, while the SuperRAID module is where the action is.

Simply put, the SuperRAID module is a PCB with a RAID controller, and two mSATA 6 Gb/s slots. Each of these slots holds a SanDisk U100 64 GB mSATA SSD. Each of these SSDs come with rated sequential transfer rates as high as 440 MB/s (reads) with 220 MB/s (writes), but striped in RAID 0, the volume churns out tested transfer rates as high as 964 MB/s (max. read), 928 MB/s (avg. read), and 843 MB/s (min. read), when tested by HDTune Pro 5.00. The SuperRAID module is bootable, and holds the operating system and programs. MSI claims with transfer speeds well over 900 MB/s, it has the fastest storage solution among gaming notebooks.

MSI released details about its upcoming value socket LGA1155 motherboard, the B75MA-P45. MSI finds the B75 PCH a worthy option over the current-generation H61 PCH, and could hence price its B75-based motherboards competitively, to capture the entry-level LGA1155 market. The B75MA-P45 comes with out of the box support for 22 nm "Ivy Bridge" Core processors, apart from current-generation "Sandy Bridge" ones. The B75MA-P45 packs a simple 5-phase VRM to power the LGA1155 CPU. The CPU is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting dual-channel DDR3-1600 MHz memory.

Expansion slots include one PCI-Express 3.0 x16, one PCI-Express 2.0 x1, and a legacy PCI. The legacy PCI logic is reintegrated with the PCH, and so the board doesn't use any bridge chips, further, since USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s are integrated with the PCH, MSI didn't add third-party controllers handling the two. SATA connectivity includes one SATA 6 Gb/s, and five SATA 3 Gb/s. The PCH gives out four USB 3.0 ports, two of which are found on the rear panel, two via internal header. Display connectivity includes DVI and D-Sub. 6-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, and legacy PS/2 connectors complete the package. The board is driven by UEFI firmware (5 MB ME 8.0), with a graphical setup program. The B75MA-P45 is said to capture a price-point under US $100.

MSI is working on a factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 680 graphics card, which was briefly put up on its German website, before being pulled, suggesting that the company is not entirely ready with it. Carrying the model number N680GTX-PM2D2GD5/OC, the card features NVIDIA-reference board design. It features out of the box overclocked core speeds of 1056 MHz (base core), 1111 MHz (boost core), vs. reference speeds of 1006 MHz (base core), 1058 MHz (boost core). The memory clock is unchanged, at 6.00 GHz (GDDR5 effective).Update: Sources among retail channels told us that this particular model (N680GTX-PM2D2GD5/OC) was canned at the very last moment. It's possible, however, that the 1056(core)/1111(boost) MHz clock profile could be carried over to future non-reference design models, such as the Twin Frozr IV.

MSI's upcoming G-Series notebooks will be based on the latest NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M for the GT60 and GT70 and the GeForce GT 650M discrete mobile graphics chips for the GE60 and GE70 and will also include the powerful 3rd Generation Intel Core processors. Combined with all other features, like MSI's exclusive GPU Boost powered by NVIDIA Optimus, Dynaudio speakers and the SteelSeries keyboard, these notebooks are ready for all current and upcoming games and are simply the perfect choice for gamers.

Today leading international mainboard and graphics card maker MSI officially announces the new GeForce GTX 680 graphics card featuring the latest 28nm GeForce GTX 680 GPU and 2GB of GDDR5 memory. The GeForce GTX 680 graphics card is outfitted with the latest GPU that not only meets PCI Express 3.0 standards and supports DirectX 11 technology, but also features NVIDIA's GPU Boost technology. GPU Boost technology allows the core clock to be automatically adjusted on the fly for optimal gaming performance. When used with the MSI Afterburner overclocking utility, the power limit and clock offset can be adjusted as well for better overclocking capability. A single card can also support NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround technology for up to four monitors to give gamers the best gaming experience.

It looks like murmurs about the $499 (excl. taxes) price-tag of GeForce GTX 680 have more than an element of truth in them, after all. European retailer PC Components listed an MSI-branded GeForce GTX 680 graphics card (model: N680GTX-PM2D2GD5) for 492€ (including VAT), and 416.95€ (excluding VAT). This reinforces the theory of a US $499 (excluding taxes) price-tag (including taxes price varies significantly between states and other US territories).

The listing also reveals the box-art of MSI's card, and various other features of the GeForce GTX 680, such as NVIDIA GPU Boost Technology, NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround (with the ability to connect all three displays to a single graphics card), clock speeds of 1006 MHz (core) 1056 MHz (boost), 1502 MHz (6.00 GHz GDDR5 effective memory), 2 GB memory, and 195W TDP.Find the listing here.

