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Reviews Around The Web
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Choose Web Reviews from this Maker:
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Tuesday, August 5, 2008
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At COMPUTEX Taipei 2008, we got flooded with a wide assortment of Eee PC competitors. The two things that most of these units had in common was the fact that they had displays larger than seven-inches and most were powered by the new Intel Atom processor. On paper, one of the most appealing offerings was the MSI Wind. Although it has gone through its fair share of delays, the MSI Wind is now available for mass market consumption and we had the chance to take a review unit out for an extended test drive.
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Tuesday, July 29, 2008
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The last of the big three motherboard vendors, MSI is ready to unleash its DrMOS powered Intel P45 motherboards. We check out the DDR3 compatible P45D3 Platinum and see how it stands against its ASUS and Gigabyte competitors.
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Wednesday, July 23, 2008
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The board was stable throughout testing and performed about on average with other P45 boards we have seen. One cool feature of the board is the GreenPower utility which can save energy when enabled. This is similar in concept to the EPU on ASUS motherboards and the Dynamic Energy Saver on the Gigabyte motherboards. Performance on the board is similar to the ASUS P5Q Deluxe board also on the P45 chipset and that is a good thing. One thing I wish MSI would do was get rid of the OC jumper, but it does give headroom for high overclocking when it works correctly. This board has many features that will appeal to a variety of users and should be satisfactory as the beginning of your Intel P4 system. Not quite an Editor's Choice motherboard, but a Hot Product indeed.
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Monday, July 14, 2008
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Once again AMD is ready with another integrated solution for a chipset and graphicscard. The motherboard on the bench today is from MSI, called MSI K9A2GM-FIH. The motherboard is primarily aimed at the HTPC people and the system integrator. There is a number of HTPC manufactures because there is more money to be made with these machines. A lot of configuration is connected to HTPC's which to some degree justifies the higher price. The motherboard is the first we've seen with AMDs 780G chipset.
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Monday, July 7, 2008
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Just about everyone is looking to stake their claim in the ever-growing subnotebook market, and HEXUS takes a look at MSI's first attempt.
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Friday, July 4, 2008
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MSI's P45 Neo3 is a good value motherboard if you're looking to go green. It's not suited to high-end gamers though, due to its lack of nVidia SLI support, and there's no WLAN or Bluetooth chipsets. Some may also need a Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) controller. There isn't an onboard speaker for diagnostics, either. But MSI put many new technologies into its P45 series to improve the working of GreenPower, which improve temperatures, overclocking and stability. And with features such as active phase switching, enabling phase switching for the memory and chipset, as well as the PWM, the P45 Neo3 should cater for demanding users. Nvidia's uber-high-end nForce 790i Ultra SLI still rules the roost for ultimate performance, but the P45 Neo3 is a reasonable choice if you're building a solid all-rounder on a budget. While the motherboard is catered to the budget user, its two-phase power supply for the chipset gives it better overclockability compared to the P45 Neo and there are still plenty of storage ports to cater to the enthusiast.
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Monday, June 30, 2008
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It seems as of late the nForce 790i is finally making its rounds through our labs, most likely because of the GTX 280 performing as well as it does, especially in SLI and Tri SLI configurations. So far we have had the ZOTAC board cross us; now it's time for MSI, one of the biggest motherboard makers in Taiwan, and one of the biggest presences here in Australia to have its time in the sun. Today we have been given the P7N2 Diamond motherboard. This baby is aimed at being the top gun of all 790i SLI boards out there. While that's a good aim, does it perform? - Let's see.
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Friday, June 20, 2008
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All in all, the MSI P45 Platinum scores many wins with us, but unfortunately it hits almost as many epic fails. Hopefully some of these will change with software updates and BIOS updates, and we greatly look forward to what can be achieved with UEFI when the free update arrives in the next few months. Until then, we can only recommend you look elsewhere because there are currently better boards on the market.
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Once again, AMD is ready with an integrated solution for chipset and graphicscard. The motherboard we're reviewing is from MSI, called K9N2GM-FD/FIH. The chipset also goes by the name of 730a or GeForce 8200 chipset. We are reviewed motherboards from MSI previously, and know them as some of the most popular on the market, which sets our preliminary expectations high.
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After some confusion, AMD has lifted the NDA for their brand-new Radeon HD 4850 Series today. The RV770 on these boards comes with 800 shaders and boasts 956 million transistors. Together with a new AA architecture the card takes the $200 segment in a storm offering leading performance/dollar and performance/watt.
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Wednesday, June 18, 2008
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Today we have an early market sample of MSI's P45 Platinum which is their top of the range board, this designed to compete with both ASUS' and GIGABYTE's ultra high-end P45 offerings. While it doesn't have the full retail packaging included, we've confirmed with MSI that it's the final revision board in our labs. For our comparison today, we are pitting the MSI P45 Platinum against our oldest but most impressive P35 board we have, GIGABYTE's P35 DQ6. Both are based on DDR2 memory which make these systems equally matched apart from the change in chipset.
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Tuesday, June 10, 2008
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Today. we take a look on MSI's upcoming P45 Diamond motherboard that is equipped with Intel latest EagleLake chipset aka P45. The new chipset brings official support for 1333MHz FSB along with the option to use DDR3-1333MHz. We say option as the chipset also supports DDR2-800MHz and the motherboard manufacturer can decide which way to go. In MSI's case, the P45 Diamond is their highest-end P45 board and thus, it's no surprise to see it equipped DDR3 slots.
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With both AMD and Nvidia readying a new arsenal of videocards, the real battle for GPU supremacy won't be fought until later this summer. In the meantime, gamers are enjoying attractive price points nearly across the board, and unlike days of yesteryear, enthusiasts needn't plunk down $600+ for a high end gaming experience. Remarkably, AMD's HD 3870 has nestled into the $150ish tier, unheard of territory for a higher performance part.
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Friday, June 6, 2008
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It's always nice to see companies mix it up with new coolers, and the Hybrid Freezer seems to have some pretty cool technology behind it. It makes sense that they're installing it on the popular 9600GT series of card, and in this case MSI has decided to install it on a card carrying with it 1GB of GDDR3 memory for added appeal. While we've looked at so many 9600GTs, you have to admit that we've seen such a huge variety of different models; some excellent clocks, some excellent connectivity and some pretty funky aftermarket coolers.
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Thursday, May 29, 2008
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Featuring an unique heatsink that tries to blend the best of two diverging approaches to cooling, MSI's new N9600GT Hybrid Freezer factors in both passive and active cooling to showcase this interesting product, but failed to impress in our close scrutiny.
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