MSI release P55-GD85 motherboard

MSI have officially launched the P55-GD85 motherboard. Being part of the P55-GD family, most of the features are the same as the older boards, but two new features that MSI have implemented are USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0gbps. It also supports Intel’s latest 32nm process and LGA1156 Core i3, i5 and i7 series CPU’s.

As we’d expect, there are 4 dual channel DDR3 slots which can take up to 16gb in total running speeds of up to 2133mhz. We can see an array of expansion slots including 2 pci-express graphics slots, 1 being 16 times and the other 8 times. Also included are 2 legacy PCI slots and 2 PCI-express 1 times slots.

Drive connections on this board are plenty with 2 SATA 3.0 ports and 7 SATA 2 ports with the ability to provide RAID in 0, 1,5 and 10 configurations including JBOD.

The rear of the board has many various connections including 2 USB 3.0 ports, 5 USB 2.0 ports, coaxial and Optical SPDIF and analog audio ports, a 1394 firewire port, an eSATA/USB combo port and dual gigabit lan ports. It also has a clear CMOS button on the back too.

This board is currently available in some European e-tailers and should be avialable more and more as the week goes on.

Prices range from £160-£180 dependant on retailer.