If you thought MSI made too much song and dance about the product design of its R7970 Lightning, particularly the GPU Reactor module, think again. When augmented with liquid nitrogen cooling, the card has the electrical muscle required to sustain 1.7V, and facilitate a staggering 1800 MHz core clock speed, with 1925 MHz memory (7.70 GHz GDDR5 effective), churning out a gargantuan memory bandwidth of close to 370 GB/s, all thanks to the genius of Swedish proverclocker Elmor.

This R7970 Lightning on 'roid-rage was stable enough to bag a 3DMark 11 (performance preset) score of P15035 points. The rest of the test-bed consisted of an Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition six-core chip clocked at 5207 MHz, with 4 GB (4x 1 GB) DDR3 memory clocked at 2314 MHz, and MSI Big Bang XPower II motherboard, to seat it all. Perhaps this is an indication that AMD Radeon HD 7900 can work wonders on potent non-reference designs, such as MSI's R7970 Lightning.

The latest version of MSI's Afterburner graphics card tweaking software, version 2.2.0 Beta 15, hit the web. The new version, among other things, features support for NVIDIA Kepler series graphics cards, including the ability to monitor power-consumption on these new graphics cards. A bigger part of the feature-set that goes into guaranteeing functional Kepler support is offsets for core, and memory clocks; and voltages, for dynamic overclocking with Kepler family graphics cards.DOWNLOAD: MSI Afterburner 2.2.0 Beta 15

The complete change-log follows.

North American retailer NCIX listed two factory-overclocked NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 graphics card models. NCIX did not list these two for pre-order, but enabled "Add to Wishlist", which probably notifies those with the product in their wishlists of when they are in stock. Both cards are priced at US $578.20 (incl. free shipping to contiguous US states). The clock speeds of MSI's card, which carries the part number "N680GTX-PM2D 2GD5/OC" was revealed to be 1056 MHz (core) with 6 GHz (GDDR5 effective memory); while those of EVGA's card, which carries the part number "02G-P4-2682-KR", were not revealed. We know from its clearly-mentioned brand extension "SuperClocked", that it's factory-overclocked.

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 680 is certainly generating a lot of excitement, so much so that one AIB maker, MSI, has jumped the gun and put out a few PR goodies relating to the incoming card. Seen below, MSI's marketing materials show off the company's GTX 680 (which is based on NVIDIA's reference design), the new GEFORCE GTX logo, and some specs and features like the 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, the 256-bit memory interface, the quad display outputs, the PCI-Express 3.0 support, and the ability to run four monitors (and a complete 3D Vision Surround setup) from a single card.

MSI's GeForce GTX 680 will also be fully supported by the company's Afterburner utility that's set to provide 'GPU/Memory Clock Offset and Power Limit Control'. Expect an official unveiling of the MSI GeForce GTX 680 this Thursday, March 22nd.

- pictures removed at MSI's request -

Leading international graphics card and mainboard maker MSI today announced the release of the MSI R7970 Lightning, the new heir to the throne of Lightning graphics cards. Equipped with AMD's 28 nm Radeon HD 7970 GPU, the MSI R7970 Lightning features an all-new Unlocked Digital Power Architecture that incorporates an Unlocked BIOS, Digital PWM Controller, and Enhanced Power Design to boost overclocking potential to new heights and make overclocking easier than ever.

In an industry first, the proprietary "GPU Reactor" power supply module reduces power supply noise and also boosts overclocking stability as well. To keep this beast cool, the MSI R7970 Lightning utilizes the latest Twin Frozr IV Thermal Design equipped with Dust Removal Technology. The dual 10 cm fans with Propeller Blade Technology generate massive airflow for fast heat dissipation while remaining whisper silent. The two form-in-one heat sinks improve cooling for memory and the power supply module as well ensure structural integrity.

World renowned computer manufacturer MSI announces today motherboard products based on Intel's Z77/H77/B75 series chipsets, with support for the new generation of 22 nm process CPUs featuring PCI Express Gen3 specification. The all-new Military Class III products utilizes high-specification components that meet MIL-STD-810G's seven rigorous testing standards, and have passed certification by credible third party laboratories, providing the best quality and stability.

