While some micro-ATX boards are clearly for what Arnie would call 'Economic Girly Men' this is clearly a board for the l33t among us. It follows the styling and design of the P55-GD65 which was a capable overclocker and MSI has decked the H57M-ED65 out with the same kind of overclocker-specific hardware.
There's the OCGenie, which we found could overclock a Core i5-750 to 3.6GHz without the need for any user input, to name one. There's also the usual DrMOS power delivery technology for the CPU and Superpipe heatpipes which are 8mm thick rather than the usual 6mm.
The power phases are coverd by a pair of chunky heatsinks, which should make big overvolts nice and stable. We've seen some massive overclocks from our six-core LGA1366 Gulftown processor, so we're eager to get our hands on a Westmere CPU.
The layout of the board looks clean, with the Southbridge-cum-chipset heatsink low enough to not clash with a graphics card in the primary slot. MSI has rotated four SATA ports so that you can connect plenty of storage devices even if you use two large graphics cards. Three other SATA ports sit perpendicular to the PCB - you may still be able to use these in an SLI or CrossFire setup however, as you could be able to route the cables over the back of the secondary graphics card.
The board uses the usual DrMOS power delivery technology; the chunky heatsinks inspire a lot of confidence for the overclocking potential of the board
MSI has captured another OCGenie in this motherboard - we hope it's as good at overclocking as the one that resides in the P55-GD65
Will your hardware fit?
As well as the Clear CMOS button, you should have access to the battery itself as long as you don't use the two PCI-E 1x slots. The power connectors are all where they should be, and generally it looks as if there will be few problems come system-building time. MSI has even managed to squeeze an IDE connection onto the board without compromising the neatness of the layout. With four DIMM sockets and plenty of peripheral connections, we're really looking forward to seeing this board in the flesh.
We don't have an ETA for either this board but in the meantime, let us know your thoughts whether you're excited by this overclocking, micro-ATX Westmere board, whether you're looking forward to 32nm with integrated graphics in the forums.
There's the OCGenie, which we found could overclock a Core i5-750 to 3.6GHz without the need for any user input, to name one. There's also the usual DrMOS power delivery technology for the CPU and Superpipe heatpipes which are 8mm thick rather than the usual 6mm.
The power phases are coverd by a pair of chunky heatsinks, which should make big overvolts nice and stable. We've seen some massive overclocks from our six-core LGA1366 Gulftown processor, so we're eager to get our hands on a Westmere CPU.
The layout of the board looks clean, with the Southbridge-cum-chipset heatsink low enough to not clash with a graphics card in the primary slot. MSI has rotated four SATA ports so that you can connect plenty of storage devices even if you use two large graphics cards. Three other SATA ports sit perpendicular to the PCB - you may still be able to use these in an SLI or CrossFire setup however, as you could be able to route the cables over the back of the secondary graphics card.
The board uses the usual DrMOS power delivery technology; the chunky heatsinks inspire a lot of confidence for the overclocking potential of the board
MSI has captured another OCGenie in this motherboard - we hope it's as good at overclocking as the one that resides in the P55-GD65
Will your hardware fit?
As well as the Clear CMOS button, you should have access to the battery itself as long as you don't use the two PCI-E 1x slots. The power connectors are all where they should be, and generally it looks as if there will be few problems come system-building time. MSI has even managed to squeeze an IDE connection onto the board without compromising the neatness of the layout. With four DIMM sockets and plenty of peripheral connections, we're really looking forward to seeing this board in the flesh.
We don't have an ETA for either this board but in the meantime, let us know your thoughts whether you're excited by this overclocking, micro-ATX Westmere board, whether you're looking forward to 32nm with integrated graphics in the forums.
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