14 DAY TRIAL // Today is Intel's Lynnfield day, as the Santa Clara, California-based chip maker has officially announced the introduction of its new line of Core i5 and Core i7 processors, compatible with the latest P55 platform. With that in mind, most of the world's leading hardware manufacturers have taken this opportunity to announce their latest products, coming to support Intel's new platform and processors. Such is the case with MSI, which has just announced its new line of P55-based motherboards, available in four new models, the P55-GD80, P55-GD65, P55-CD53 and P55M-GD45.
All of the aforementioned boards are designed to support Intel's socket LGA1156 processors, coupled with the latest graphics cards and dual-channel DDR3 memory kits. From the three, the P55M-GD45 stands out as the company's only P55-based board that boasts an mATX form factor, more suitable for small form factor PCs or HTPCs. All boards are featured with a couple of MSI's own technologies, like OC Genie, DrMOS and Winki 2.0. There are some differences between the four, providing users with a couple of choices, when building a new desktop computer system.
P55-GD80 is currently MSI's new flagship motherboard for Intel-based mainstream platforms, enabling support for the current and upcoming LGA1156 processors, coupled with up to 16GB of dual-channel DDR3 memory, three PCI-Express graphics slots, eight SATA ports, one eSATA, 7.1-channel HD audio with Blu-ray support, Dual Gigabit LAN ports and 14 USB 2.0 ports.
Although the company hasn't revealed any specific details on the boards' pricing and availability, a quick look at the updated offering from the online retailers will reveal that some models are already available for prices ranging from 103 Euros to 185 Euros. The Taiwanese company is bound to reveal more designs of the new chipset, providing users with some higher performance models or more affordable options.
