The MSI Gaming Booth Tour with dGPUs in AIOs and Notebooks plus Motherboards
by Ian Cutress on June 29, 2015 3:00 PM ESTAnother vector in the PC space that has been gaining attention and growth recently is the concept of small form factor devices, either to be used as office machines, portals to the web or as gaming devices. With the rise of tablets and Chromebooks eating into the low end portable market, Intel introduced the NUC (to which Gigabyte and Zotac have their own variants) to provide a small device that could also be mounted on the back of a monitor but still had full performance of a Core based PC. A step up from that and we have mini-ITX PCs, but for some this is still too big, especially when we throw potential Steamboxes into the mix. That is when we get devices like the ASUS GR8 and GR6 that fit into a bookshelf, or the MSI Nightblade designed to be a shoebox PC. For Computex, MSI is introducing the Nightblade Mi.
Nightblade Mi
Not to be confused with anything from Xiaomi, or Nintendo based avatars, the Nightblade Mi is the bookshelf-sized sibling of the Nightblade.
The Mi is barely taller than a standard half-liter water bottle and is similarly designed like the Nightblade to house a full motherboard, CPU and discrete graphics card. Behind the scenes, we got a closer look at the internals.
The system uses smaller components where possible, and MSI stated that they’re not too concerned with the color scheme internally at this point as the Mi is designed to be slightly hidden away and blend into home décor.
A full mini-ITX motherboard is used with a laptop-oriented style blower fan with heatpipes. The fan should be able to handle 88W-95W of CPU power, although MSI recommends against overclocking in such a small form factor. The blower sits below the GPU, so airflow through these areas is important. From the top of this image we can see the ability for a dual slot GPU to be inserted.
The GPU arrangement is provided by a PCIe 3.0 x16 riser card with the dimensions allowing even a Titan X into the mix. The power supply is the crucial element here, and if I remember correctly then this is a 450W 80PLUS Silver design derived from the server market.
MSI has designed the system to take a single 2.5-inch SSD on the top:
There is space for two 3.5-inch drives (or two 2.5-inch) to be slotted into a mini-backplane, also accessible from the top.
As far as I understand, MSI will be offering the system as a barebones for end-users or as an OEM to system integrators who can add in their own components, do custom design choices and then sell on as a unique part in their lineup. Personally I told MSI that the aim here should be for a $600 total build, perhaps with an i3 and a GTX 960/R9 285, because ultimately this price range and market segment attracts the under-25s more than anything else. Under-25s typically play eSports based titles, which do not require super machines to play, but also their budgets are smaller by virtue of schooling or entry level jobs, meaning that $600 for a system build is not unreasonable, but they certainly are not paying $1500+ (except for the odd one or two). MSI is going to be launching the Mi with a focus on Skylake, so we’ll wait and see how it permeates through the distribution channels then.
MSI Cubi
At the top of the page we mentioned the Intel NUC and the counterparts that play in the mini-PC space, such as the GIGABYTE BRIX, ECS LIVA and the Zotac array of mini-PCs. Cubi is MSI’s attempt to enter this space, using a custom 4-inch x 4-inch design.
MSI told me that their focus with these devices, based on Atom initially, is to enter the PC-on-monitor implementations similar to the NUC. When entering this market, the application in marketing to the verticals is important, such as education, government, health and others such as business, and with each segment comes a list of requirements. Most prominent on that list is typically vPro, allowing remote admin access to system configurations and site-wide deployment of updates. This is the market MSI is aiming for.
The configuration of the Cubi models on show focus on HDMI, Ethernet, DisplayPort and USB 3.0 with integrated wireless and support for two SO-DIMMs and a 2.5-inch drive. MSI was asking about whether 4 inches by 4 inches was optimal, or if a 5x5 arrangement also fit into this space. Note that VESA mounting is 75x75mm or 100x100mm, so having a 5-inch by 5-inch design wouldn’t hurt the segments that MSI is aiming for unless the monitors used placed the stand in the VESA mount, and the larger size would interfere with the stand.
Initial Cubi designs should be based around Atom, though I suspect we will see Core based versions, either at this thickness or slightly more, in the future. Whether that’s Core M or Pentium/Celeron has not been specified.
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Ian Cutress - Tuesday, June 30, 2015 - link
I should point out that if you go beyond page 1 (yes shock, there's more than one page) there's a selection of AIOs, laptops and others.just4U - Wednesday, July 1, 2015 - link
"The site died when Anand left.."------
I've been coming to Anandtech since day one.. and it certainly hasn't died. No where close. Nor has it gone down hill. It's always retained that certain something that keeps many of us coming back.
barleyguy - Wednesday, July 1, 2015 - link
I've also been here since day one. I still think the site is top notch, but the advertising has been getting way more intrusive lately. The fake menu ad in the upper right and the popup on entry are examples.I really hate intrusive advertising, to the point where I use ComSkip to watch TV, and pay Pandora to have ad-free radio. I don't run adblock in my browser though, because I want sites to survive. But if the ads get so intrusive that I don't enjoy coming here, my visiting habits will change.
