MSI @ Computex 2023

The Computex 2023 event is busy as ever, and it seems every major brand has a pretty significant presence here at the show. This is especially true of MSI, who have a vast ran of new and upcoming products on display. Such as their fantastic Project Zero. Now, they’re not the only brand to try this at the show, with Gigabyte and ASUS taking their own shot at motherboard cable routing solutions. However, it does look amazing!

They take all the cable connectors from the front of the motherboard and solder them on the back. Of course, that will play hell with most PC cases, so this is in one of their own PC cases which is also modified to allow such a layout.

The benefits are clear though, as not only does it smarten up the overall aesthetics at the front of the motherboard, it also allows for the heatsinks to be even bigger than usual, which could improve overall performance.

The case is the lovely MSI Vampiric, albeit it’s the new Project Zero edition which features the unique backplate for the motherboard mount. As you can see, cable management is truly remarkable, with hardly any on show here.

Of course, that does mean the cables still exist, they’re just now all located at the back, and there’s more cable routing space to help deal with the extra load here too.

Next up, we have their new MEG power supplies, which are the ones we already know and love, but with one key upgrade.

Those pesky 12v cables have been heavily upgraded with a more robust connector design that is said to be a much more robust fitting than the one currently on the market. While the melting issues are pretty much a small percentage, any steps to get this right are welcome in my book.

I can’t wait to get one into the office for a more in-depth comparison of these cables.

Saving the best till last, we have MSI really impressive M.2 heatsink design. With the flagship drives capable of soaring over 100c when under a sustained load, cooling your M.2 drives has never been so important to both protect the drive and to maintain performance without throttling.

As you can see, the SPATIUM M570 Pro with the FROZR+ cooler is an absolute beast of an SSD. The read and write speeds are really something, with 14GB read and 12GB write. However, it’s able to maintain temperatures in the mid 40c are, despite being benchmarked in a hot trade show hall.

As you can see, the two drives in raid each have their own SPATIUM Frozr+ on a PCIe Gen5 interface, but as you saw above, you can use a single one on your motherboard too, and the heat pipe and active fan design make this one of the most impressive M.2 coolers we’ve seen.