Computex 2006: 300W GPUs, Conroe, HDMI Video Cards and Lots of Motherboards
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 5, 2006 10:24 PM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
MSI's Conroe Motherboards
Like most other motherboard manufacturers, MSI kicked off our meeting with a showing of its new Conroe motherboards.
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MSI's entry level P965 motherboard uses the regular ICH8, which only supports four SATA ports as you can see below:
The other important thing to note is that all of MSI's Conroe motherboards are passively cooled. MSI insists that you can adequately cool Intel's chipsets without resorting to more expensive heatpipes.
MSI's high end P965 motherboard with Conroe support uses the more expensive ICH8R option, which offers six SATA ports.
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As with all P965 motherboards there's no CrossFire support despite the two PCIe x16 slots (one is a x16 and the other is a x4).
Below we get a better look at the new P965 chipset beneath the MSI heatsink:
Intel's P965 chipset features a new memory controller design compared to previous Intel chipsets, however we have not been able to get an idea of how extensive the modifications are. We do know that this is the first Intel chipset to officially support DDR2-800, which may be all the redesigned memory controller offers.
Intel's new ICH8R is pictured below:
Like all other motherboard manufacturers making Conroe boards, if you want CrossFire support you need to go with the Intel 975X chipset. While both ATI and NVIDIA will have multi-GPU solutions with Conroe support, for now it's all about Intel's offerings.
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With the older ICH7R, MSI's 975X platinum only has 4 SATA ports that are driven by the South Bridge. The extra SATA port is provided by a third party controller.
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mindless1 - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Nice coverage. These new toys leave me drooling. Now off I go to find a smallish nuclear reactor to power everything. LOL.sri2000 - Friday, June 9, 2006 - link
You just need to get yourself a "Mr. Fusion" and you'll be all set.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Fusion">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Fusion
bespoke - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Too bad the new DFI boards still have that hideous fan on the NF chipset - that little bugger runs at 4,000 to 5,000 and is terribly loud.I can't wait to upgrade to Conroe, ditch NF4 and get back to a quiet (yet nicely performing) PC.
Griswold - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Duh.. newsflash, there are also NF4 boards without fans - just not from DFI. What really sucks about the fan on the DFI board is, that it breaks after 3 months and you end up replacing it with a better fan.Stele - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Although that's not much of a use if you're aiming to get a DFI board - which I think is where he was coming from. :)
For one reason or another DFI does not seem to be interested, or at least eager, to implement more/more effective passive cooling solutions on their products. Besides the lack of noise, passive cooling's greatest advantage is the fact that it doesn't have moving parts that are prone to failure like fans... as you found out.
At least they did take a unique step in implementing a digital integrated VR design on their board... its remarkable compactness and 'clean' layout without large electrolytic capacitors makes it really worth looking at for motherboard power circuits. Can't wait till more details of their implementation and tests thereof surface.
R3MF - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
was the ECS miniITX A64 motherboard with an nForce chipset.i would love to see a AM2 MCP61-S variant with two dimm slots and PCI-E 16x card!
bldckstark - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Dual redundant power supplies in the Asus 1U server would seem to indicate that there are three or four power supplies housed within, but I believe the actuality is that there are only two right? Redundant means secondary as I understand it. Dual redundant means two secondaries. Therefore dual redundant PS's include a backup power supply and then a backup of the backup power supply. Which is it? Are there 2 or 3 power supplies in that thing?hoppa - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
God I am so sick of hearing about x new card that is "even better than" the already $500 dual x1950.9 XFIRE XLI+ v2.0 ZI miss the days when those cards, the best cards, maxed at $300, the awesome stuff was at $200, and you could do quite well for $150. Now $150 is a joke.
One43637 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
is it just me or does the GB motherboard offerings remind you of the Asus motherboards (A8N32 & P5N32) that were released last year...Griswold - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
High time the dorks at Nvidia and ATI start working on the power saving front. At least they seemm to have that in mind for the follow-up generations... This only means that R600 and G80 wont make it into my computer until the following cards reduce the power envelope by quite a bit.*shakes fist*