As we draw closer to the November launch of the Sandy Bridge-E platform, we get the chance to check out some of the new motherboards that are due to coincide with the launch. Due to NDA, we can't get too specific on CPUs, nor can we talk about anything performance related. We seem to have the ability to tell you a fair bit about the board, though.

So, in following our normal preview style, we'll check out the MSI X79A-GD65 today and see what we've got to look forward to come November. Apparently I can't be specific about a launch date, but let's be honest, we all have a fairly good idea of when it's due. So what's our normal preview style? - Well, we'll check out the box and the package of the board. Once that's done we'll take a closer look at the board itself and go through some of the main features that are on offer. There are some things we can't cover, but there's a lot we can.