We knew it was coming, but MSI has just gone all official with its latest LGA1156 motherboard - the P55-GD85.
The ATX board, pictured below, utilises chips from Marvell and NEC to become MSI's first P55 solution to offer support for both SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0.
Aside from the introduction of third-generation SATA and USB interfaces, the board is similar in terms of features to MSI's existing P55-GD solutions.
Users can expect support for Intel's Core i3, Core i5 or Core i7 CPUs packaged as LGA1156, whilst four dual-channel DIMM slots offer room for up to 16GB of DDR3 memory at speeds of up to 2,133MHz.
Elsewhere, you'll find a duo of SLI and CrossFire-supporting PCIe x16 slots, as well as two PCIe x4 slots and a pair of PCIe x1 interfaces, too. Two SATA 6Gbps ports are available - alongside seven of the SATA II variety and one eSATA - and dual-Gigabit Ethernet features as standard. USB ports are plentiful, with two of the USB 3.0 variety and six USB 2.0.
Throw in Firewire, eight-channel audio and a number of MSI technologies such as OC Genie, SuperPipe, DrMOS and Active Phase Switching, and you've a promising-looking board.
Question is, how much? Well, we've yet to hear anything official from MSI, but we're already starting to see the board appear at a number of European vendors. Popular retailer Alternate.de, for example, currently has the board up for pre-order at a cost of €210. That's roughly £185, positioning the board at just a few pounds more than the USB 3-less P55-GD80.
