Perhaps the biggest problem we saw with initial Intel X58 motherboards was their substantial price. Add to that the serious price premium for DDR3 memory, and you ended up with a relatively affordable and fast Core i7 920 processor that nevertheless needed to run on an expensive platform.

The recent drop in DDR3 pricing got us thinking about the affordability of the Core i7 platform, and we began to wonder just how cheap users could build one of these systems.

MSI has quietly been preparing an army of Core i7 motherboards, now with five unique models on offer, we feel they may have what we're after. The X58 Pro-E is an interesting looking motherboard, priced at around $200 which is almost as low as X58-based motherboards will go.