We take a look at MSI’s booth at CEBIT 2011.
MSI had a great deal of products at CeBIT 2011 and we were shown around by a very enthusiastic representative. Including motherboards, graphics cards and laptops.
The big push for MSI this year is Military Class II. Which if you haven’t heard of, is a brand exclusive. Many manufacturers classify their products as being military tested, military standard. The truth is that this only applies to certain components such as capacitors when we are talking motherboards. Only certain aspects are tested to military standards with other brands, but with MSI the entire board is military tested, not only the capacitors or specific components.
MSI proudly had on their wall a certificate of quality and stability. This certificate was awarded a matter of days ago and clearly shows that MSI are keen to set themselves apart from competitors by going one step further ensuring unrivalled quality in almost every aspect of their motherboard manufacture. All motherboards now feature the following 3 high quality components:
SFC – Super Ferrite Chokes
Hi-c CAP
Solid Capacitors
NOTE: Hi-c CAPs (Highly Conductive Polymerized Capacitor) are used by NASA on their spacestations. The polymer is a self repairing substance – MSI actually spoke of a technician who thought he had damaged the board sent it back for RMA but by the time it arrived with RMA department it had healed itself.
MSI were showcasing their latest Sandy Bridge motherboards which all feature the above 3 components as standard. Below you can see the new Z68 chipset motherboard that is shortly to be released. This board combines the excellent performance from P67 and video output from H67.
BIG Bang Marshal (P67)
The Big Bang series needs little introduction. It is MSI’s flagship range and ultimately offers the best features and best performance. Due out very soon is the Big Bang Marshal motherboard which MSI showcased at CeBIT 2011.
Designed for extreme gamers the Big Bang Marshall uses the Intel P67 chipset, allowing for 24 phase power via DrMOS PWM design. A phenomenal 12 x USB3.0 ports are available on the board with 4 x SATA 6G ports.
The Marshall board has an astounding number of features on it. Here are just a few:
– 8 x PCIe 2.0 lanes (16x) each running ‘Cease Fire’ (Mix models of GPU within the configuration eg. NVIDIA GTX 480 and NVIDIA GTX 580)
– X-FI MB2 audio
– Multi BIOS (3 available)
– OC Genie II (Overclocks CPU, memory and voltage – maximum stable)
N580GTX Lightning
Whilst MSI do produce a small selection of cards that feature the reference cooler from the likes of NVIDIA and AMD they specialise in 4 different series of after-market cooled graphics cards. Cyclone, Twin Frozr III, HAWK and Lightning.
The card that took centre stage at the MSI booth was the upcoming N580GTX Lighting which has a 16 phase PWM design, independent memory power with Proadizer, plus CoperMOS for excellent power stability. It goes without saying that this card will be the ultimate NVIDIA GTX 580 variant. It will feature 1.5GB/384bits GDDR5 memory with dual DVI-I and HDMI. Dual BIOS switch with LN2 mode for extreme enthusiasts who want to break records. There are even V-Check Points located on the card for use with multimetre voltage reading.
In case you are wondering, the Twin Frozr III thermal design has dual 90mm PWM fans that are said to provide up to 20% more airflow than standard 90mm fans. It also features SuperPipe Technology for the best heat dissipation. MSI commented on the thermal performance of this card/cooler and confirmed that the results they had experienced so far were astounding, so expect very good things.
AMD HD 6990
You may or may not be aware that the upcoming dual GPU from AMD is almost here. Over at the MSI booth they actually had the card displayed in a cabinet. Of course there were no details at all regarding the specifications of the card due to everything still being under NDA.
What our MSI rep did reveal though was that this card will be in very short supply due to the card being an attempt at showing consumers this is what is possible “cause we can”. Its merely a card to show sheer power and is likely to retail for a lot of cash.
