CES 2010 Coverage

MSI:

On our visit to MSI the first order of business was to get a look at the newest “Big Bang” motherboard named Fuzion. This motherboard is built for use with Intel’s socket 1156 platform and makes use of technology from Lucid called Hydra to allow the use of two video cards from different manufacturers in a multi-GPU solution, providing additional performance scaling. MSI has a working demonstration that included what looked like Twin Frozer equipped NVIDIA card and a Cyclone equipped HD 4890 running in a multi-GPU configuration. This option is only for use with Windows 7. In our conversations we were told the current Lucid driver is version 1.4 and is the break point for the technology, as it has now become fully functional. Futuremark’s 3DMark 06 was the benchmark used to show the technology in action. Also shown off with this motherboard was a handheld controller the “OC dashboard” and the THX certified sound solution.

Following up the Big Bang Fuzion we were able to look through the rest of the motherboard stack that was on display, which included the 890FX solutions for AMD systems as well as the latest H55 and H57 solutions for the recently released Clarksdale processors from Intel. Of course the P55 chipset was represented with the Big Bang Trinergy and P55-GD65.

While the “Lightning” branding has been established on the NVIDIA cards offered by MSI, they have now shown some love to the ATI side with the introduction of the Lightning 5 series, which includes the HD 5870 and HD 5850. What’s different about the HD 5870 is evident right of the bat. Instead of going long with the card it has an increased height and improved Twin Frozer cooling. On top of that you have voltage check points on the back end of the card, so you can use a multimeter to check voltage instead of relying on often unreliable software readings. That’s a pretty big step forward in my book, as the custom engineered cards usually give you that added something. DR.MOS technology is also applied to these cards for added reliability and performance.

The year ahead is looking promising for MSI with the introduction of these components.