Consumer Electronics Show 2014 MSI Visit

MSI was one of the first companies I met with on my CES 2014 sideshow tour and their hardware presentation did not disappoint.  Of the new motherboards they had on display the most impressive was their new A88XM Gaming board designed to provide a gaming platform for the AMD processor lineup.

As we know you can game on the A10 provided you have a discrete graphics card installed.  The A88XM looks to support 2-way crossfire setups, enhanced audio and Killer networks Ethernet.  Another motherboard, not pictured, is the MiniITX version of their gaming series supporting Haswell based processors.  Given how popular SteamOS is you can be assured the powerful MiniITX gaming motherboards will follow.

Normally I’m all about the high-end but the cooler on the GTX 760 is really unique.  Normally at this level MSI slaps on a radial fin cooler and calls it a day but this card features a full shroud and dual fan configuration.  The center part is a standard bladed fan but along the edge you’ll see some paddles that also help move the air around.  It’s not quite a squirrel cage but, helps to create some axial turbulence along the edges.

MSI is a favorite vendor of mine, not only do they consistently have excellent products on display but also have a great track record in the overclocking community.  Let’s hope that their dedication will continue in 2014 and with any luck we’ll start featuring more MSI products on Hardware Asylum.