14 DAY TRIAL // In spite of the fact that Intel won't make its first LGA 2011 Sandy Bridge-E processors official until the fourth quarter of 2011, MSI has showcased at this year's Computex fair their own version of an X79 Express motherboard, the MSI X79A-GD80.
The board showcased by MSI at the fair is still an early sample, and the final version will carry a different PCB color as well as a new cooling system.
This will most probably drop the two fans that make the board look out of its place among other X79 models.
However, the basic layout will be kept, so the final version of the X79A-GD80 will most certainly feature four PCI Express x1 slots as well as three PCI-E x16 Gen 3.0 slots.
These are compatible with 3-way GPU setups from both AMD and Nvidia and the 40 PCI Express lanes available from the Sandy Bridge-E processors will be split into two x16, and one x8, channels when all the slots are populated.
As far as storage is concerned, MSI's motherboard can be fitted with up to 11 SATA 6Gbps drives, ten powered by the Intel X79 PCH, and one driven by a third party controller (which is placed in a rather odd location).
An additional SATA port has been routed to the back of the motherboard as an eSATA connector, where it is also accompanied by a few other USB 3.0 ports and by a pair of Gigabit LAN ports.
The integrated audio sound processor supports 8+2 channel HD audio and the final revision of the board should also feature dedicated voltage readout point and a series of other enthusiast features.
Intel's Sandy Bridge-E processors are expected to debut in the forth quarter of 2011 and the initial CPU batch will include three chips, two featuring a six-core design and a quad-core model. The MSI X79A-GD80 is also expected to arrive in Q4 2011. (via VR-Zone)