14 DAY TRIAL // After it has just announced the introduction of a new version of the Big Bang Marshal based on the B3 revision of the P67 chipset, MSI has also made official the updated P67A-GD80 motherboard that is also built using Intel's new PCH stepping which resolves the SATA issues found to affect the previous version of the board.
Compared to the older revision of the motherboard, the new P67A-GD80 should carry a sticker on the front of the box which reads “MSI B3 stepping ready.”
In addition, the barcode tag placed on the box should carry the B3 suffix right next to the boards’ name while the PCB of the motherboard should also feature stickers signaling the new version of the PCH.
Other methods to identify the presence of the B3 revision PCH are also available by following this link.
As its name implies, the P67A-GD80 is built using Intel's P67 Express chipset and is targeted towards enthusiastic users who are interested in overclocking their Sandy Bridge CPU and want to get maximum performance out of their system.
To cater to these special needs, MSI has designed the board with Military Class II components, which include Hi-c CAP capacitors and super ferrite chocks, while also adding voltage measurement points, a specially designed 12-phase DrMOS VRM as well as on-board power and reset buttons.
Furthermore, the board also features Nvidia SLI and AMD CrossFireX support, an UEFI-based BIOS, automatic OC Genie II overclocking as well as THX TruStudio PRO certified audio.
On the back of the board, users will find a wide assortment of I/O connectors, including six USB 3.0 ports, dual Gigabit Ethernet ports and an eSATA port.
No details regarding the availability of the board have been made official together with the press release, but, based on previous reports, this is expected to start shipping in April of 2011.