After ASRock, now it’s time for MSI to launch their first motherboard with PCI Express 3.0 slots, the MSI Z68A-GD80 (G3).

The main thing about the PCI Express 3.0 is that it can provide a bandwidth of 1 GB/s in one direction (2 GB/s per lane; each lane has two directions). The original PCI Express specification supported 250 MB/s per lane, and PCI Express 2.0 supported 500 MB/s per lane. This means that a PCI Express 3.0 x16 slot provides a maximum transfer rate of 32 GB/s (2 GB/s x 16), whereas a PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot can reach up to 8 GB/s. Bear in mind that you need a PCI Express 3.0 video card to achieve the bandwidth of PCI Express 3.0 slots.

The MSI Z68A-GD80 (G3) is an LGA1155 socket motherboard based on the Intel Z68 chipset. It features two PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots, one PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot, two PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots, two PCI standard slots, four DDR3 memory sockets, four USB 3.0 ports, four SATA-600 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, 7.1 channel audio, and DVI and HDMI video outputs.  MSI’s motherboard also supports Virtu and Intel Smart Response technologies, and uses military-class components, such as Hi-c capacitors and solid ferrite-core coils, also known as SFC, Super Ferrite Choke, which, according to MSI, can provide up to a 20% improvement in efficiency.

Information on pricing or availability was not provided.

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