MSI H55M ED55

Packaging & Initial Impressions

Published: 17th February 2010 | Source: www.msi.com | Price: £89.00 | Author: Milind Chidrawar

Arriving in a conventional glossy cardboard box, the H55M ED55 and it's accessories were packed securely enough to prevent even the least dexterous of postal workers from inflicting any damage.

In terms of accessories, MSI include a very standard set of equipment. Aside the mandatory Driver disc, I/O shield and manual, you'll find two SATA cables, a molex to SATA power adapter and a user manual. Note that this board does not come with a Crossfire bridge.

The motherboard itself is of a very conventional layout. The MOSFET cooling solution is particularly noteworthy with a high surface area and a heatpipe.

The H55M ED55 has a comprehensive rear I/O configuration including the choice of three video outputs. There is also three internal USB headers and a total of six SATA II ports, where four of which are mounted at a 90* angle.

Now here's the interesting stuff. On this particular motherboard, you'll find four embedded buttons. So the power toggle button is quite common on boards these days but the other three are a little...unique. The next two buttons are (and I kid you not) for incrementing and decrementing the base clock frequency of your processor. I'm a little unsure of how well it'll work but alongside this, you'll also find a glowing "OC GENIE" button as well. I shall return to this later on in the review. Until then, let's get testing shall we?