MSI has announced a couple of new members to its Gaming motherboard series, the A88X-G45 Gaming and the A88XM Gaming. Both based on AMD's high-end A88X chipset with support for FM2+ and FM2 socket APUs, including the recently launched Kaveri APU, these two new motherboards will pack some features reserved for Gaming motherboard series, including Killer LAN, Audio Boost, USB Audio Power and Military Calls 4 components.

As noted, both motherboards are a part of MSI's Gaming series and include features like MSI Audio Boost with Creative Sound Blaster Cinema 7.1-channel chip, MSI USB Audio Power which should deliver 5V for external DACs, Killer LAN for perfect LAN traffic and Military Class 4 components, which include Hi-C Caps, Super Ferrite Chokes and Solid CAPs. Both motherboards also feature MSI's OC Genie 4 with new two-stage on-second overclocking as well as MSI's graphical monitoring interface, Click BIOS 4.

Although both motherboards are pretty much the same, specification wise, since they are both based on the same AMD A88X chipset, the smaller A88XM has fewer PCI slots, so it ends up with two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots and two PCI-Express x1 slots, while the bigger A88X-G45 extends the support to three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, three PCI-Express x1 and one legacy PCI slot. Both motherboards also pack eight SATA ports, bunch of USB ports, four DIMM memory slots, and hefty heatsink in MSI's black/red Gaming series color scheme.

In addition to all those Gaming series features, the MSI A88X-G45 will also be bundled with Assassin's Creed Liberation HD game as well. According to AMD, both motherboards should be available in retail/e-tail pretty soon but MSI, unfortunately, did not reveal any details regarding the actual price.





Source: MSI.com.