t-break: Tech @ Its Fastest » MSI

MSI Big Bang XPower II Review

Taimoor Hafeez — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:29:16 +0000

The original MSI Big Bang Marshal made quite a stir at the Tbreak office last year, and now with the new XPower II version, history is set to repeat itself.

Carrying the Big Bang moniker, the new XPower II motherboard is quite obviously an ATX sized monstrosity, but the packaging seems deceptively mid-sized. The glossy gold and black color scheme looks really nice, without looking overly flashy. It somehow reminds me of the design aesthetics of Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Given that a lot of attention has been paid to the design of the XPower II, the case has a flap which allows you to get a glimpse of the motherboard itself. All around it are lists of features that make the XPower II such a special board.

Opening up, you’ll notice a ton of manuals, cables and accessories. First off there are two quick start and installation guides. Then there’s an overclocking guide along with a ‘Certificate of Quality and Stability’. There is another overclocking record sheet, perhaps on this motherboard itself, which shows the highest overclocking results achieved by MSI’s own engineers. I believe this sheet was just given along with the review samples.

Moving along, we have a front bracket which has two USB 3.0 ports and a back panel eSATA bracket. Then there are eight SATA cables, three SLI cables for a 4-way SLI setup and a CrossFireX cable. Finally, there are the V-Check point connectors for reading voltage of various components.

Gigabyte GA-X79-UD7 Review

Taimoor Hafeez — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:32:50 +0000

When last I looked at one of Gigabyte’s high-end motherboards, it was found wanting. It was good, but for the price it wasn’t as great as some of its closest competitors. Today I’ll be looking at the G1.Assassin 2’s distant cousin, the GA-X79-UD7. This is Gigabyte’s mainstream entry on the higher-end scale for the latest Sandy Bridge-E platform.

Looking at the packaging, it seems that Gigabyte decided to go with some very subtle. The whole package is just white, with shades of grey. On the back are the features and a picture of the motherboard itself, wherein you’ll see the black and orange color scheme.

Opening it up we notice a host of accessories. First of there are 4X SATA cables, a 4-way, 3-way and 2-way SLI bridges along with a CrossFireX bridge. There’s a USB 3.0 3.5”bracket with 2 ports to be hooked up upfront or at the back.

Apart from the I/O panel, there’s a Bluetooth + WiFi adapter with two antennae. Closing off we have the eSATA bracket. All of these combined with a 3 or 4-way SLI could result in a completely jam packed rear panel of your desktop casing.

Intel DX79SI Motherboard Review

Taimoor Hafeez — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 09:23:00 +0000

You’d be surprised to know that not a whole lot of people know Intel makes motherboards. The brand name is synonymous for processors of all kinds, and in recent years, some very high quality SSDs. But ask someone about an Intel motherboard and they’ll look at you confused.

Well, they do, and today I’ll be looking at their latest high-end DX79SI motherboard designed for the enthusiast community. Price at around $280, the DX79SI is not out to compete with the likes of ASUS RoG series or Gigabyte’s G1 series of motherboards. Instead, it’s content with providing you with a strong platform on which to work, but probably not exceed expectations.

The packaging itself is appropriate, with the Extreme Series skull on the top, underneath which is a see-through packaging to admire the motherboard itself. Inside you’ll find the usual manuals and CD, along with 4x SATA cables, one 2-way and one 3-way SLI bridge and a Bluetooth/WiFi module (not included in our test board). Oh, and a slim Extreme Series mouse pad.

Gigabyte G1.Assassin 2 Motherboard Review

Taimoor Hafeez — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:53:15 +0000

Two weeks back I included the Gigabyte G1.Assassin 2 as part of the Intel X79 motherboards roundup, wherein the performance of this beastly motherboard left much to be desired; especially where overclocking was concerned. However, with the newly revised BIOS (ver. F5) I thought I’ll give this high-end board another. Not to mention the price alone, which merits an in-depth analysis of the features.

The G1.Assassin 2 comes in a huge box with most of the features of the motherboard presented on the back. There’s no see-through panel, so you’ll to make do with the picture on the back. Inside the motherboard comes in a separate box, with the rest of the cables, accessories and booklets in another box.

