MSI has its X38 (975X) chipset mainboard on display at COMPUTEX 2007.The aptly-name X38 Diamond has four PEG slots (two for CROSSFIRE and two for for normal VGA cards).
It's claimed to be their first mainboard with an LED readout that can be used during POST to diagnose start-up problems (eg POST code readout).
The X38 Diamond bundle includes some unusual goodies - a Creative X-Fi sound card and MSI's own SKYTEL telephone-to-VOIP Skype adapter card.
Rounding off an interesting package, the X38 Diamond is running MSI's water-cooled HD2900XT graphics card - model number as yet unknown.
Next, is MSI's DDR2/DDR3 P35 chipset board, named as the P35 Platinum Combo.
Intel Turbo Memory, aka Robson technology, is installed and running on the P35 Platinum.
There are still some teething troubles at the moment, though, and these require periodic system reboots to maintain performance. Nonetheless, performance is impressive - when the system's working and used in the intended scenarios. One example is accelerating frequently re-used data.
The system below is running
Intel's, as yet unreleased, 1333MHz FSB
Quad-core Core 2 Extreme X6850 chip, overclocked to 4.2GHz. Cooling
comes courtesy of a phase-change refrigeration system.
Thanks to a second monitor
attached to the VGA card, we were able to see 3DMark looping
successfully.
Also on show is the P6N Diamond (nforce 680i SLI chipset) running with two NX8600GTS Diamond Plus cards in SLI configuration, plus two NX8500GTs running as separate VGA cards.
MSI is also tantalising visitors with a mainboard based on an NVIDIA nForce chipset running with MCP68.
