MSI's Big Bang range of enthusiast motherboards already offers a pair of high-end solutions in the form of Trinergy and Fuzion, but even those pale in comparison to what's coming next.
In preparation of the arrival of Intel's upcoming hexa-core Gulftown processor, productised as the Core i7 980X, MSI will launch what it calls the Big Bang XPower.
As the name suggests, it's an enthusiast board that'll offer exactly what the everyday performance junkie requires.
Expected to arrive late in Q1, the Big Bang XPower is based on Intel's top-end X58 chipset and provides a massive six PCIe x16 slots. We're not sure exactly what type of hocus pocus MSI is using to facilitate all those lanes, and we've no indication as to what speed multi-GPU configurations will run, but it's looking good for number-crunching workstation purposes. Or better yet, it might just manage Crysis with a quad-GPU + PhysX card config.
With the lesser P55 chipset occupying headlines in recent months, enthusiasts will be glad to see MSI's latest bringing all that Nehalem goodness back to the forefront - including the likes of a QuickPath Interconnect and tri-channel DDR3 memory.
What else does MSI bring to the table? Plenty, it seems, as the Big Bang XPower looks set to become the first Big Bang board to offer USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps. It'll also come bundled with a Quantum Wave soundcard, and a useful array of overclocker-friendly touches such as a 16-phase DrMOS PWM fed by dual eight-pin power connectors. Add Hi-C caps, SuperPipe and OCGenie to the list, and you've a board that might just break a benchmark or two.
Throw in a hexa-core, 12-thread Intel processor, and we reckon there's a good chance it'll break the bank, too.
