MSI CG681-S6093 Designed for New PCIe Server GPU Liquid-Cooling and Power Delivery
The MSI CG681-S6093 is a big 6U PCIe GPU server, but it is full of surprises to say the least.
First, the top portion with the E1.S SSDs and top fans lifts up to provide access to the GPUs.
The GPUs utilize the NVIDIA ConnectX-8 PCIe switch PCB, so that means there are eight 400Gbps ports driven by four NVIDIA ConnectX-8 NICs below the GPU PCIe slots.
The chassis was clearly a prototype, and not all of the cables like the MCIO connections back to the CPUs were not installed. Still, we saw a few neat things in the GPU area.
If you look between the MCIO connectors and the internal manifold, you will see standoffs for another piece. This should be the power delivery for the GPUs.
That internal manifold is also interesting since it has nozzles for more cards than the PCIe board can provide.
The nozzles have a lot of force behind them, so the black retention area behind the nozzles is required to lock GPUs in place. It takes quite a bit of force to get GPUs locked in place.
Just so you can see the card end of this, here are the nozzles and the locking bracket for the new NVIDIA RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell Server Edition for liquid-cooled servers like this.
You might also notice the power tab. Instead of each GPU having its own set of cables distributing power, NVIDIA is bypassing that design and using a tab design to deliver more power to GPUs.
This server is powered by dual AMD EPYC 9005 series CPUs.
Behind the CPUs, you can see an array of MCIO ports ready to bring PCIe connectivity to the GPUs, NICs, and more.
The rear of the server is also interesting. While the top portion is air-cooled, the bottom portion is mainly liquid-cooled.
Here you can see a liquid-cooling nozzle and just one power supply installed.
If you cannot tell, this is a fairly early prototype of this design, so not all of the components are populated. Still, it is enough to get the general design direction.
Final Words
MSI had a lot at its booth, ranging from the small like the MSI EdgeExpert and larger MSI XpertStation WS300 for in-office deployments to large air-cooled and liquid-cooled servers. MSI has traditionally been known as more of a consumer brand, but over the past few years it has been expanding into the server space.
Hopefully, this gives you some sense of what was in the MSI booth at NVIDIA GTC 2026. There were some neat designs at the show, including some future servers.
