Originally posted by: guptasa1
I have a few questions:
1.) I know very little about MSI - I've always been an ASUS fan (and also heard good things about Gigabyte). Is MSI a reputable brand with a good track record?
2.) When is this board due out?
3.) Anything major missing from this board that others have?
4.) I assume the X-Fi processor works like a regular sound card and doesn't steal CPU cycles like some onboard sound options do?
Thanks all!
1) MSI is a great company building High quality products at lower prices. This is mainly accomplished by allowing the other companies to go first and watch the troubles they have and learn giving MSI better products the first time out. They also have the best RMA program ever seen in a motherboard manufacturer just incase you put your memory in backwards or something stupid.
2) I hope late this week just in time for my B-day, but at last call middle of March. This board is to be the first mobo 100% Vista ready. Making for several delays due to driver support. Also ontop of that the first incorperation of an X-Fi chip on a mobo that will be Vista ready, claims of issues in its timings have been a reason for delays. Hopefully the board meets the Mid-March date and doesn't suffer from another delay. As if it's not here I will be buying the Striker Myself.
3)Missing? Well thats tough to answer all the in-house built boards target a different group of consumer adding thier own list of features and strengths. It is fully loaded with the features the 680i chipset offers. I would have to answer your question as no it isn't missing anything, but may not have as much(overkill) of a feature in some areas.
4)That is correct it will free up cycles from the cpu.
Dont forget about the onboard hardware raid controller it will also free cycles from the cpu unlike hardware assisted software raid. It also will have a eSata port if you care about this. I'd rather have a sixth internal sataII port, but with the hareware raid supporting 2 sataII ports 7 internal sataII ports should workout just fine plus the 2 IDE channels.
Yesterday all the photos of this board disappeared from existance. I hope this means a quick redesign in the boards layout. One thing I'd like to see changed is a PCi-X slot in the fourth slot position vs the PCi-e 1X that was in the photos of the early-release board.
Another thing that will turn me from this board is also in the slot configuration if it doesn't have the two SLi 16x slots more than 2 slots away from each other this board will not work for me as the cooler of my first card will be less than 3/16" away from the back of the second card. So the first Sli 16x slot needs to be in slot position one closest to the northbridge and the second SLi 16x slot needs to be in slot position five. Even better than that but not likely would be the first SLi card in slot three and the second card in slot seven this configuation would leave three slots availible for use vs one in the first option, but would require a full size tower so the cooler can hang below the board and have enough room for a free flow of air. It would be worth it to gain use of another PCi-e 16x slot.
1 slot video card solutions are really more ideal for this slot lay-out it is nearly the same as my Gigabyte Quad Royal except that board ran the two 16x SLi slots in positions 3 and 5. Thats is how I know the exact measurment of 9/64" of clearane between two SLi card with 2-slot cooling solutions mounted only 2 slots away from each other.