The MSI X58 Pro-E offers all essential features of a modern motherboard.
The MSI X58 motherboard is available in several different varieties, including "mobile," "platinum" and "pro" versions. All versions contain the same socket and chipset and have identical specifications other than minor differences in the number of available slots. The specifications listed here are for the upper-mid range MSI X58 Pro-E motherboard, which contains all of the essential features of a modern motherboard while remaining relatively affordable and without being flashy.
CPU Support
The MSI Pro-E X58 ATX form-factor motherboard contains a socket 1366, which is designed to house the 900 series of the Intel Core i7 family of microprocessors. Its front side bus (which carries data between the CPU and the memory controller hub) speed is clocked at 6.4 gigatransfers per second (GT/s), which is nearly 6.5 billion operations per second. The chipset is the Intel X58+ICH10R (which allows the processor to communicate with peripheral devices such as graphics accelerator cards, multiple processors, etc). Additionally, the board supports three-way Scalable Link Interface (SLI) and CrossFire, which allows linking together multiple graphics accelerator cards for one output.
RAM Support
The MSI Pro-E X58 motherboard supports triple channel DDR3 800/1066/1333/1600 memory. It contains six dual in-line memory (DIMM) slots with a maximum memory load of 24 gigabytes of RAM.
Expansion Slots
The MSI Pro-E X58 motherboard contains a host of expansion slots. The board contains two conventional peripheral component interconnect (PCI) slots. The slots allow for the connection of hardware devices such as network and sound cards, modems and TV tuner cards. It also contains six additional PCI-Express slots for connection of graphics accelerator cards. For legacy device support, one Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) slot is provided for devices such as hard drives and CD-ROM drives. Seven serial advanced technology attachment II (SATA II) slots are available for connection of hard drives and optical drives. Support for Local Area Network cards and redundant array of independent disks (RAID) support is also included.
External Ports
The MSI Pro-E X58 motherboard has a total of six rear USB 2.0 ports and six rear audio ports plus an optical port allowing for connection of the board to a Dolby-capable receiver. The board also contains a rear 1394 (or FireWire) port and an external serial advanced technology attachment (eSATA) port for additional external storage support.
Tags: Pro-E motherboard, accelerator cards, devices such, graphics accelerator, graphics accelerator cards