Let’s take a look at this socket 2011 motherboard from MSI based on the new Intel X79 chipset and targeted to the new Core i7 “Sandy Bridge-E” CPUs.

MSI has released four motherboard models for the new socket 2011 platform, the X79A-GD45, the X79MA-GD45, the X79A-GD65, and the X79A-GD65 (8D), targeted to the most high-end processor Intel offers for desktops today, the Core i7 "Sandy Bridge-E" models. Let's take a look at the X79A-GD65 (8D), which comes with five PCI Express x16 slots.