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Even with Core i7's little brothers Core i5 and i3 on the horizon, LGA1366 is still is a very viable platform and remains home of the fastest consumer-level microprocessor.
Furthermore, building a Core i7-powered desktop has never been as affordable as it is now. While the higher end 950 and 975's remain out of reach for the vast majority, the entry-level Core i7 920, clocked at 2.66 GHz, is widely available for well under $300. Memory prices have also settled with triple channel 6GB DDR3 kits clocking in at 1600 MHz easily found for slightly under $100. Motherboards have mostly remained above the $200 mark, but now a few are selling for less.
Which brings us to the MSI X58M. The motherboard is now available online for a mere $170, which possibly makes it a killer deal. The board, built around Intel's flagship X58 chipset, carries CrossFire and SLI support, supports serious overclocking and comes with trendy and green power saving features. Pricing and fancy features aside, let's see what MSI brings to the table with this mATX board in way specifications:
| Specifications | |
|---|---|
| Socket | 1366 |
| CPU (Max Support) | i7 |
| AM3 CPU Ready | N/A |
| FSB / Hyper Transport Bus | 6.4GT/s |
| Chipset | Intel® X58+ICH10/ICH10R |
| DDR2 Memory | N/A |
| DDR3 Memory | DDR3 800/1066/1333* (OC) |
| Memory Channel | Triple |
| DIMM Slots | 6 |
| Max Memory (GB) | 24 |
| PCI-Ex16 | 2 |
| PCI-E Gen 2.0 | Gen2 (2x16) |
| PCI-Ex1 | N/A |
| PCI | 1 |
| IDE | 1 |
| SATA | 7 |
| RAID | 0/1/5/10 (Optional) |
| LAN | 10/100/1000*1 |
| TPM | 1 (Optional) |
| USB ports (Rear) | 6 |
| Audio ports (Rear) | 6 |
| Serial ports (Rear) | N/A |
| Parallel ports (Rear) | N/A |
| 1394 ports (Rear) | 1 (Optional) |
| eSATA | 1 |
| VGA | N/A |
| DVI | N/A |
| HDMI | N/A |
| Display Port | N/A |
| DirectX | N/A |
| VGA Share Memory (MB) | N/A |
| Form Factor | M-ATX |
| DrMOS | N/A |
| APS | Y |
| Sideport Memory | N/A |
| SLI | Y |
| 3-way SLI | N/A |
| Hybrid SLI | N/A |
| CrossFire | Y |
| Hybrid CrossFire | N/A |
| D-LED2 | N/A |
| Green Power Genie | N/A |
Just an update for any future readers out there, directly responding to some of the shortcomings outlined in this review.
MOSFET's now have a small heatsink built in and the entire board comes black.