Packed inside are some G1.Assassin 2 stickers, 4 SATA cables, an SLI and a CrossFireX bridge, a 3-way SLI bridge, a USB 3.0 panel, and the Bluetooth 4.0 plus WiFi PCI adapter with two antennae. It’s pretty much standard stuff, but I was expecting maybe a bit more for the price. Then again, everything that makes the G1.Assassin 2 such a high-end motherboard is already tacked on the board itself.

MSI CX640 Laptop Review

Taimoor Hafeez — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:08:44 +0000

The MSI Classic series of laptop is their most basic laptop chassis, designed for general usage, but taking in the design aesthetics from some of their specialty series laptops. With that in mind, I’ll be reviewing the MSI CX640 can be considered to be their entry level entertainment laptop.

Looking at the specs, the CX 640 comes with the second generation Intel Core i5-2410M CPU @ 2.3GHz (turboing up to 2.9GHz). 4GB of ram coupled with 500GB Hitachi 5400rpm HDD. The final spec comes in the form of an Nvidia GT 520M graphics card with 1GB of dedicated RAM. The 15.6”display with 1366×768 resolution is enough to be supported by the rather weak GPU.

On the outside the CX640 looks like a sleek machine, with a smooth glossy silver finish, inside the same finish carries over in the palm rest area. The mouse pad has a metallic spun finish and chrome buttons underneath. The chicklet sized keyboard has nice spaces, bright white prints for the letters and numbers and cool green prints for the function keys. Above that the recessed speakers look sublime, finishing off the elegant looks inside.

On the right we have the big Power button, the multi-DVD drive, two USB 2.0 ports and the audio jacks. On the left is the power connector, LAN, VGA and HDMI ports, ending with two USB 3.0 ports. The front just has the memory card reader on the right side; the indicator lights are actually inside, on the bottom left of the palm rest area.

GITEX ’11: MSI showcases GT780 gaming laptop and AE2211 PC

Mufaddal Fakhruddin — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 13:45:02 +0000

Press release:
MSI (Micro-Star International), the world’s leading manufacturer of laptops, All-in-one PCs, tablets, graphics cards, and motherboards, is exhibiting at GITEX Technology Week October 9th to 13th in Dubai to highlight the latest products available in the Middle East market. MSI continues to expand in the region and comes to GITEX with a new line of gaming laptops, All-in-One PCs, and Cloud Computing software. The GT780 gaming laptop and Wind Top AE2211 will be on display in Hall 4 at stand D4-12 in the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Center.

Regionally online gaming is on the rise, with estimates as high as 40% growth in the market over the next few years. MSI’s latest GT780 gaming laptop aims to take full advantage of the gaming trend. The laptop was designed by gamers, featuring a keyboard by Steelseries with multi-color backlight technology. The keys have been repositioned for quicker clicking in time-sensitive games, and customizable lighting gives gamers more options than other models. The GT780 has the latest 2nd generation Intel Core i7 Processor and a high-end NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M discrete graphics card with GDDR5 1.5GB VRAM to offer life-like visual effects.

MSI also brings the latest All-in-One PC, the Wind Top AE2211, to GITEX this year. The AE2211 features an energy-efficient backlit widescreen LED panel, the first of its kind in the Middle East. The LED lighting yields 20-30% power savings over traditional lighting and offers superior graphics. In line with the Cloud Computing theme at the GITEX event this year, the multi-touch screen on the latest Wind Top allows the user access to Smart Media Link and Smart Sync software to share videos and files in the cloud.

Green Lin, NB Channel Marketing Manager, MEA, MSI stated, “GITEX is the largest technology event in the region, enabling MSI to showcase the latest gaming and All-in-One PCs in the Middle East. We have seen double-digit growth in the region in the last few years and expect the trend to continue. GITEX allows us to showcase new products and reach out to new and existing customers and partners.”

Sales in the Middle East for MSI have increased 180% from 2010 to 2011. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are particularly strong markets for PCs in 2011. MSI plans to use the GT780 and Wind Top AE2211, showcased at GITEX, to continue the upward trend for the rest of the year.

GITEX ’11: Hands-On MSI GT 780 Laptop

Taimoor Hafeez — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:56:24 +0000

MSI’s booth this year was full of different laptops and all-in-one desktops and motherboards and graphics cards. Now we’ve covered and reviewed a lot of their products in the past, including various motherboards and graphics cards, but what really struck our fancy was their flagship gaming laptop.

