MSI has launched three new Mini-ITX ECO motherboards with integrated 14nm Intel Braswell processors. It says that these passively cooled solutions are ideal for either HTPC use or for industrial devices. As you might guess from the ECO suffix these are power sipping motherboards and they support the latest Intel Celeron and Pentium processors which consume just 6 watts at peak.
The three motherboard models are as follows:
MSI N3700I ECO with Intel Pentium Quad-core N3700, 2.40GHz SoC
MSI N3150I ECO with Intel Celeron Quad-core N3150, 2.08GHz SoC
MSI N3050I ECO with Intel Celeron Dual-core N3050, 2.16GHz SoC
Beyond the processor differences all the motherboards share the following specifications; HDMI 1.4b connector with 4K output support, 8-channel HD Audio via HDMI, two DDR3L-1600MHz SO-DIMM slots (for up to 8GB RAM), two SATA 6Gb/s ports, one PCIe slot, Gigabit Ethernet, COM port, USB3.0 ports, M-FLASH, Fast Boot. Looking further at the multimedia capabilities of these products they support H.265 (HEVC) hardware decoding and "feature 2x faster graphics power with support for DirectX 12 and Windows 10". As usual MSI has furnished these motherboards with its Military Class 4 component choice.
Living up to their ECO name suffix these boards and processors are all fully passively cooled and are said to run cool, silent and efficient. Those are great qualities to have in both the intended markets of HTPC and Industrial and the elimination of moving parts like fans is good for long term reliability.
We first heard news and the details of these Intel Braswell SKUs just days ago. MSI hasn't announced pricing or an availability schedule for its new motherboard and processor combos.
