The MSI Gaming Booth Tour with dGPUs in AIOs and Notebooks plus Motherboards
by Ian Cutress on June 29, 2015 3:00 PM ESTSLI Bridges
Aesthetics are becoming in important part of the PC Gaming space, and regardless of the revenues it seems that PC component manufacturers have to make an effort on styling especially when it comes to presentation. This includes tiny details such as cabling, temperature responsive LEDs, and effects that when combined actually have a positive impact on looks. With the case of SLI bridges, we’ve seen other companies such as EVGA implement their own design to counter against the generic brown/green/black PCB types we typically get inside a motherboard box. MSI is now entering this market with their own brand:
To go with the rest of the product line, these bridges will be outfitted with LEDs that are controlled through the software. MSI has been able to add this control element without needing a separate cable into a special header on the motherboard, and control will be through their gaming app. Pricing is unknown at this point (we might see one bundled with a high-end motherboard through) and release date was said to be ‘later this year’.
Transparent GT730 with White PCB
As an aside to the general coverage, I did see one GPU that caught my eye in a model that I least suspected. This is a GT730:
It’s a fairly innocuous card with standard specifications, but the PCB is white (like Galax cards) and the shroud design is semi-transparent, showing the cooler underneath. Part of me would love to see this design on the higher end models, perhaps with LEDs similar to that of the Fury X that light up as more power is applied to the card.
Case Mods
To finish up our look at MSI’s booth, I want to outlay some of the case mods that were there. Producing custom designs for cases is a niche market for sure, but other companies such as Cooler Master are designing some of their product lines around the concept of allowing users and makers to implement their own look to a chassis. As a result, many of the PC hardware manufacturers each year are now inviting professional modders (as in people who make designs as a full-time job) and commissioning designs to fit with the company ethos. That means with MSI, we get a dragon with a chassis strapped to the back:
There’s no point talking about specifications of the builds here because they can change, and perhaps I should be wondering where these designs end up after the event in question (used for future events, giveaways or back of a storeroom?).
MSI did not have much to show from their XPower overclocking line this year, either for motherboards or graphics cards under the Lightning moniker, but here’s a suitable yellow and black construction suit modification.
With the ECO line of motherboards, the low power market is one of the targets in the motherboard space. Last year we reported on the white and green motherboards MSI were showing, and then we reviewed the B85M ECO which eschewed the white colored PCB for a more conventional color. The white board used in last year’s display found its way into this Ecosphere case which has a map of the northern hemisphere on the transparent dome.
The most recent line from MSI is the black and white Krait variant of the mid-range motherboards, focusing on SLI and implementing a snake logo. Naturally the modification had to be a snake here.
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Ian Cutress - Tuesday, June 30, 2015 - link
I should point out that if you go beyond page 1 (yes shock, there's more than one page) there's a selection of AIOs, laptops and others.just4U - Wednesday, July 1, 2015 - link
"The site died when Anand left.."------
I've been coming to Anandtech since day one.. and it certainly hasn't died. No where close. Nor has it gone down hill. It's always retained that certain something that keeps many of us coming back.
barleyguy - Wednesday, July 1, 2015 - link
I've also been here since day one. I still think the site is top notch, but the advertising has been getting way more intrusive lately. The fake menu ad in the upper right and the popup on entry are examples.I really hate intrusive advertising, to the point where I use ComSkip to watch TV, and pay Pandora to have ad-free radio. I don't run adblock in my browser though, because I want sites to survive. But if the ads get so intrusive that I don't enjoy coming here, my visiting habits will change.
</rant off>
chizow - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
Oh geez it looks like MSI gave their interns free reign on the 3D printers and Papier-mâché kits this summer.Some of that stuff is really tacky though, "Godlike" and I guess we also see why dated SLI bridges are never going to go away. They've just become a new accessory for Nvidia and AIBs to cash in on.
