14 DAY TRIAL // While Intel grabbed the spotlight at CES 2010, with its Pine Trail platform and the many netbooks based on it, CeBIT seems set to see AMD pulling off a similar feat with its 890GX chipset. With ECS and Gigabyte having already unwrapped its respective motherboards, it is no surprise to see MSI doing the same. Unlike its rivals, however, Micro-Star International decided to give the new platform the Micro-ATX form factor, so as to make it usable in newer HTPCs.
Considering the fact that the main role of the 890GX chipset is to act as a supporting platform for the upcoming six-core Thuban processor, it may seem somewhat surprising to see it configured for home-theater personal computers. Still, the chipset does include the ATI Radeon HD 4290 IGP, which will actually serve HTPC purposes quite well, thanks to its DirectX 10.1 support and 128MB DDR3-1333 memory.
As for its other specs, the board, known as 890GXM-G65, supports AM3 processors, has four DDR3 memory slots and even two PCI Express x16 slots with CrossFireX or Hybrid CrossFireX support.
The advanced graphics and memory capabilities ensure that this new motherboard from MSI is appealing to not just HTPC users, but also those in search of a capable desktop platform in a smaller form factor. The mainboard even comes with five SATA 6.0Gbps ports, an eSATA connector and two USB 3.0 ports for high-speed storage. As for connectivity and I/O, the 890GXM-G65 comes with Gigabit Ethernet and 7.1 channel audio, as well as HDMI, DVI and D-Sub outputs.
MSI has also designed its motherboard with military-class components, namely all solid capacitors (solid CAP) and solid state choke (SSC), enabling a higher system stability. Furthermore, the company implemented the OC Genie overclocking technology, which automatically adjusts CPU and IGP clocks to enhance overall performance by 15%.
The press release does not give out any pricing or availability details, but the new motherboard should become available soon.