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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Missing Ghost - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
wow, all I can say is wow. I am quite impressed with Gigabyte desktop motherboards. From the pictures it looks like a better design than even what DFI would do. Also the ASUS socket F board looks excellent. Quite impressive since I am used to think that ASUS' server boards are inferior to like supermicro/iwill/tyan.krwilsonn - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
Page 18 of the article seems to be mixed up since the Albatron boards are showing up instead of the Asrock.Regs - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
Actually consider what AMD is doing at all. Boy times have changed! ;)I'm a life long AMD fan too. Short life, but life long.
bob661 - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
Where have you been? It's been like that for quite a few years now. Remember when DDR2 was actually on the market? Who wasn't using DDR2 then?bob661 - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
Figures.bob661 - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
Interesting. Looks like Conroe's may come at a premium until Intel can increase production.shabby - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
I dont get it, what is the point of sending audio to the monitor?
Furen - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
It's meant to be sent to an HD TV. Monitors can just use DVI for digital signaling.shabby - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
And whats the point of that too? Its supposed to go to the reciever not the tv.OrSin - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Do you even know why hdmi exist. Most HDTV that have HDMI connects also has audio out.YOu connect everything to your tv and send out only singles you need. My guess is you don't have a HDTV.