It may be compact, but there’s a lot going on inside here
The MSI Nightblade range has recently added to its catalogue of gaming systems with the launch of the Nightblade MI. MSI has primarily developed the Nightblade MI for the mini-ITX, 1080p gaming community or, to ranslate, those who prefer their living room gaming to be based around a PC rather than a console, and want a discrete system for that purpose.
That being the case, the design of the Nightblade MI needs to be as compact and efficient as possible, while still delivering the kind of performance required. Thankfully, the Nightblade’s ITX dimensions hide an impressive set of specifications: our test machine consisted of an ITX B85 motherboard, Intel core i5-4460S at 3.0GHz, 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 memory, a 128GB Transcend SSD370 with Windows 10 preinstalled, and a secondary 1TB WD Blue hard drive.
Graphics come courtesy of an MSI GTX960 OC edition with 2GB of GDDR5 memory, and a base clock speed of 1178MHz, with a boost clock speed of 1241MHz. That's a good choice of card, as it's relatively cool when running thanks to the pair of propeller blade technology fans and its intelligent management system.
Connectivity on the Nightblade MI is also pretty decent. The backplate houses a PS/2 mouse and keyboard combo port, gigabit Ethernet, four USB 2.0 ports and a pair of USB 3.0 ports. There’s a six-port OFC set of audio ports, and from the rear of the GTX960 you get a pair of DisplayPort and HDMI ports, along with DVI. Furthermore there’s an Intel 3160 AC wi-fi, Bluetooth 4.0, a DVD/RW optical drive, another two USB 3.0 ports situated on the front – to the right of the case – as well as a headphone and mic port.
That’s quite a lot to pack into a case that measures just 127 x 234 x 340mm, and you would be forgiven for immediately jumping to the conclusion that the inside of the Nightblade MI must be allbut on fire. However, MSI has seen fit to install its Silent Storm Cooling design, whereby a heatpipe and sealed heatsink in the chassis manage to keep the entire system cool by displacing the heat and forcing cool air through two chambers within the case. This means that the individual components keep cool enough even when under the stress of gaming.
It’s a clever design, and it works well. It even leaves room in the case for another 3.5" hard drive, fitted via a removable caddy from the top of the chassis. With this option available, the Nightblade can easily double up as a media centre as well as a games machine.
In our tests, the 3DMark 11 score was an impressive 8614 overall, making it capable of playing most, if not all modern triple-A titles. Additionally the PCMark 8 score was 4572, meaning that the Nightblade is more than just a tiny power packed gaming machine, it can also take on video encoding and other media duties as well as day-to-day office tasks.
The MSI Nightblade MI is an excellent living room and small desktop PC. It’s more than powerful enough for the average gamer and media enthusiast, and it doesn’t cost too much either.
The test model costs £699, but there's a cheaper Pentium K/GT740 option, also minus the SSD, for £499. By December, there'll be Skylake builds of the Nightblade with i5 and i7, GTX960 and 970 GPUs for between £799-£999. Any of those would add up to superb mini-ITX gaming and media PC dependent on your needs. David Hayward
A well specified and cunningly designed ITX PC.