As we’ve mentioned a few times, several of the major motherboard manufacturers have come a long way with their motherboards for the Nehalem architecture. MSI is one of the manufacturers that we have heard is shipping its first X58 motherboards to media and partners. There have been little information regarding the specific models for Intel’s coming Core i7 platform, until now. We’ve namely acquired a photo that was taken during a product presentation and the table reveals pretty much everything you want to know about MSI’s coming X58 motherboards.
It seems to be planning three different models; X58 “TBD”, X58 Eclipse och X58 Platinum. The first, with the pending name, is geared toward “über overclockers” while Eclipse is enthusiast and Platinum for the performance segment users. All models are more or less for the high-end market, which is anything but odd since Core i7 is only about the upper segments and will be supreme overkill the mainstream market.
The hardware specifications are different between the models in several ways, e.g. the number of PCIe x16 slots where the overclocker model, “TBD”, has 4 slots thanks to the NF200 chip, which enables Quad-SLI and Triple SLI + PhysX. Quad CrossFire will work fine too. The other two models drops one slot per segment and ends with two with X58 Platinum, which leaves it with “just” SLI or CrossFire.
Picture source unknown
Other features only available with the overclocker and enthusiast models are integrated X-Fi sound card, GreenPower Genie and D-LED2, something that needs some further explanation. We are awaiting additional information on the first X58 motherboards quite soon, it is just a shame that we have to wait another few months until these will actually be launched along with Intel’s Core i7 processors.
