MSI Flagship Intel Z68 Based Motherboard Gets Pictured

While we're still a few weeks away from Intel's Z68 chipset official launch, motherboard makers have already started to announce their first solution built using the new PCH, and MSI is one of the first to do so with the Z68A-GD80.

Taking a quick look at the board it becomes apparent that MSI's solution has many things in common with the company's other flagship product, the P67A-GD80, although there are a few differences between the two.

For starters, the Z68 model has dropped both of the USB 3.0 hubs, that allowed its P67-based counterpart to pack no less than ten USB 3.0 ports, so it has to make do with two rear and two front USB 3.0 ports, but has gained an extra SATA 6Gbps port.

This raises the number of SATA ports available on the motherboard to seven, and users also get an additional eSATA 6Gbps port.

However, this is where the main differences end as the motherboard features the same expansion slot layout as MSI's previous LGA 1155 GD80 model as well as a similar feature list that includes the company's trademark OC Genie II and on-board power and reset buttons.

As far as the expansion slots are concerned, the board has three x16 PCI Express slots in an x16/dual x8 and x4 configuration, two x1 PCI Express slots and two PCI slots.

Moving to the back, we find that MSI decided to pair its Z68-based solution with a FireWire port, a PS/2 port, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, 7.1-channel audio with optical S/PDIF out and a Clear CMOS button.

These are accompanied by a dual-link DVI and an HDMI video output that take advantage of the FDI interface packed inside the Z68 chipset.

No details regarding pricing were disclosed by MSI, but the Z68 boards are expected to arrive in the first half of May. (via VR-Zone)