Overview:


This µATX board is similar to any other board on the market. For some reason all the manufactures think it's a good idea to put two PCIe x16 slots on such boards. Due to the limitations of the chipset you just can forget about Crossfire or SLI. But you can use this slot with any other PCIe x1 card.



The backpanel contains most common connectors, with the absence of USB3.0. An office machine can live without it, at least you can connect external harddrives via the eSATA connector.

 

The only speciality this board offers is it's integrated MOSfet VRM design which offers lower power consumption. It's just a 4+2 phase design but has still enough headroom for seriously overclocking.

 

A Realtek ALC889 chip provides 7.1 HD onboard sound, while the RTL8111DL offers a Gbit LAN connection. The lonely JMB363 offers the eSATA connector and the H55 provides six SATAII ports without any RAID capability. MSI has not put an port80 diagnostic led on the board, but some LEDs show you if the board has power and of course how many phases for the CPU are in use.

The memory slots are very close to the primary PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, you upgrading your memory with an installed graphics card could be difficult. Also oversized coolers such a Scythe Grand Kama Cross won't fit, so make sure your third party CPU cooler will fit when you decide to install a graphics card.