14 DAY TRIAL // Micro Star International is one of the leading manufacturers of computer motherboards and its products have been highly awarded worldwide. The company's recently released Wind netbook has placed it in the spotlight, especially since its product has been said to be the best Eee PC competitor. On that note, MSI has developed a new motherboard designed to offer system builders support for the upcoming nettops.
The nettop market isn't expected to have the same impact as the netbook market, but even so, large companies such as ASUS and MSI have announced their own Atom-based low-power PCs. These devices will most probably serve as a decent second PC, as they will be cheap and affordable to a high number of users. They will provide the very basics, as compared to today's desktop computer systems and they will probably be used in educational facilities for students.
MSI's new motherboard dubbed "Wind Board" has been specifically designed for this purpose and it is built using Intel's 945GC and ICH7 chipsets. This will provide its users with support for Intel's Atom N230 (1.6GHz) processor and DDR2 667 memory. The board is codenamed MS-7314 and has one Ultra ATA and two SATA connectors as well as one PCI slot. With the GMA950 integrated graphics, providing an external VGA connector, the board will provide its users with everything they need to build a reliable, low-cost desktop computer.
The Wind Board also sports one Ethernet port for networking connections and no less than four USB 2.0 ports. Other details are currently unavailable but the board is expected to hit the store shelves soon enough. At this point we can't provide you with any details concerning the product's estimate price tag, but more should be unveiled in the near future.