MSI unveils its first X79 chipset motherboards

TAIWANESE PC MAKER Micro-Star International (MSI) has announced its line of motherboards based on Intel's latest X79 chipset.

The four-strong line-up includes the X79A-GD65 (8D), X79A-GD65, X79A-GD45, and X79MA-GD45. All use Intel X79 chipset with the LGA2011 processor socket.

This Intel LGA2011 socket supports the latest Intel Sandy Bridge E chips that were launched earlier today.

The two GD65 models have support for up to eight memory DIMMs for a maximum of 128GB of RAM. MSI said all the boards use Military Class III components for superior quality and stability.

All the boards support PCI-express 3.0 and use 'DrMOS II' metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect (MOSFET) transistors, and the thermal protection is improved and therefore the lifetime of components is increased.

Other technology includes MSI's Click BIOS II and OC Genie II for overclocking. MSI X79 motherboards also support four-way AMD CrossfireX and three-way Nvidia SLI multi-GPU technology. µ