MSI has launched the AMD based 970A SLI Krait Edition motherboard. This, it boasts, is the "world's first AMD motherboard featuring USB 3.1". Part of the black & white family, the 970A SLI Krait Edition is a performance orientated motherboard which is optimised for multiple graphics card Nvidia SLI or AMD CrossFire gaming setups.
CeBIT saw major motherboard vendors including MSI, ASRock and ASUS introduce Intel processor based motherboards supporting this newest, fastest USB standard. Now MSI want to add USB 3.1 support to its AMD processor compatible motherboards staring with the MSI 970A SLI Krait Edition (AMD 970 chipset, AM3+ socket)
Let's first look at the headlining feature of this motherboard: its USB 3.1 connectivity. MSI has furnished this motherboard with two such ports. In its own testing of the ports on this board MSI found that a Blu-ray movie could be transferred via the interface in under a minute. This compares very favourably with the USB 3.0 connection which took 2 minutes and a USB 2.0 connection which took a whole 20 minutes. See the chart below.
Other heralded features of this AM3+ motherboard include the provision of two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots for SLI or CrossFire gaming setups. The slots, which are meant for a dual-GPU setup, are positioned so that there is plenty of space around each graphics card to facilitate adequate airflow.
The MSI 970A SLI Krait Edition motherboard includes other signature MSI niceties such as; Military Class 4 components, dark choke and dark cap durable capacitors, an isolated audio PCB to keep electromagnetic signal interference at bay, high quality audio capacitors, the OC Genie 4 overclocking system and ClickBIOS Windows 8 optimised BIOS. The motherboards supports Fast Boot, GO2BIOS and M-FLASH BIOS backup and restore to USB. Software including MSI Command Centre, Live Update and Unlimited RamDisk are bundles with the board. Full hardware specifications can be found on the product page.
MSI 970A SLI Krait Edition pricing and availability has yet to be announced. An AMD 990FXA Gaming board is likely to follow sporting USB 3.1 support.
