XPower X58: a new extreme for MSI?

Not content with just recently launching its two P55 Big Bang boards: Trinergy and Fuzion, MSI has made its bang even bigger with the upcoming XPower.

While adorned in a distinctly MSI aesthetic, it looks like the engineers have been reading the EVGA manual on motherboard design. Despite the six PCI-Express x16 slots (it appears two x16, four x8), and sixteen DrMOS phases plus Hi-C(apacity) caps, the keen eyed among you will see the board has two 8-pin CPU 12V power connectors and one 6-pin PCI-Express connector, in addition to the usual 24-pin ATX connector. Hardcore indeed.

Using a standard X58+ICH10R chipset, it looks like there are two more DrMOS phases dedicated to the northbridge, and another two for the six memory slots as well. Additional features include the V-Check points, two digit LED readout, 'Quantum Wave' audio card with THX and EAX, SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0. The cooling design pictured is not final though, but it will include MSI's thicker 8mm "Superpipe".

MSI's roadmap has tied it into the release of Intel's Gulftown CPU, that it puts at somewhere close to the end of Q1 (March period).

Fancy a new X58 motherboard for extreme overclocking? We hope MSI's BIOS is up to scratch! Let us know in the forums.