At Computex 2026, MSI celebrated its 40th anniversary and, to commemorate the milestone, set up an interactive exhibition at the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park in Taipei City. A free public event, we had the chance to visit the spot during our week at the show and were immediately impressed by how MSI presented its long history in a way that was still fun and surprising.
Basically, the walkthrough exhibition was broken down into themed areas, from one that took a look back at the company's beginnings as a motherboard maker, through to deep dives into its manufacturing and design process, various partnerships, and a mock-up esports arena created to showcase the company's various PC gaming products and milestones.
Naturally, for those of us who have been in the industry for several years, it was cool to see motherboards, graphics cards, and other gear from the past. And with that, let's take a look at some of the old and new stuff from the exhibition, starting with these old motherboards from 1999, which include the K7 PRO. A motherboard designed for a now ancient AMD chipset.
Or the more recent but still old MSI Eclipse SLI X58 from 2009, designed for SLI and multi-GPU setups.
At the exhibition, we also got to see some notable MSI laptops, including the company's very first custom laptop from 2004. As cool and surprisingly lightweight as it was to see the company's first laptop, it was the MSI GT80 that immediately grabbed our attention. This is more of an all-in-one PC than a laptop, as it features a full mechanical keyboard and dual Titan SLI GPUs for flagship gaming performance.
Naturally, MSI had several classic GPUs on display, including a few from the Lightning series that hearken back to the era of pre-RTX PC gaming. Plus, some of the company's newer cards, like its special edition GeForce RTX 5070s created in collaboration with Blizzard to celebrate the launch of the World of Warcraft Midnight expansion.
In addition to an interactive gaming area, MSI also had various office-like and even data center setups to showcase its broad lineup and history. However, perhaps some of the most impressive hardware was its 40th Anniversary Limited Edition Series, which covered everything from flagship cases to motherboards, GPUs, and more.