The complete product line includes the high-end Z77 chipset: Z77A-GD80, Z77A-GD65, Z77A-GD55, Z77A-G45, Z77A-G43, the intermediate H77 chipset: ZH77-G43, H77MA-G43 and also the mainstream B75 chipset B75A-G43 and B75MA-P45. All products are equipped with MSI's exclusive one second overclocking tool, OC Genie II, and the UEFI / Windows-based dual-graphical interface ClickBIOS II, allowing enthusiasts to easily establish high performance and enjoy a hassle-free operating experience. Also found on the MSI 7-series motherboards is native USB 3.0 support, with better performance than external controllers. Additionally, the Z77A-GD80 is equipped with the all-new Thunderbolt interface from Intel, allowing multiple connections to monitors, storage devices, and even graphic cards, easily meeting the demands of various types of professional enthusiasts! The MSI 7-series motherboard's rich product line supports the newest specifications and components, making it the consumer's best choice!

At last, we're getting to see visuals of MSI's top LGA1155 motherboard based on Intel Z77 chipset, the Z77A-GD80, featuring Intel's Thunderbolt interconnect. Thunderbolt is a unified interconnect that provides 10 Gb/s of raw bus bandwidth to connected devices, and passes through digital display. The connector itself resembles mini-DisplayPort. On the Z77A-GD80, the Thunderbolt port is located below a D-Sub connector. Naturally, is passes both 10 Gb/s Thunderbolt (which can be daisy-chained through multiple bandwidth-hungry devices), and display relayed from Intel processor-integrated graphics. Lucid VirtuMVP lets you harness the pixel-crunching power of your favourite discrete graphics card over this port, as well.

March 6th 2012. G.SKILL, the worldwide leading high performance memory designer, has showcased the extreme dual channel memory kits, DDR3 2133 MHz 32 GB (4 x 8 GB), compatible with the latest Z77 motherboards at CeBIT 2012.

Working closely with leading motherboard manufacturers, G.Skill is ready to provide PC enthusiasts the best dual channel memory for the upcoming Z77 motherboards. On the MSI Z77A-GD65 and ASRock Z77 Extreme6 motherboards, G.Skill has demonstrated the 32 GB super size memory kits at DDR3 2133 MHz ultra high speed with Intel Core i7 2600K processors.

"It's just a warm-up. We are working on some faster memory kits and they will be released soon. It's going to be an exciting time" said Paul Chen, senior R&D manager at G.Skill.

If you've seen the first pictures of MSI's Radeon HD 7970 Lightning graphics cards, you may have noticed an unusual-looking round cutout on its backplate, right behind the GPU. We are learning that this cutout, and the tiny headers on the exposed PCB are actually a socket for what MSI is referring to as a "GPU Reactor" (I can imagine Iron Man fans prepping their flame throwers right about now).

The "GPU Reactor" is a round add-on device that sits on this socket. It is essentially an add-on PCB that holds a battery of tantalum capacitors, which further conditions power for the GPU. Apart from capacitors, there are a few blue LEDs and a round, transparent window that make it light up. To what extant this gadget helps with maintaining stable OCs remains to be seen, but on the "flip-side", it could pose spacing issues with other add-on cards located right above HD 7970 Lightning cards that are outfitted with one of these.

MSI, the world renowned mainboard and graphics card manufacturer takes the CeBIT floor by storm with its new generation of Military Class III and PCI Express Gen3 based products. Intel's newest chipset, Z77 will feature prominently on the Z77A-GD65 and Z77A-GD55 mainboards that are accompanied by record-holding MSI products such as the Big Bang-XPower II and other MSI X79 series mainboards. MSI will also display its latest R7000 series graphics cards including the wildly popular MSI R7970 Lightning and R7870 Hawk featuring the all new Unlocked Digital Power Architecture. Both these cards will be cooled by the all new Twin Frozr IV Thermal Design. Graphics cards fans can also witness MSI's wide array of Power Edition graphics cards supporting Triple Overvoltage and enhanced PWM design. Only MSI's highest quality and stability mainboards and graphics cards that support the newest specifications are able to satisfy picky enthusiasts.

Apart from other Z77 chipset-based models that have been exhaustively covered in the past, MSI is working on a media-oriented ATX LGA1155 motherboard based on the H77 chipset, the ZH77A-G43. Why MSI added a "Z" in the model name beats us. The LGA1155 socket is powered by a simple 5-phase VRM. MSI is kind enough to provide passive cooling for the entire CPU VRM area. The CPU is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, providing dual-channel DDR3 support.

