MSI’s booth included a very early sample of a motherboard that looks like a possible X99 based successor to the X79A-GD65. In huge font, MSI advertises the board as the world’s 1st DDR4 X99 motherboard which is interesting considering ASRock is showing off not one, but two DDR4 compatible X99 motherboards here at the show as well.
The motherboard includes the new LGA 2011-v3 socket which is expected to support Haswell-E when it’s released later this year. In terms of features, this board includes MSI’s Military Class 4, eight DDR4 DIMM slots, four PCIe x16 slots, two PCIe x1 slots, M.2 support, SATA Express support, and SATA 6Gb/s support as well.
Of course this is an early sample, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some design changes before the board launches later this year.
In addition to X99 motherboards, MSI also revealed that they’ll be including USB 3.1 support in upcoming motherboards. Since USB 3.1 isn’t included in Intel’s chipset, MSI will be using a third party ASMedia ASM1142 controller.
MSI have made ridiculous claims about being 1st in the past as well, it’s all marketing hype.
Say it often enough, and people will believe it.
Hopefully there will be design changes, it’s rear port features are a bit lacking.
Obviously there is room for more USB ports as well as another LAN port for Teaming.
Hopefully it wont be long before they showcase a gaming version.