Tuesday 26th August 2008

MSI unveils X58 Eclipse motherboard

Posted at: 11:47am 26th August 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

Eclipse nods to the past with CPU jumper switches and Turbo button, and it also features MSI’s DrMOS VRM and power management system

Now that Intel has revealed some more tantalising info about its forthcoming Core i7 (Nehalem) CPUs, the race is now on for motherboard manufacturers to show off their wares. First Asus showed us the P6T Deluxe, and now MSI has unveiled its new Eclipse X58 motherboard.

Like the Asus board, the Eclipse has six DIMM slots to take advantage of Nehalem’s triple-channel DDR3 memory controller, and it also has some other gizmos to take advantage of Nehalem’s feature set. For a start, there’s a Turbo button next to the Power and Reset switches, which we assume is there to take advantage of Nehalem’s Turbo mode.

The Turbo button isn’t the only nod to the past either; there’s also a set of switches marked CPU_CLK, which looks very similar to the old CPU clock switches of yore, before the days of BIOS overclocking. MSI’s marketing manager, Richard Stewart, explained to Custom PC that this is ‘a pre-set tuning switch for your CPU,’ adding that ‘Nehalem will have a set of new tuning features for the CPU, and these are to address these news features offered by the chip.’ That’s all the information we have at the moment, but it all looks quite interesting.

The main way in which MSI hopes to differentiate the Eclipse from the competition is with its DrMOS power system, first seen in the company’s P45 motherboards, which features High-C capcacitors. The board has six DrMOS VRMs for the CPU, two for the Northbridge and another two for the QuickPath memory controller inside the CPU. The board also features a six-gear active phase switching (APS) power system, which can either be set up in the BIOS, or using MSI’s GreenPower Windows app.

You’ll have probably noticed a disturbing lack of heatsinks on the photos of the board, but MSI says that this is because it has plans for a brand new Circu-pipe cooling system for the board that’s currently ‘still under wraps.’ Interestingly, the Eclipse also features a very conservative black and blue colour scheme, without a hint of the bright red motherboards and pink and green slots that MSI’s had before. This, according to Richard Stewart, was a very conscious decision that was a ‘response to some feedback from media and customers.’

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MSI Eclipse - Turbo button and CPU switches

MSI Eclipse - DrMOS VRMs

MSI Eclipse - DIMM slots

MSI Eclipse - rear ports

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Comments

Looks awesome.

I like the fact that there are 10 SATA ports on it. Nowadays, hard drives are so dirt cheap, people might as well buy 4 and stick them in RAID. I've got two Samsung F1's in the post. They cost almost nothing considering the storage capacity. I remember when I first started building that 20GB cost the same as 1TB costs now. Anyway I'm branching off. It's a lovely looking motherboard, not sure about the placement of the extra 4 USB ports on the back panel though. Just looks like they're a glued on afterthought. And christ knows what circupipe nonsense they've come up with now...

Comment by RedHotsRule549 at 6:40am 28th August 2008

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@ NotFred re switches

yep, sure ........... but thats what screw-drivers are for. And if you didn't know that, then I pitty the fool.

Comment by techjim at 3:55am 28th August 2008

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@John, re switches

I used to think that... but the one time recently I built a machine without an on MB power switch I missed it. Good practice to test the components out of the case first before you go through setting it all up. Better to catch problems then (like dead components, or neading to flash bios with an earlier CPU) Turbo... no idea what that does.

Comment by NotFred at 10:16am 27th August 2008

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Internal switches.

Why? The reset switch could come in handy, but a power switch? And a turbo switch? INSIDE the case? Utterly, utterly, utterly, UTTERLY pointless.

Comment by John_T at 12:42am 27th August 2008

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cool...

it's a rather neat board, the layout seems like it could be a bit better in some places but they are trying to squeeze a ton of stuff on there (anyone else think it's time for a larger form factor? a few more square inches would really cut back on the annoyances of computer building imo). makes me a little uncomfertable about my plans to upgrade to a LGA775 system in the next few months, oh well.

Comment by yougotkicked at 6:34pm 26th August 2008

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Funny A

That north bridge interest me it looks just like one of my old AMD's you know the ones the old thunderbird ones at about 1ghz look just like it. I like it though cause although there is a lot going on many many conectors etc it doesn't look cluttered weather this will still be after 100kgs of copper cooling has been strapped on remains to be seen.

Comment by Cool_CR at 5:00pm 26th August 2008

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I like the sound of the VRM's. It'll be interesting to see the final on sale price for this motherboard.

Comment by l3v1ck at 2:52pm 26th August 2008

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Interesting...

looks like a whole new set of features is to arise as a result of Nehalem...what does CPU_CLK specifically control...i have no idea personally...

Comment by gcd_638000846b0f at 1:53pm 26th August 2008

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whats with DLED2 then

No really, whats DLED2 all about and why does it have a power symbol on it. I'm guessing is some form of lighting switch, but given these buttons look like they are straight off an Asus board. Why have they not used the button with a lightbulb on it to highlight this. I'm interested in what this could be all about. Also why is CPU_CLK1 numbered. That implies there is room for more than 1 of these. I'm gonna throw a guess then and say some of the more fancy modes (single OC'd core while other slow down etc.) are available to be permanently enabled with these switches. Maybe im way off the mark. Who knows.