</rant off>
chizow - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
Oh geez it looks like MSI gave their interns free reign on the 3D printers and Papier-mâché kits this summer.Some of that stuff is really tacky though, "Godlike" and I guess we also see why dated SLI bridges are never going to go away. They've just become a new accessory for Nvidia and AIBs to cash in on.
junky77 - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
GT72 with GSync is already here.. GT72 2QD with GSync is already sellingMeaker10 - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
The original GS30 dock with a bios update in the notebook supports optimus through the internal display so without any wonky cables you get the full gaming experience, it works flawlessly with the Titan-xKateH - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
So, I'm a pretty big fan of this AiO with dGPU slot. I'll wait until there's a 24" 2160P panel option available before I seriously consider a purchase, but with the right panel and a mid-tier FirePro / Quadra GPU, this could be a seriously potent compact workstation for a lot less $$$ than the 5K iMac. With all my primary Adobe tools (Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator and Première) now GPU-accelerated I don't think the mobile i7 would be a big bottleneck and the whole thing would sure put out a lot less heat than my current workstation (OC'd FX8350 & 290X)TheJian - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
5 days and still no Fury X review? How hard is it for an AMD portal site to get a card? Still no 300 series reviews at all and those are two weeks old. The benchmarks are already everywhere else so what gives? I guess I get it, since it seems pretty tough to get some benchmarks they win in. 5 days later only 4 reviews on amazon (on hates it, none of them VERIFIED purchases) and a single review at newegg (a 2nd admits he doesn't have it...ROFL) and not VERIFIED either. Maximum PC could only get one card for a very short time for 4 sister sites, tomshardware getting their own card since they didn't even have a whole day with it, among others saying very short time with one. But if you read enough sites you get enough games and points of view to see it wasn't worth the wait and HBM (as I suspected) had no bearing on things even at 4K. I mean at 8.9B transistors (a billion more than 980ti) and a LOT more bandwidth I expect a 4K sweep especially using more watts too. Heck with AMD's slide showing a dozen games with fury x beating 980ti I expected a sweep at all resolutions. Advertising a 500w water cooler when everyone has trouble hitting 10% (and techpowerup among others show you only get 5% for that 10% and most couldn't hit the 10% anyway, IE extremetech failed to hit 4.7% OC) is another problem. Using 66w playing a bluray at techpower vs. 14w for 980ti sounds like Nvidia shield tv vs. xbox1/ps4 for this task.Hexus, techreport, hardocp, legitreviews (check here for OC FuryX vs. OC 980ti -WOW that's ugly), pcper, hardwarecanucks, hothardware, maximumpc, hardwareheaven, techpowerup etc, shows it's pretty tough to write a pro AMD article without looking kind of silly on this part. Good luck Ryan ;) People are claiming they have whining cards in the wild too (amazon), so is it really fixed for retail? Note no review yet is VERIFIED so not even sure they've shipped at amazon or newegg though the amazon xfx card is showing 1-3 months before shipping (and it's the only reviewed card, with 4, one hating it), so maybe they shipped a few in that brand. Sapphire the only maker having a $650 price and not in stock anywhere. AMD supposedly claimed to some sites it would sell for $509 in europe but I can't see how. Are they not aware at AMD that euro to dollar is far closer today? Is that british pound and not euro? That's about $800 usd. In euro it's $571 (Either way kind of weird but I think brits pay more for NV too so maybe not so strange). It looks like they can barely get enough out the door for a few hours of reviewing and many stores seem to be waiting for their first shipments for multiple brands. No DVI or HDMI 2.0. Multiple sites reporting pump whine and coil noise from the cooling system. I could go on but you can all read the benchmarks yourselves (and I advise you do before buying!). This card is not what was hyped IMHO.
http://wccftech.com/amd-20nm-gpus-horizon-tsmc-ram...
Heck I 1/2 thought this chip was 20nm with all the bragging they did.
“20nm is an important node for us. We will be shipping products in 20nm next year and as we move forward […],” said Lisa Su"
She goes on to say 20nm plays a part in all of their businesses (pro graphics too). Well when? 390 turned into a rebadge and fiji turned into not enough and 28nm.
http://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-fury-x-reportedly-s...
Is the whine gone or not? Will the nano come with a 2.0 HDMI port for living room TV's?
There is only a few more sites I read (for major parts anyway that I am actually pondering purchasing) so you guys are almost last. Ouch. Not impressed with anandtech here, OR FuryX.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2015/06/...
One more review. Yet another review showing 10% of less (8%) and netting far less than the OC in actual results. Most seem to get half of the OC, while NV will give you 20% basically straight up for 20% (see legitreviews for example or any 980ti card with Ocing included). From Bit-tech:
"The overclocking results are rather disappointing; we only managed to squeeze between 2 and 5 percent more from the card. This is in comparison to our GTX 980 Ti, where we saw gains of around 20 percent"
Wccftech says AMD has admitted it shipped production units with the whine and it should be fixed on future units (ok, so some unlucky users WILL hear this? Surely they RMA so how long before you play with your card?). Just noticed they updated the article saying early production units HAVE it. Normally wouldn't quote those guys but it explains the amazon guy I guess and AMD's own words from Su and the other AMD guy so not exactly rumors here. Again, good luck to Ryan explaining all of this stuff. I have ultimate faith he's whipping up his best spin ;) It's not a bad card, but the problem for AMD is the competition is NOT radeon 290x as most seem to end up comparing it to end the end after seeing their benchmarks (well, it's a massive leap over 290x...Whatever). You need to beat the OTHER guys stuff, not just your own.
Gigaplex - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
Ryan has explained it multiple times already. They've run the benchmarks, you can see the numbers now in Bench. The article is missing because Ryan is ill.yefi - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
In the original UT, Godlike is the highest accolade, there is no "wicked sick". This also seems to assume the being wicked is more impressive than being a God, hmm...