MSI originally showcased its ECO series of motherboards at Computex 2014, but at the time it was clear that it was not yet a finished product. While MSI had finished what it wanted to do with the feature set, it still needed to finalize some production kinks and the software. Now it has done so.
The ECO motherboards from MSI are aimed at bringing the most efficient motherboards made possible through the use of various power saving techniques. The motherboards are designed from the ground up to give almost every feature the option of being switched off; this is accessible through the software. You will be able to switch off almost everything ranging from specific fans to audio ports to the PCI port. CPU power profiles can also be adjusted. When finished, you can save these settings to the BIOS and keep them in the system permanently. MSI claims that the boards are so efficient that when coupled with the right processor, they will consume less power than a standard 15-watt light bulb.
At Computex 2014, one of the motherboards was showcased with a white PCB instead of a dark organic brown color. MSI indicated that it had to work out a way to prevent the PCBs from turning yellow when soldering. The problem appears to have been solved by simply getting rid of the white PCB color. Therefore, all the motherboards have light green accents to go along with the ECO theme.
The three variants of the board that will come out are the H81M ECO, the B85M ECO, and the H97M ECO, and they are all Micro-ATX boards.
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