MSI Offers 'Infinite' Possibilities With New Desktop Series (Updated)

Updated 6/5/2017, 8:05am PT: MSI confirmed that the Infinite A has a vertically-mounted GPU, support for DDR4-2400 RAM, and a Realtek 8111H gigabit Ethernet controller. It will also be available with Core i5 processors, and it's coming this month. The article has been updated to reflect this new information.

Original article, 5/24/17, 7:45pm PT:

With Computex come and gone, MSI has revealed several new products for 2018, including a new gaming desktop PC called the “Infinite Series.”

MSI said that the new MSI Infinite A was inspired by “gamers who have a never-ending desire to game and want infinite possibilities to play the way they want,” and it portends top-tier performance for the games of today and tomorrow with easy upgradeability.

A New Look For MSI

The flashy chassis features a tempered-glass side panel, in addition to an RGB LED-lit front panel. The Infinite A will also has a graphics card riser (MSI confirmed this in an official release on 6/5), allowing the GPU to be orientated upright in the chassis. This new look is a noticeable departure from other MSI desktops such as the gamer-centric Aegis, Nightblade, and Trident, which feature red and black edgy cases with plastic side panels.

Specifications

Full specifications of the Infinite series desktops aren’t available yet, but we managed to shake out some of the major features from MSI representatives before the big show in Taipei. Several other tidbits have been confirmed by a new press release from MSI.

The MSI Infinite A features an Intel Core i7-7700 processor on an MSI B250 motherboard that supports up to 64GB of DDR4-2400 memory with four U-DIMM slots. The Infinite series can also be equipped with Intel Core i5 processors, but MSI hasn't confirmed specific models bearing the lesser CPU at present.

The motherboard sports a single M.2 PCIe/SATA SSD slot, and there’s two 3.5” and three 2.5” drive bays available in the case’s interior. An MSI gaming desktop wouldn’t be complete without a company-branded GPU, and thus the Infinite series features the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming 8GB graphics card. With MSI's admission that Core i5 variants will also be available, its likely a sure bet that the company will also offer less powerful MSI-branded GPUs.

Connectivity

The front panel features two USB 3.1 (Gen1, 5Gbps) ports--one with a Type-A connector and one with a Type-C. There’s also a single USB 2.0 port. The rear panel sports three more USB 3.1 Type-A ports, another USB 3.1 Type-C port, two USB 3.0 ports, and two PS/2 connectors for a keyboard and mouse. Network connectivity is provided by an RJ45 gigabit Ethernet port (Realtek 8111H) and an Intel Wireless-AC 3168 module.

To hook up your display, the MSI Infinite series features a DVI port on the motherboard and the three DisplayPort, one HDMI, and DVI-D ports of the graphics card. The front panel also features a VR Link HDMI pass-through port, which allows users to connect their HMD (such as an HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, or Acer Mixed Reality headset) to the front of the PC to increase the boundaries of your tethered VR experience.  (You save a few inches of cable if you don’t have to connect it to the rear ports.)

Pricing is currently unknown, but if we learned anything from the Aegis lineup launches, the Infinite series will most likely debut as a barebones system, followed by fully loaded models at various price points. However, we won't have to wait long to find out; the Infinite A will arrive sometime in June.