MSI has officially announced its newest member of the P55-GD family, the P55-GD85. Although its quite similar to the rest of the GD lineup, the new P55-GD85 brings two important features that previous one missed, support for USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0Gbps. It supports Intel's LGA 1156 processors and features all the goodies like DrMOS and OCGenie that can be found on recently announced MSI motherboards.

Apart from two PCI-Express x16 slots, seven SATA 3.0Gbps ports, four DDR3-2133 memory slots specifications and APS (Active Phase Switching), OC Genie, 10 Phase DrMOS (8+2 design) and Super-Pipe heatpipe cooling features, MSI has included the Marvell and NEC chips in order to give this motherboard support for SATA 6.0Gbps and USB 3.0 support.

In order to fully use the new SATA 6.0Gbps and USB 3.0, and avoid problems with quite famous bottlenecks, MSI's P55-GD85 also has a built-in PLX bridge chip as well. The rest of the specifications include dual Gigabit LAN, Firewire, eSATA, integrated 7.1-channel audio, and on-board OC, reset and power buttons.

The P55-GD85 motherboard is already listed in Europe and according to some retailers/e-tailers it should be available as of this week. The price goes from €185 to around €220 depending on the country and the actual e-tailer/retailer.

You can find it here.


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