Expansion slots include one PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (wired to the CPU), one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x4, wired to the PCH), two PCI-Express 2.0 x1, and three legacy PCI slots. PCI slots are still in good demand by media-professionals who need them for pro-grade sound production cards. Storage connectivity includes two SATA 6 Gb/s, and four SATA 3 Gb/s. All four USB 3.0 ports on this board (two on the rear-panel, two via header) are provided by the H77 PCH. HDMI, DVI, and D-Sub form the display IO. To top it off, you get 8-channel HD audio with THX TruStudio Pro support, and gigabit Ethernet. Expect a value price-point.

CeBIT 2012 is kicking off tomorrow but already the show floor is buzzing with cameras taking pictures of the hardware on display. One such camera, handled by the lab501 team, spotted at MSI's booth the R7970 Lightning, a highly-customized Radeon HD 7970 targeting enthusiasts and overclockers.

Seen below, the incoming Tahiti-based card makes use of Military Class III components (Hi-c CAP, SFC, Solid CAPs) and has an oversized PCB, 14+2-phase digital power, a Twin Frozr IV dual-fan heatsink, a backplate, and something called a GPU Reactor. The R7970 Lightning also features 2048 Shader Units, a 384-bit memory interface, 3 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, Eyefinity 6 support, plus two DVI and four mini DisplayPort outputs. The card's clocks, price tag and release date have yet to be revealed but should be exposed soon.

The Z77A-G45 is going to be one of the more affordable socket LGA1155 motherboards based on the Intel Z77 chipset, by MSI. The Z77A series from MSI starts with high end Z77A-GD80, Z77A-GD65, and Z77A-GD55. eTeknix scored pictures of the Z77A-G45. The G45 uses a simple 6-phase VRM to power the LGA1155 CPU. It doesn't cheap out on cooling for the MOSFETs. The socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting dual-channel DDR3 memory.

The expansion slot area is identical to that of all the other Z77A series motherboards, consisting of two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (x8/x8 when both are populated), one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x4), and four PCI-Express 2.0 x1. MSI gave legacy PCI the boot. Strangely enough, this board features NVIDIA SLI support (something unusual for a "G45" model, as "D" in the model name signifies SLI support. The motherboard doesn't appear to use third-party storage or USB 3.0 controllers. All six SATA ports are internal, wired to the Z77 PCH, and consist of two SATA 6 Gb/s, and four SATA 3 Gb/s. All four USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear-panel, two via front-panel header) are wired to the PCH.

The past week has been chocked full of intense competition as Europe's best League Of Legends team's have been battling it out to earn their spot at the grand finals of MSI NVIDIA Trophy. A number of teams qualified through alternative factors; however, many of Europe's top teams still needed to qualify for the grand finals, which will take place at Gamers Assembly in France at the beginning of April. Four qualifiers was just the ticket those teams needed - and one week later, we have six new teams qualified for the grand finals.

That leaves us with one more qualifier to go. Teams will have to step up their game if they want to earn one of the last two spots earning them a seat at Gamers Assembly in April.

MSI IPC unveiled the cutting-edge QM77 mini-ITX board, designed for the high performance Intel Ivy Bridge / Sandy Bridge Mobile CPU with integrated graphic processor for multiple displays and Intel QM77 Express chipset, featuring the optional PCIe 2.0 / 3.0 slot, Dual-channel DDR3 SO-DIMMs for up to 16 GB memory capacity and various I/O connectors for all kinds of peripherals. The fanless MSI QM77, power-saving, dust-free and noise-less, is durable under extreme environments and suitable to be applied in every industrial field, such as digital signage, kiosk, gaming, industrial control automation and POS.

MSI announced two Radeon HD 7800 series graphics cards, both based on its TwinFrozr III cooling solution, albeit different variants. The R7870 TwinFrozr III from MSI uses a long PCB, and a meatier version of the TwinFrozr III cooler, which has been featured on high-end GeForce GTX 500 and Radeon HD 6900 series, in the past. It uses five 8 mm-thick nickel-plated copper heat pipes to convey heat drawn directly from the GPU, to a large aluminum fin array, ventilated by two 80 mm fans. This card is labeled to have factory-overclocked clock speeds.

The R7850 TwinFrozr III uses a shorter PCB, and a new, leaner version of the cooler, which has never been used by MSI before. It uses three 8 mm-thick n nickel-plated copper heat pipes to convey heat drawn directly from the GPU, to the heatsink. The two fans are nested within the aluminum fin stacks to maximize air-flow flow for heat dissipation. MSI boasts about how the noise output of this cooler is "only 27 dB" on load. Like the R7870 TF3, this card is factory-overclocked, too.