MSI X79A-GD65 (8D) – The First Of Many

Physique and Features

The Goods Have Arrived

Since June of this year at Computex Taipei in Taiwan, news and images of X79-based motherboards have been leaking in various channels on the Internet. At the onset of Q4, the campaign for the Intel X79 chipset as well as Sandy Bridge-E processors further intensified and manufacturers like ASUS staged tech seminars for a formal preview of their X79 offerings. However, it is still a different experience when you get your hands on the actual product to scrutinize it. For the record, the MSI X79A-GD65 (8D) is the first ever X79-based board that landed in our testing grounds.

The most noteworthy attribute of the X79A-GD65 (8D) is its integration of the new LGA 2011 standard. This socket is designed to accommodate Intel’s newest Sandy Bridge-E processor. Here, the CPU socket is flanked by two sets of four DIMM slots that operate in quad channel configuration. The X79A-GD65 (8D) flaunts the blue-black/brownish PCB color scheme which has been conspicuous on MSI’s X58 boards, such as the Eclipse.

One of the top-end models in MSI’s elite X79 hierarchy, the X79A-GD65 (8D) boasts of its Military Class III ranking. With this, the X79A-GD65 (8D) integrates all the positive features found on preceding Military Class and Military Class II motherboards, such as the use of solid capacitors, SFC/ICY chokes, Hi-C CAP, MIL-STD-810G certification, and, most importantly, DrMOS II. An enhancement of the original DrMOS feature, MSI’s new DrMOS II now incorporates double thermal protection control. In this mechanism, the board will shut down once it reaches 130 degrees Celsius to avoid heat damage.

Another new technology onboard is PCI-Express 3.0, which virtually doubles the performance of the previous standard. Three PCI-E 3.0 slots are present on the board and these are all-set to host either an SLI or a CrossFireX setup in a 3-way GPU configuration. We cannot further remark on PCI-E 3.0’s actual performance, not until compliant graphics cards arrive sometime next year.

MSI has adequately blessed the X79A-GD65 (8D) with some tangible enthusiast-class features. There is the GUI-based Click BIOS II. Similar to Gigabyte’s Dual BIOS feature, the X79A-GD65 (8D) also incorporates two independent BIOS ROMs that are controllable by means of an onboard lever. The last but not the least, the X79A-GD65 (8D) has onboard buttons that facilitate convenient troubleshooting and, more importantly, overclocking.