The official launch date for the Lynnfield series is quickly approaching and with them a veritable swarm of P55 motherboards is going to hit the market. The sheer scope of new models available at launch is going to surprise and shock many consumers. That is why smart manufacturers like MSI have wisely chosen to preview their new P55 models to help their motherboards stand out from the crowd as early as possible. Today, we will be showing off MSI's most fully-featured new model: the P55-GD80.

As the Top of the Line model in MSI's roster, the P55-GD80 has been designed to surpass the best that the competition has to offer. It supports all upcoming Lynnfield LGA1156 processors, has a formidable DrMOS 8+2 phase power design, four DDR3 memory slots with frequency support up to DDR3-2133 (O.C), three mechanical PCI-E x16 slots, CrossFireX and SLI support, dual Gigabit LAN ports, an 8-channel HD audio CODEC, 8 SATA II ports, 9 USB 2.0 ports, 1 FireWire ports, 3 eSATA ports, a new OC Genie real-time overclocking processor with accompanying OC Genie & DirectOC buttons, touch-sensitive onboard power/reset switches, phase LEDs for every major component, a post code debug display and quite a bit more.

In this our third P55 motherboard preview, we will give you a quick rundown of all the features this model has to offer in order to whet your appetite until the actual review hits our front page. Unfortunately, due to NDAs we can't show you performance or BIOS screens but don't worry, you won't have to wait too long before we put this board through our torture tests.

MSI has come to us with its new Intel P55 chipset motherboard that will be supporting future Intel Core i5 processors. This feature packed beauty looks to weigh in at about the $200 mark which makes it all that more interesting.

MSI has come to us with its new Intel P55 chipset motherboard that will be supporting future Intel Core i5 processors. This feature packed beauty looks to weigh in at about the $200 mark which makes it all that more interesting. MSI is first to market with touch sensitive power and reset buttons and looks to buck the trend of "More phases are better phases," in the motherboard power market place. Also worth notice is MSI's OC Genie feature that is seemingly overclocking better than some n00bs we know!

 

 

MSI pulled out all the stops in designing P55-GD80. This motherboards sports the new P55 chipset supporting the Lynnfield Core i5 and Core i7 processors. From its sharp looks to its bullet proof design, this board looks about ready to take its X58 based brethren head on.

Introduction

MSI is a veteran component manufacturer in the PC gaming and enthusiast space, known for its high performance products and innovative designs. With each new generation of products, MSI releases new technological innovations on to the world with one goal in mind, to get the highest performance possible out of the target platform. Their P55 based line looks to do just that.

The MSI P55-GD80 motherboard supports the LGA1156 line of Intel processors via the integrated Intel P55 chipset. The chipset itself has in-built support for the following technologies: Intel LGA 1156 Core i7 and Core i5 processors, DDR3 memory operating in Dual Channel mode up to 1333MHz officially, and either NVIDIA SLI and ATI CrossFireX graphics mode using matched video cards.

 

With Intel's launch of the P55 chipset based Core i7 and i5 processors, we knew it would not be long until we saw a slew of motherboards with the P55 chip. Today is the first full review of one of such board from MSI! Our first example is the P55-GD65, which is priced right smack in the middle of P55 motherboards. That should give you an early indication as to where this board stacks up as far as features and performance are concerned. In actuality, this motherboard has an incredible number of features, which we will touch on shortly.

With the recent launch of Intel's Core i5 and 8 series Core i7 socket 1156 processors there is a need for motherboards to match up with these new processors. You have the boards that are meant for the system builders and OEMs, but what we are interested in are the enthusiast class boards. Those with the features and build quality we demand as overclockers. Things such as better components more for more durable construction, a good BIOS so we can maximize the performance of our hardware, cooling solutions that work, not to mention a board that looks good, while having all of the right attributes. And, it must work no matter what we throw at it. A pretty big bunch of requirements. The MSI P55-GD65 is one of a series of four P55 Express chipset based motherboards for use with Intel's newest processors and is part of MSI's Gaming series motherboards. The P55-GD65 uses MSI's Extreme Speed design philosophy that includes the "OC Genie" for 1 second overclocking, Super Pipe technology that makes use of a heatpipe that is 60% larger than that used by its competitors at 8mm, and DrMos - a mosfet design that has been used since MSI's P45 chipset motherboards that take the place of four separate components with only one! Having had the opportunity to test a few P55 based motherboards, I wonder how these features will contribute to the performance of the P55-GD65 from MSI.

 

The CD53 is MSI's budget P55 performance motherboard. At rP 1.500.000,- though, it's a very cheap P55 right now.

 

MSI, a leading high-performance mainboard company, unveil its first gaming series mainboards in Intel P55 platform featuring awe-inspiring graphics and audio functionality to offer serious gamers immersive gaming experience.

The state-of-the-art gaming line is inspired by the mighty Big Bang. Unique and innovative, the all-new Big Bang series will deliver the shock and awe of unprecedented experiences and expand into its own collection of galaxies.

The first Big Bang branded mainboard, Trinergy is designed with eye-catching features such as NVIDIA SLI technology and QuantumWave audio processing with the latest THX TruStudio PC and Creative EAX ADVANCED HD 5.0 plus exclusive performance boost design from MSI.

It was just about a year ago that Intel introduced the Core i7 1366 family to us and took the world by storm. The hyperthreading capabilities were amazing and the overclocking abilities were second to none. It was as if the CPU world had been turned upside down. The motherboard manufacturers began producing X58 motherboards with excellent performance and plenty of bells and whistles to push the performance of the 1366 chips. Now, this technology is about to hit its middle ages at the ripe old age of one year old and, as computer technology goes, it was time for a new baby to be born.