junky77 - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
GT72 with GSync is already here.. GT72 2QD with GSync is already sellingMeaker10 - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
The original GS30 dock with a bios update in the notebook supports optimus through the internal display so without any wonky cables you get the full gaming experience, it works flawlessly with the Titan-xKateH - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
So, I'm a pretty big fan of this AiO with dGPU slot. I'll wait until there's a 24" 2160P panel option available before I seriously consider a purchase, but with the right panel and a mid-tier FirePro / Quadra GPU, this could be a seriously potent compact workstation for a lot less $$$ than the 5K iMac. With all my primary Adobe tools (Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator and Première) now GPU-accelerated I don't think the mobile i7 would be a big bottleneck and the whole thing would sure put out a lot less heat than my current workstation (OC'd FX8350 & 290X)TheJian - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
5 days and still no Fury X review? How hard is it for an AMD portal site to get a card? Still no 300 series reviews at all and those are two weeks old. The benchmarks are already everywhere else so what gives? I guess I get it, since it seems pretty tough to get some benchmarks they win in. 5 days later only 4 reviews on amazon (on hates it, none of them VERIFIED purchases) and a single review at newegg (a 2nd admits he doesn't have it...ROFL) and not VERIFIED either. Maximum PC could only get one card for a very short time for 4 sister sites, tomshardware getting their own card since they didn't even have a whole day with it, among others saying very short time with one. But if you read enough sites you get enough games and points of view to see it wasn't worth the wait and HBM (as I suspected) had no bearing on things even at 4K. I mean at 8.9B transistors (a billion more than 980ti) and a LOT more bandwidth I expect a 4K sweep especially using more watts too. Heck with AMD's slide showing a dozen games with fury x beating 980ti I expected a sweep at all resolutions. Advertising a 500w water cooler when everyone has trouble hitting 10% (and techpowerup among others show you only get 5% for that 10% and most couldn't hit the 10% anyway, IE extremetech failed to hit 4.7% OC) is another problem. Using 66w playing a bluray at techpower vs. 14w for 980ti sounds like Nvidia shield tv vs. xbox1/ps4 for this task.Hexus, techreport, hardocp, legitreviews (check here for OC FuryX vs. OC 980ti -WOW that's ugly), pcper, hardwarecanucks, hothardware, maximumpc, hardwareheaven, techpowerup etc, shows it's pretty tough to write a pro AMD article without looking kind of silly on this part. Good luck Ryan ;) People are claiming they have whining cards in the wild too (amazon), so is it really fixed for retail? Note no review yet is VERIFIED so not even sure they've shipped at amazon or newegg though the amazon xfx card is showing 1-3 months before shipping (and it's the only reviewed card, with 4, one hating it), so maybe they shipped a few in that brand. Sapphire the only maker having a $650 price and not in stock anywhere. AMD supposedly claimed to some sites it would sell for $509 in europe but I can't see how. Are they not aware at AMD that euro to dollar is far closer today? Is that british pound and not euro? That's about $800 usd. In euro it's $571 (Either way kind of weird but I think brits pay more for NV too so maybe not so strange). It looks like they can barely get enough out the door for a few hours of reviewing and many stores seem to be waiting for their first shipments for multiple brands. No DVI or HDMI 2.0. Multiple sites reporting pump whine and coil noise from the cooling system. I could go on but you can all read the benchmarks yourselves (and I advise you do before buying!). This card is not what was hyped IMHO.
http://wccftech.com/amd-20nm-gpus-horizon-tsmc-ram...
Heck I 1/2 thought this chip was 20nm with all the bragging they did.
“20nm is an important node for us. We will be shipping products in 20nm next year and as we move forward […],” said Lisa Su"
She goes on to say 20nm plays a part in all of their businesses (pro graphics too). Well when? 390 turned into a rebadge and fiji turned into not enough and 28nm.
http://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-fury-x-reportedly-s...
Is the whine gone or not? Will the nano come with a 2.0 HDMI port for living room TV's?
There is only a few more sites I read (for major parts anyway that I am actually pondering purchasing) so you guys are almost last. Ouch. Not impressed with anandtech here, OR FuryX.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2015/06/...
One more review. Yet another review showing 10% of less (8%) and netting far less than the OC in actual results. Most seem to get half of the OC, while NV will give you 20% basically straight up for 20% (see legitreviews for example or any 980ti card with Ocing included). From Bit-tech:
"The overclocking results are rather disappointing; we only managed to squeeze between 2 and 5 percent more from the card. This is in comparison to our GTX 980 Ti, where we saw gains of around 20 percent"
Wccftech says AMD has admitted it shipped production units with the whine and it should be fixed on future units (ok, so some unlucky users WILL hear this? Surely they RMA so how long before you play with your card?). Just noticed they updated the article saying early production units HAVE it. Normally wouldn't quote those guys but it explains the amazon guy I guess and AMD's own words from Su and the other AMD guy so not exactly rumors here. Again, good luck to Ryan explaining all of this stuff. I have ultimate faith he's whipping up his best spin ;) It's not a bad card, but the problem for AMD is the competition is NOT radeon 290x as most seem to end up comparing it to end the end after seeing their benchmarks (well, it's a massive leap over 290x...Whatever). You need to beat the OTHER guys stuff, not just your own.
Gigaplex - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
Ryan has explained it multiple times already. They've run the benchmarks, you can see the numbers now in Bench. The article is missing because Ryan is ill.yefi - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
In the original UT, Godlike is the highest accolade, there is no "wicked sick". This also seems to assume the being wicked is more impressive than being a God, hmm...