MSI P55-GD80 Motherboard for LGA1156 CPUs review

Intel launched their X58-chipset based high-end platform back in November 2008 and the i7-based CPUs blew everything else out of the water, when it hit the markets. Just about a year later, Intel followed with the new P55 based platform that is aimed at the mainstream markets. In general the P55 and Lynnfield processors were meant to fill in the gap that was left behind Nehalem and the older Core2 CPUs.

Now that the P55 markets have settled, we thought it would be a nice time to get acquainted with the platform. We received some nice hardware from Intel and G.Skill so we could review the top-of-the-line motherboard from MSI, the P55-GD80. Lets see what kind of a splash this motherboard makes.