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
fusion fusion military class motherboard
this is for multi-GPU computing and let's talk first and foremost a little
bit about Fusion technology it is powered by the Lucid Hydra I forget
exactly what the chip is called but it's powered by a lucid Hydra chip and what
that is is it's kind of like a PCI Express Bridge chip but there's actual
logic built into it that allows you to run not only multi-GPU with uh two radon
cards or multi-GPU with two GeForce cards but unlike SLI and Crossfire you
can actually run uh non-matching cards
and still get a performance boost and you can even run one Radeon card with
one GeForce card and still get a
performance boost so one of the things here we go here we go so let's uh let's
show you the re an information while I talk about this a little bit more so
there's n mode which is NVIDIA only okay so you can see that they're
they're talking about like if you have one higher-end GPU versus maybe you've
got an older GPU and you want to just throw in another one to get a bit of a
performance boost how much of an increase you can get there's a mode
which is ATI only so you can run two ATI cards even if they don't match
non-identical VGA processing any level of VGA combinations up to 33%
performance boost and then there's X mode so that means you can actually run
a radon card with a GeForce card and
play 3D games which is pretty far out
there so in terms of other features that are MSI exclusive you got their military
class that means they've got their a highy cap icy choke solid caps all of
that good stuff for tability they've also got support for their OC Genie as
well as core unlocking and they've got some full support for USB 3.0 and SATA 6
GB per second so it has all the latest features but let's have a look at the
board itself and see how cool it looks it is pretty expensive for an 870a board
but these features cost money the Hydra chip costs money I'll tell you that much
this is a SATA 6 GB per second cable rather two of them a Molex to SATA power
adapter all right next we have some SATA 3 GB per second cables two of them as
well as a Molex to SATA power adapter now please bear in mind there is no
physical difference between those cables other than the color they will both work
just fine regardless of yes okay so here
we have the multi-GPU Computing technology driver then we have the
regular drivers and utilities download the latest from the MSI website we have
a quick installation guide a manual for their Control Center Software as well as
a user guide for the 87a fusion next we have some easy front
panel connectors the M connector not to
be confused with Q connector as well as an IO
Shield then we have uh cameraman wants
to see something over there I'm not sure why wants to see the M
connector okay he didn't get a good look at that in the first place so I'm going
to start unboxing the motherboard while cameraman Zooms in on his there enough
of that end connector and you can see there's uh using wow very secure
packaging look at that you've got like a/ inch of cardboard around this board
on every side they really don't want these things to break in shipping I'll
tell you that much all right here it is is the
870a fusion so here it is a sticker for
auto overclocking OC Genie as well as a
sticker for military class long lifetime
higher stability better overclocking this is all good stuff and let's have a
look at the overall physical layout of
the board this is a very unique looking board and partly due to the uh unique
branding on it so you can see right there is the MSI multi-GPU Computing
that's an X I guess presumably for X mode which is when you're running NVIDIA
and ATI cards together if you weren't paying attention earlier now let's uh
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
you can see the pwm is covered by a fairly small heat sink but given that
they are using military class components which do run cooler according to MSI's
marketing materials uh that should be all that's necessary we've got our am3
CPU socket so you've got full support for all the latest AMD processors
including their six cores and that means that you also have support for dual
Channel DDR3 up to 16 gigs of RAM can be
inserted into these slots over here on the right your 24 pin power connector is
in its ideal location along the right hand edge of the board and then you can
see that down a little bit further we've got all of our SATA ports so the black
ones are going to be SATA 2 3 GB per second and these white ones right here
are going to be SATA 3 6 gbit per second
the South Bridge right here is uh covered by a little heat sink that's uh
probably not doing a whole lot and then under here is where the magic happens so
there's your North Bridge as well as the Lucid Hydra chip so I believe so
actually I'm not 100% sure that the hydr Chip's under there but I'm like 99% sure
that it's down there somewhere I can't verify it one way or the other in terms
of expansion slots we have two PCIe 16x
slots and while I wish I could say it
was as simple as these are SLI ready or they're cross ready or they're not ready
for anything these are ready for any number of different things now the 870a
chipset natively supports Crossfire so I'd imagine you can run them in regular
Crossfire mode or you can take advantage of that lucid Hydra Fusion technology
that is integrated into this board other expansion slots include two PCI e1x
slots one PCI slot and then you've got support for a whole bunch of one two up
to four front USB connectors front fire wire as as well as front audio right
there you have one uh auxiliary uh PCI
E6 pin connector so I guess if you're plugging in a couple really beefy gpus
you'd want to go ahead and populate that and then here you have an internal USB
3.0 Port this is smart because since most case manufacturers are implementing
USB 3.0 with just an internal USB
connector boom just plug it in there and you're done so instead of running like
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
then into the back of the motherboard on the io panel but MSI is saving you the
trouble here on the back we've got two PS2 ports one Mouse One keyboard a clear
Simo switch I love this this is one of my personal favorite features I love it
and then we've also got six USB 2.0 ports digital audio out in Optical as
well as coaxial flavors fire wire gigabit Ethernet One USB 3.0 Port
remember the other one is there's a bug on the uh motherboard box and the
cameraman's gotten distracted
remember the other USB 3.0 Port is inside for connection to front USB then
we have 7.1 audio out and not a whole lot to talk about on the back of the
motherboard although I can probably verify I'm not going to take that
sticker off okay I could check the traces here I'd be able to verify if the
hydr Chip's down there I believe it is though yeah thank you for checking out
my unboxing of the 870a fusion from MSI