14 DAY TRIAL // One wouldn't expect motherboard makers to be quite so eager to see their mainboard incorporating new technologies, but it looks like Micro-Star International went ahead and fashioned a fairly unique version of the Z68A-GD80.
As all things, motherboards have to make sure every component they are built with is up to speed with current technologies.
Turns out that Micro-Star International didn't just stay up to date, but actually made a leap forward as far as the PCI Express interface is concerned.
As a certain report has it, while the Z68A-GD80 isn't exactly a new motherboard, the version on show at Computex 2011, revision G3 as it were, definitely isn't common.
Basically, instead of the PCI Express 2.0 interface, MSI went ahead and implemented the PCI Express 3.0 standard.
Then again, the fact that there are no PCI Express 3.0 graphics cards raises the question of why MSI actually bothered with the technology in the first place.
The company didn't actually provide any explanation as to how or why this was accomplished, but it did say that there will be notable performance increases.
This means that graphics boards might work a little better, as might solid state drives, although whether or not the controller chips in PCIe SSDs can recognize and take advantage of the higher bandwidth is just as unclear.
The rest of the product specifications are the same as before, with four DDR3 memory slots, three PCIe ones, USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet, etc.
Finally, MSI took this chance to also show off the Click BIOS II software, with a fairly unique user interface. What remains is to see if any rival mainboard makers mirror this maneuver any time soon.
Of course, this isn't the only item that MSI brought to Computex, having also succeeded in standing out thanks to a pair of tablets, among other things.