Announcing the Tom's Hardware AMA and Gaming Giveaway with MSI!

[MSIDavY]

You have water cooled GPU range by name of Seahawk. Are you guys planning to make upgrade kits, i.e cooler only so that normal user with gaming or armor GPU use them as an updgrade.

MSI doesn't sell standalone cooling solutions for video cards and we don't intend to in the near future. Our GTX 1080 SEAHAWK actually uses a Corsair closer water solution.

 

[MSIDavY]

As someone who likes smaller systems, I'd really like to see some more powerful half-height single slot (including cooler) cards; right now the most powerful available seems to be the GT740. Does MSI have any plans to release some more powerful cards in this form factor? Even a GTX950 would be a huge step up.

We've got in the works for an upcoming RX 460 card in a month or so.

 

[MSIDavY]

I recently read about a skylake motherboard with onboard GTX 1070, are you guys planning to do something like this in future.

We probably won't. Desktop enthusiasts far prefer dedicated video cards.

 

[MSIDavY]

Any chance of some different color options, for motherboards and graphics cards, anytime soon? Really interested in white hardware, as it will better show off my purple lighting.

Check out my reply here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3150117/announcing-tom-hardware-ama-gaming-giveaway-msi/page-2.html#18453204

 

[Lutfij]

Thank you for the detailed answers. In my haste(and in my excitement to this AMA) I forgot to execute courtesy. Although it's too late into the event, please accept our greetings; Welcome to Tom's Hardware and to that affect welcome to our AMA! It's actually an honor having you guys onboard for this event.

A follow up question though to my post:
I noticed on your site there is a drop down menu within the Motherboards section that caters to Enthusiast, Performance, Arsenal and Pro and in each category there are a small(or large depending on which you look through) group of boards in said categories. Outside of Enthusiast, as the term defines that it will surely hold on to cream-of-the-crop in terms of features and technology, could you walk us through as to where the said boards and groups fall in the market areas and who they're suited to?

As an example, Night Elf and Krait's being under Performance while the Tomahawk, Mortar and Bazooka are under Arsenal.

Could we see a possibility to overclock on your non-Z series platforms much like what ASRock have done with the inclusion of microcode on non-Z series boards?

 

[Karadjgne]

Ok, last of my questions. What kind of plans does MSI have for Zen? There's a lot of AMD fans waiting very patiently for that to drop.

 

[MSIDavY]

Is there going to be an MSI version of Asus ROG? There seems to be a pretty clear line drawn between their elite performance stuff and even their top end deluxe, and that includes the software, website, monitors etc

MSI's gaming focused products have their own clear identity and even MSI is well recognized by PC hardware enthusiasts as a company that caters to them as well as gamers. At this point, we don't feel a gaming-centered offbrand is necessary.

 

[MSIDavY]

Is there going to be an MSI version of Asus ROG? There seems to be a pretty clear line drawn between their elite performance stuff and even their top end deluxe, and that includes the software, website, monitors etc

I would hazard a guess that the Godlike series could be made into a ROG competitor if they wanted to expand it.


Apologies if this has been asked already, I didn't read the rest of the thread. Are there any plans to make "premium" versions of non Z motherboards? Something like an H170 board with dual LAN, WiFi, M.2, 1/4" headphone jack, RGB lighting, etc? Your M3 and Gaming Pro models have some of these features, but not all of them together. Or is it not cost effective to make both Z and H versions of such a board?

yes, we do have an H170 motherboard with RGB lighting - the MSI H170A GAMING PRO
https://us.msi.com/Motherboard/H170A-GAMING-PRO

...and an H170 motherboard with an M.2 slot - the MSI H170 GAMING M3
https://us.msi.com/Motherboard/H170-GAMING-M3.html

Those interested in having a combination of those features are already aware or will realize that yes, such a motherboard is more expensive. Intel's H170 chipset already has fewer features compared to Z170 and that's something we can't exactly "fix."

 

[RedJaron]

Those interested in having a combination of those features are already aware or will realize that yes, such a motherboard is more expensive. Intel's H170 chipset already has fewer features compared to Z170 and that's something we can't exactly "fix."

That's what I was thinking. A fully featured H170 board would only be a few bucks cheaper than a fully-featured Z170 board, ergo it doesn't make sense to make them both ( and yes, the H board still wouldn't have overclocking or multi-GPU support ). Thanks for the reply.

 

[MSIDavY]

As one of the major motherboard vendor, what is your take on the future strategy for storage connection?
Do you feel the m.2 will gain importance and people will need less regular SATA port?
If multiple m.2 slots are needed, how will the motherboard leave enough space for the socket?

NVMe drives with the M.2 connector are already so fast that RAID 0 is unnecessary. As of now, we don't have issues placing 2 or even 3 M.2 slots on some of our motherboards.

 

[MSIDavY]

I'm seeing you say the Mini-ITX market is small, and I can believe that from the limited number of products.
Why aren't Mini-ITX boards priced more appropriately for their smaller size compared to traditional ATX and even Micro-ATX?
Very very few people need or use more than 1 PCIE slot anyways, and PCI slots are almost universally dead.
But ITX products always have a "premium" cost associated with them that I think is driving off purchasers, and prevents me from recommending them as a budget build because well, they're typically more expensive than larger sized parts.

It's a bit of a chicken and the egg problem. To address the new miniITX motherboard segment, we have to sink resources into R&D for products that aren't widely demanded which leaves us to re-evaluate future development.

 

[MSIDavY]

Thank you for the detailed answers. In my haste(and in my excitement to this AMA) I forgot to execute courtesy. Although it's too late into the event, please accept our greetings; Welcome to Tom's Hardware and to that affect welcome to our AMA! It's actually an honor having you guys onboard for this event.

A follow up question though to my post:
I noticed on your site there is a drop down menu within the Motherboards section that caters to Enthusiast, Performance, Arsenal and Pro and in each category there are a small(or large depending on which you look through) group of boards in said categories. Outside of Enthusiast, as the term defines that it will surely hold on to cream-of-the-crop in terms of features and technology, could you walk us through as to where the said boards and groups fall in the market areas and who they're suited to?

As an example, Night Elf and Krait's being under Performance while the Tomahawk, Mortar and Bazooka are under Arsenal.

Could we see a possibility to overclock on your non-Z series platforms much like what ASRock have done with the inclusion of microcode on non-Z series boards?

Performance GAMING - High-end featured gaming motherboard
Arsenal GAMING - Low-end, mid-range gaming motherboard
Pro Series - all of our other motherboards that are not specially made for gamers

For your second question, we respect Intel's decision on what they choose to limit what is allowed with non-Z motherboards.

 

[MSIDavY]

Ok, last of my questions. What kind of plans does MSI have for Zen? There's a lot of AMD fans waiting very patiently for that to drop.

We will continue to work with AMD on their current and upcoming products.

 

[Karadjgne]

Well I would like to take the time to say thank you for being here with us today. I know you guys must have pretty hectic schedules, so taking this time for us is appreciated. So, Thank You.

Kara.

 

[Jsimenhoff]

And there you have it folks. The AMA is officially closed.

Let's give a big digital round of applause to our wonderful guests from MSI. Thank you so much for joining us and answering anything and everything our expert Community threw at you. And of course thank you so much to all of you, the Tom's Hardware Community members. Without your in depth questions none of this would have been possible.

If you haven't already be sure to enter the Tom's Hardware MSI Gaming Giveaway for your chance to win MSI's flagship GPU, the MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G.

Signing off for now.

- Joshua Simenhoff, Assistant Comunity Manager