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MSI's Four New Motherboards Includes Gold PCB Model

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That gold motherboard looks... Old.
I have an old board that ran an Athlon X64 in my room (for no real reason) in storage, looks pretty similar at first glance. Yellow PCB, not much on the board, just as ugly.
 
That gold motherboard looks... Old.
I have an old board that ran an Athlon X64 in my room (for no real reason) in storage, looks pretty similar at first glance. Yellow PCB, not much on the board, just as ugly.
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Im kinda with you but I think with the right setup... the mobo could look pretty good. not sure what colors... but maybe a white and gold look? could be interesting
 
Definitely agree that the gold boards look "old", but man alive I love it :)

How great would one of those be with a flat almond colored (i.e, Gateway circa 97') CASELABS enclosure. MMmmmmmHHmmmmm
 
Definitely agree that the gold boards look "old", but man alive I love it :)

How great would one of those be with a flat almond colored (i.e, Gateway circa 97') CASELABS enclosure. MMmmmmmHHmmmmm
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I wasnt around for said era of computers, so I dont share the same ideals haha.
I do think companies should try to get away from black boards. My board is brown, but still they are bland.
I feel like its the wrong kind of gold color thats throwing me off... Needs to be more... well gold, shiny, stuff like that.
 
With these "new" motherboards, I thought they would move away from SATA Express and add some U.2 ports. I'm tied of these right-angle ports that most mfgs are choosing to use for both SATA/SATA Express. It's a pain when you have to open up a case again because the non-locking cable came off slightly when you were fixing another cable.

I think it's also a bit of a waste that they add these decorative covers to components. It reminds me of the newer car engines with covers added. Unless it's tied to a heatsink, it really doesn't add anything of value; just makes more junk to recycle later on.
 
Toddy, I'm so with you. I smiled when I saw it. I'm not a fan of the LEDs and all the colors of new stuff. Pardon how this comes out, but it's like they let a girl into the factory to make em all look "pretty".
I'm in my 30s but I now feel old.
 
I forgot to mention the gold board is a prototype, and MSI said one of the changes they plan to make before it goes into production is to change the red RAM and PCI-E slots with something more appealing.

I'm honestly glad they are trying something, I'm tired of every motherboard being black and red.
 
I like the classic green.

Cisco%207941%207961%20GREEN%20PCB_marked.jpg
 


Ah yes, this was a typing mistake that was overlooked. Thanks for pointing that out, I will correct it.

@turkey3_scratch: I suggested they go for a silver color, felt like that would mesh well. Black contacts would be okay too, just not this red stuff they have now. I should point out also the gold is a little bit more bright and vibrant than the pictures make it look, MSI had it on those red lighting platforms and it just didn't work the best for showing the PCB, but it is just slightly better looking up close.
 


Just to name a few reasons...
1. USB 3.0 ports require drivers and are typically not useable until the system boots.
2. USB 3.0 requires more bandwidth, which would require a significant increase in total system bandwidth if we were to replace USB 2.0 entirely with USB 3.0.
3. USB 2.0 works perfectly fine for a large assortment of devices, with USB 3.0 only gaining any real advantage in devices that can make use of more than 40 Mbps.
4. Some devices have difficulty operating when connected over USB 3.0.
5. USB 3.0 internal headers for ports located on the case are considerably larger than USB 2.0 headers. Replacing all USB 2.0 headers with USB 3.0 would take up significantly more space on the motherboard, which becomes problematic for the overall motherboard design as that space is required for other components.
 

Nos. 1 & 3 are particularly important. No USB on boot means no boot disks or OS installs from flash ( especially problematic with so many people complaining about ODDs still included in SBM builds ). On #3, the only thing right now that really benefits from USB3 is storage. So unless you plan to attach eight external SSDs . . .

As for the complaint about forward facing SATA ports, these are gaming mboards, meaning they're likely to have big GPUs on them ( and possibly more than one ). Forward-facing ports mean you can put the SATA jacks in line with the PCIe slots and the GPUs will fit over the top. You can't do this with perpendicular ports. They also make cabling inside the case cleaner since the cables start closer to the grommets and routing holes many cases have.

I'd love to see even more headers being right-angled off the board, but right now it seems to be only SATA and USB3. Imagine having an edge-facing 24-pin ATX power cable, 8-pin CPU power lead, HD audio, or front panel header. Properly done, it would make cabling very clean and would take a lot of worry away from fitting some cards. I've reviewed and used a few boards that got docked because they put the front panel or audio header right under the primary GPU slot that caused fitment problems.
 
The Z170A Krait Gaming pictured replaced the PCI port with a PCI-Ex1 and ditched the Asmedia ASM1083 chip which was required to support the plain old PCI port - I'm guessing this is a budget move. I'll have to rummage through my computer bin to see if there is any reason for me to use PCI, but I do plan on buying one of these Z170A Krait Gaming boards.
 
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One of the most used comments by reviewers with regard to the MSI Z170 XPower Titanium was that it looked drastically different in photographs than it did in person and that photos just do it justice. Now wondering if the same applies here.

As for the edge connector, it certainly is a great benefit in the looks department, tho one had to be careful as if you aren't careful connecting cables and bend a pin, the MoBo has to come outta the case. Had the experience in a recent Gaming 5 build where user bent some pins installing USB cable .... took some convincing but after 40 minutes of trying to do it "in place", use r took out Hobo and was fixed in a jiff. Suggestion: test fit all cable w/ 90 degree edge connectors before installing in vase.

 
I think it looks less gold and more uncoloured. Surely if they wanted it to look gold they could make a more serious effort than that? Use some rich colour to give some vibrancy- that just seems not even a half-hearted attempt.
 
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