14 DAY TRIAL // Having already presented several motherboards based on Intel's Z68 chipset, Micro-Star International has been found to have created another, one that should show up in the very near future.
The motherboard market is always getting new members, but it looks like new and upcoming Intel and AMD processors have prompted a higher degree of activity with mainboard makers.
Micro-Star International is one of said companies, having revealed, so far, five platforms of the Z68 variety.
Two of them, like the MSI Z68A-GD65 and Z68A-GD80 (G3), even feature support for the PCI Express 3 specification.
The newest one to have been spotted lacks PCI Express 3.0 and the DrMOS and Tantalum capacitors found on some of its peers, like the Z68A-GD55.
Still, as an ATX platform, it will enable a decent level of performance while not requiring its prospective buyers to spend overmuch on its purchase.
More specifically, it carries a price of 130 Euro, the rough equivalent of $223, at least according to European stores where it is up for pre-order.
That said, four memory slots are present, along with two PCI Express x16 slots (for graphics add-in-boards) that can work in dual x8 mode.
Additionally, MSI implemented two legacy PCI slots and three PCI Express x1 slots, plus Gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports (plus another two as pin headers), a number of USB 2.0 connectors and the expected video outputs (HDMI, D-Sub, DVI and even optical and coaxial S/PDIF).
An extra difference between the MSI Z68A-G45 and its siblings, the phase count is 6 instead of 10, though this should still let overclockers let loose.
Finally, the power, reset and OC Genie buttons are absent, much like metering points for Voltage and angled SATA connectors.
All in all, the newcomer is fairly similar to its more enthusiast-oriented peers but lacks some of the cost-adding overclocking traits.
