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so today we'll be having a look at a product that I've received a lot of requests to unbox this is the MSI 87a

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fusion fusion military class motherboard

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this is for multi-GPU computing and let's talk first and foremost a little

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bit about Fusion technology it is powered by the Lucid Hydra I forget

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exactly what the chip is called but it's powered by a lucid Hydra chip and what

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that is is it's kind of like a PCI Express Bridge chip but there's actual

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logic built into it that allows you to run not only multi-GPU with uh two radon

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cards or multi-GPU with two GeForce cards but unlike SLI and Crossfire you

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can actually run uh non-matching cards

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and still get a performance boost and you can even run one Radeon card with

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one GeForce card and still get a

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performance boost so one of the things here we go here we go so let's uh let's

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show you the re an information while I talk about this a little bit more so

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there's n mode which is NVIDIA only okay so you can see that they're

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they're talking about like if you have one higher-end GPU versus maybe you've

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got an older GPU and you want to just throw in another one to get a bit of a

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performance boost how much of an increase you can get there's a mode

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which is ATI only so you can run two ATI cards even if they don't match

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non-identical VGA processing any level of VGA combinations up to 33%

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performance boost and then there's X mode so that means you can actually run

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a radon card with a GeForce card and

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play 3D games which is pretty far out

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there so in terms of other features that are MSI exclusive you got their military

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class that means they've got their a highy cap icy choke solid caps all of

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that good stuff for tability they've also got support for their OC Genie as

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well as core unlocking and they've got some full support for USB 3.0 and SATA 6

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GB per second so it has all the latest features but let's have a look at the

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board itself and see how cool it looks it is pretty expensive for an 870a board

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but these features cost money the Hydra chip costs money I'll tell you that much

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this is a SATA 6 GB per second cable rather two of them a Molex to SATA power

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adapter all right next we have some SATA 3 GB per second cables two of them as

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well as a Molex to SATA power adapter now please bear in mind there is no

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physical difference between those cables other than the color they will both work

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just fine regardless of yes okay so here

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we have the multi-GPU Computing technology driver then we have the

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regular drivers and utilities download the latest from the MSI website we have

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a quick installation guide a manual for their Control Center Software as well as

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a user guide for the 87a fusion next we have some easy front

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panel connectors the M connector not to

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be confused with Q connector as well as an IO

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Shield then we have uh cameraman wants

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to see something over there I'm not sure why wants to see the M

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connector okay he didn't get a good look at that in the first place so I'm going

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to start unboxing the motherboard while cameraman Zooms in on his there enough

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of that end connector and you can see there's uh using wow very secure

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packaging look at that you've got like a/ inch of cardboard around this board

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on every side they really don't want these things to break in shipping I'll

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tell you that much all right here it is is the

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870a fusion so here it is a sticker for

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auto overclocking OC Genie as well as a

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sticker for military class long lifetime

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higher stability better overclocking this is all good stuff and let's have a

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look at the overall physical layout of

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the board this is a very unique looking board and partly due to the uh unique

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branding on it so you can see right there is the MSI multi-GPU Computing

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that's an X I guess presumably for X mode which is when you're running NVIDIA

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and ATI cards together if you weren't paying attention earlier now let's uh

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yeah let's do the overall layout Okay so we've got our eight pin power connector up in the top left in its ideal location

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you can see the pwm is covered by a fairly small heat sink but given that

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they are using military class components which do run cooler according to MSI's

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marketing materials uh that should be all that's necessary we've got our am3

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CPU socket so you've got full support for all the latest AMD processors

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including their six cores and that means that you also have support for dual

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Channel DDR3 up to 16 gigs of RAM can be

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inserted into these slots over here on the right your 24 pin power connector is

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in its ideal location along the right hand edge of the board and then you can

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see that down a little bit further we've got all of our SATA ports so the black

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ones are going to be SATA 2 3 GB per second and these white ones right here

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are going to be SATA 3 6 gbit per second

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the South Bridge right here is uh covered by a little heat sink that's uh

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probably not doing a whole lot and then under here is where the magic happens so

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there's your North Bridge as well as the Lucid Hydra chip so I believe so

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actually I'm not 100% sure that the hydr Chip's under there but I'm like 99% sure

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that it's down there somewhere I can't verify it one way or the other in terms

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of expansion slots we have two PCIe 16x

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slots and while I wish I could say it

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was as simple as these are SLI ready or they're cross ready or they're not ready

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for anything these are ready for any number of different things now the 870a

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chipset natively supports Crossfire so I'd imagine you can run them in regular

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Crossfire mode or you can take advantage of that lucid Hydra Fusion technology

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that is integrated into this board other expansion slots include two PCI e1x

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slots one PCI slot and then you've got support for a whole bunch of one two up

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to four front USB connectors front fire wire as as well as front audio right

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there you have one uh auxiliary uh PCI

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E6 pin connector so I guess if you're plugging in a couple really beefy gpus

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you'd want to go ahead and populate that and then here you have an internal USB

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3.0 Port this is smart because since most case manufacturers are implementing

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USB 3.0 with just an internal USB

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connector boom just plug it in there and you're done so instead of running like

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most of them they're making you route a cable around the back out the back of the board out the back of the case and

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then into the back of the motherboard on the io panel but MSI is saving you the

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trouble here on the back we've got two PS2 ports one Mouse One keyboard a clear

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Simo switch I love this this is one of my personal favorite features I love it

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and then we've also got six USB 2.0 ports digital audio out in Optical as

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well as coaxial flavors fire wire gigabit Ethernet One USB 3.0 Port

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remember the other one is there's a bug on the uh motherboard box and the

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cameraman's gotten distracted

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remember the other USB 3.0 Port is inside for connection to front USB then

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we have 7.1 audio out and not a whole lot to talk about on the back of the

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motherboard although I can probably verify I'm not going to take that

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sticker off okay I could check the traces here I'd be able to verify if the

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hydr Chip's down there I believe it is though yeah thank you for checking out

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my unboxing of the 870a fusion from MSI