Mar 1, 2011 09:59 GMT  ·  By

After ECS and Biostar announced their motherboard range built on top of Intel's H61 chipset, it is now time for MSI to do the same as the company has showcased, at the CeBIT 2011 fair which takes place right now in Hannover, Germany, its lineup of entry-level LGA 1155 boards.

The H61 chipset is destined to be used in budget Sandy Bridge systems and should be a great choice for users who will buy cheaper Pentium CPUs, which are expected to launch sometime later this year.

The most basic of the three modules showcased by MSI during the fair is the H61I-E35 (B3) motherboard, which uses the mini-ITX form factor and allows users to install up to 16GB of DDR3 memory in the two full-length DIMM sockets installed.

In addition, the board also features a PCI Express x1 slot, four SATA 3Gbps ports as well as HDMI and VGA video outputs.

Next in line is the H61M-E33 (B3) motherboard that uses the micro-ATX form factor and adds one PCI Express x16, dual PCI Express x1 and a regular PCI slot to the mix.

Just as the H61I-E35 (B3), this board also gets four 3Gbps SATA ports, but now two of these are angled at 90 degrees to ease cable routing inside the case.

Feature wise, the board is remarkably similar to the top of the line H61MU-E35 (B3), which only adds USB 3.0 connectivity to the specifications list.

Both boards are “HTPC ready,” as MSI likes to call them, as they pack HDMI, D-Sub and DVI video outputs as well as optical S/PDIF out.

Sadly, no details regarding availability and pricing were disclosed at this time, but the H61 chipset is expected to arrive in Q2 2011.

Just yesterday, Biostar has also made official its lineup of H61-based motherboard models. (via ComputerBase)

Photo Gallery (5 Images)

MSI H61I-E35 Sandy Bridge motherboard
MSI H61M-E33 Sandy Bridge motherboardMSI H61M-E33 Sandy Bridge motherboard - Rear I/O
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