HEXUS.talkingtech :: The new MSI P55 based mainboards

[HEXUS]

MSI's Richard Stewart drops into the studios to talk to Tarinder about their new MSI P55 based mainboards

Watch the show.

[DR]

Snazzy intro

[Tweaker]

Are there any graphics cards that can run in Tri SLI that use less than 8x PCIE. Also, seems like a huge amount of money for what you actually get, i know these are launch boards but compare them to the likes of P45 and they seem very expencive.

Also, recent reports indicated that the GD80 had a NF200 chip which allowed for Tri SLI, either that feature isnt on the board anymore or the design isnt finalised, though from the looks of it the board is complete.

Im curious as to how these boards fit in, with the core i7 850 costing around the same as the i7 920 at launch, early reports of a cheap board, proc and RAM solution around £200, it looks like core2 is still the way to go. If anything it seems MSI are pushing away from the X58 which series and trying to fill the £100-£180 market with P55 which is just confusing. The new high end core i7 chip, 870, on P55 perform around the same as the i7 920 at stock. But the 870 costs $500+, so assuming the dollar coversion works about the same for the core i7 850, CPU will about £200, motherboards from MSI about £140 and RAM will be around £50-£70. Infact for MSI X58 Pro board which can be had off Scan for £132, and some Corsair 1600mhz 6GB kit for £80, which is the benfit of getting P55 high end boards. Seems to me that the saving is at the low end, but MSI starts off the supposedly cheaper platform with 2 board well over £100 and only 1 full ATX board under.

I realise that these boards support a lot of different CPUs, but to me it sounds as though they are simply relplacing some of the X58 market with boards that cant run multiple graphics setups as well as X58, have a lot of the same feautres with not much added value, both most annoyingly cost the same as some X58 boards.

[Pob255]

Remember these are the top end of the x55 range, top end x58 boards cost £200+
In fact the top end MSI x58 motherboard, the Eclipse Plus, costs just shy of £300

So I can see the lower end entry motherboards coming in at closer to £100 or just below.

Still a bit pricey compaired to socket775 boards though or AM3 motherboards.

[DavieJG]

Launch prices are always silly. in about 6 months the 920 dropped from 250 to 200 and the cheapest X58 is around £120.

If a similar trend follows, this will be the mainstream setup of choice by Christmas but early adopters always pay a premium!

[mike_dangerous]

Launch prices are always silly. in about 6 months the 920 dropped from 250 to 200 and the cheapest X58 is around £120.

If a similar trend follows, this will be the mainstream setup of choice by Christmas but early adopters always pay a premium!

P55 motherboards do seem to be a bit expensive at the moment, but you could say the i5 750 is at a fairly reasonable price point already being only a few £s more expensive than the AMD Phenon II X4 955BE and out performing it by some margin.