MSI motherboards on display at GITEX '11

The GT 780 is a huge, but equally powerful laptop, and quite intimidating in person. The SteelSeries keyboard complimented with a full color palette, plus the GTX 560M GPU with 1.5GB ram and the 120GB SSD & 720GB HDD combo had us salivating.

ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z Motherboard Review

Taimoor Hafeez — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:51:49 +0000

The Micro ATX motherboard market is squarely targeted towards HTPC users, and as such doesn’t always seem to carry the high-end specs reserved for regular ATX sized boards. What I’ll be looking at today is the ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z mATX motherboard, from the Republic of Gamers pedigree.

As with all ROG motherboards, the Gene-Z is dressed in all black and red, with onboard buttons and debug LED, 2x PCIe x16 slots for SLI or CrossFire and all kinds of functionality for easy overclocking. Of course, no ROG board would be complete without the big heatsinks covering the 8+4 VRM circuits.

To start off, the Gene-Z features a Z68 chipset, so Intel’s SSD caching comes standard. You’ll also be getting the LucidLogix Virtu chipset which allows you to use the integrated GPU on your Intel Sandy Bridge CPU for better transcoding (using Intel’s Quick Sync) or playing games and running HD video content.

There are a total of 10 USB ports on the back (8x USB2.0 and 2x USB 3.0) with a further two USB 3.0 headers on the motherboard itself. Another two eSATA ports and a Clear CMOS button complete the rear I/O panel. My only complaint here would be that there’s no DVI connection in the back, only one HDMI port. That and there are only two SATA III (6gbps) ports, the other four ports are SATA II.

As far as overclocking is concerned, this who affair is made extremely easy with the UEFI BIOS on the Gene-Z, with default overclocking values for out test Core i7-2600K being 4.2GHz and 4.6GHz from the stock speed of 3.4GHz. Obviously all the voltage and memory settings are taken off automatically; however for our review I still overclocked the system manually to 4.7GHz.

MSI N580GTX Lightning Xtreme Edition Review

Taimoor Hafeez — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 13:24:33 +0000

MSI is no stranger to custom cooling solutions on graphics card; their Twin Frozr and Cyclone heatsinks are renowned in the hardware community. So when I heard that they have built and “Xtreme” version of the already incredible N580GTX Lightning Edition card, I really wanted to find out what more could MSI bring to the table.

Well, first thing’s first, the N580GTX LXE is based on the original Lightning Edition I reviewed earlier this year, with the same core clock and memory speeds and architectural improvements such as 16 phase PWN, Copper MOS and various other Military Class II components to build this beast. What changes with the Xtreme Edition are some improvements to the cooling system.

We still have the same Twin Frozr III heatsink atop the Xtreme Edition as we did in the original Lightning Edition, but this time around the heatsink top is black instead of silver, probably to give more contrast to the purple fans. These new purple fans are what makes the new heatsink so interesting.

MSI unveils new GE620DX Core i7 gaming laptop

karar — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 06:00:19 +0000

Micro-Star International (MSI) introduced a new gaming laptop this morning, adding to its ever expanding notebook line up. This time, MSI is going after the high-end gaming market with its GE620DX. The notebook packs Intel’s Core i7-2630QM quad-core processor clocked at 2 GHz and Nvidia’s top-end GeForce GT 555M discrete graphics cards which includes Nvidia PhysX and DirectX 11 support.

Just like a MacBook Pro, the MSI GE620DX automatically switches between its discrete graphics and integrated graphics chip — the only difference is MSI calls the technology “GPU Boost”. MSI’s Premium Sound technology is complimented by THX TruStudio Pro to deliver “cinema-quality” surround sound through its internal speakers. MSI says, “they help to reproduce music faithfully.”

Other highlights for this laptop include DDR3 memory (up to 8GB), a 15.6 HD LED backlit display, a Blu-ray/DVD super multi drive, USB 3.0 support, a HD webcam (720p), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR. From outside the laptop may look like simple with its brushed metal texture but it packs a punch inside. There’s been no word on a release date or price for the MSI GE620DX.