Gallery - MSI P55-GD80 motherboard

So recently MSI introduced their new V-Kit concept allowing Voltage monitoring and manipulation.. It was already to be found at their GTX260 Lightning series graphics cards, but it is extended towards the motherboards as well. MSI creates voltage measuring points for various voltages used by the motherboards.

All the way to the left you can see DIP-switches, with the dip-switch next to the Voltage control points, you can actually increase the voltage at hardware level. Talking about a hardcore motherboard eh ?

You stick a wire onto a positive and ground pin and that allows you to check out voltages with a multimeter. MSI's V-Kit will not be exclusive for the most expensive models but according to the source, MSI will equip all of its P55 motherboards with this V-Kit.

Overall board design is great by the way. Everything is positioned really well. But let's move onward to the left side where we stumble into a bunch of SATA connectors. In total we get a luxurious 8x SATA ports and then at the back panel we again see two eSATA ports.

In addition to the regular six SATA II ports, this one also has an additional controller for extra two internal, one eSATA and one IDE port. The two additional 'vertical' SATA ports are positioned right and not blocking any graphics cards. Finally a manufacturer who takes not to something so simple.