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MSI AM3 mainboard fully supports AMD latest 45nm Phenom II processor and DDR3 memory. Not only that, Gaming series mainboard even comes with OC Dial and MAX FSB advanced overclocking technologies, as well as M-Flash BIOS update mechanism protection. OC Dial and MAX FSB overclocking enable users to overclock easily and become an expert in a short period of time; M-Flash enables user to load the BIOS files from USB drive to boot up. In addition, this mainboard features full support for multimedia applications, Blu-ray high-definition hardware audio, and complete display output interface to provide full HD and high-performance 3D display capabilities. This mainboard is simply one of the best solutions for gamers and multimedia users.
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Technical Details
- MSI 790FX-GD70 Socket AM3 FSB 2600 CPU Support Phenom II, Triple Core, Quad Core ATX- Chipset AMD 790FX Crossfire Hadeon HD 3300 512MB SATA2 RAID PCI-E 16x 2 Gen.2 (8x+8x) PCI-E 1x - 2 slot PCI - 2 Slots
- 4 Slots DDR3 Memory Bus Dual/1800/200+ 24 GB Max HD Audio 8 Channel Realtek GB LAN
- ATI Cross-FireX, 1394, RAID 0,1,0+1, 5, SATA2, PCI-e Gen.2,Esata, HDMI, DVI, VGA, HyBrid CrossFire, eSATA
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By D. Tennimon (Oregon)
This mobo is awesome! Yes it has the feature to unlock cores on am3 processor that has them locked (example phenom x2) so that it can be a quad core. I ended up buying the athlon x4, which dont get me wrong still is a quad and still is fast, but for the same price I could have gotten the phenom and unlocked it. It would have been equivelent to a $200 quad.
Only negative I had to manual set my ram speed to 1600. It auto clocked my 1600 ram to 1333. No biggy its in the bios under cell menu, I think the ratio was 1:4 but I dont remember and am too lazy to restart and rewrite this review
By D Tse (Arcadia, CA USA)
Very good Motherboard and easy to assemble with AMD Phenom II Quad and Kingston Hyper X 1600(OC)8Gb Memory Chips.
Running smooth and CrossFireX with ATI HD 5770 two cards with no problem. Best price for this MSI Motherboard and I am satisfied and highly recommend to build on this Board.
DT
Arcadia, CA
By Linguaphile (NY, USA)
Quick review:
Solid motherboard, great value for the money, quick and easy installation, power and reset buttons on the board, tons of overclocking options, wonderful capabilities. The perfect motherboard for everyday computer usage and even some gaming. It saves you money by having onboard graphics, and is capable of playing HD videos and basically doing everything that you expect from a powerful budget computer.
Detailed review:
I am not a gamer. I basically use my PC for multimedia, some programming, and some image-editing. I decided to build a new computer as the ever more resources-intensive browsers started to really affect the performance of my old computer. What I basically wanted was a computer that was going to let me surf, watch HD videos, and that won't keep me waiting for minutes for applications to launch.
When you read online reviews, you may recognize a tendency for people to exaggerate the importance of certain products. You don't need four slots for four $100+ graphics cards if you're not a hardcore gamer - it's only going to strain your resources and will require an entire blueprint for your case cooling. Don't pay more for anything that you're not going to need even 2 to 3 years from now. Knowing that I have no need for all those slots, I decided to go for this motherboard. Which basically has all the features, it also has SB750, so unlocking hidden cores (Phenom II X3 720, Phenom II X2 550) shouldn't be a problem.
The installation was a breeze. There are blue LED's that tell you what went wrong in your installation if the motherboard refuses to post - i.e. your motherboard refuses to start. The only downside is that there is no real explanation for what each of those LED's stands for in the manual or online. The other good thing about this motherboard is the power and reset buttons. As someone who doesn't assemble PC's for a living I am bound to freak out if my motherboard doesn't start. Also, connecting all those wires from the case bezel to the motherboard isn't always a fool-proof procedure - you will be able to eliminate the possibility that your connections from the case's power button to the motherboard are faulty. So, it definitely helps with the troubleshooting. The same LED's that I mentioned also look great if your case has a see-through side panel.
The quick installation guide is really great. It saves you the time of having to go through the manual, and in my case, it really helped me know where all those cables from the computer case are supposed to go.
Installing the CPU - Phenom II X4 955 - was very easy, my Corsair DDR3 1600 ram worked right away - at 1066Mhz, Corsair says that it should be overclocked to 1600, but I don't really see a difference and I don't want a lot of heat circulating in there. The DIMM slots - the slots where you place your RAM - are not too close to the processor. They didn't interfere with my installation of the stock CPU heatsink and fan.
It will also support the old 140W Phenom II X4 965 which is currently available at Amazon - a 125W version is available elsewhere.
The onboard graphics - ATI Radeon HD3300 - has played all the HD videos that I threw at it, even the 1080p ones. It also doesn't take that much from my system's memory. I have 4GB of memory, and I have 3.6 available to my OS. It's great because my memory usage rarely hits 2GHz, even with heavy browsing - multiple youtube videos, flash-intensive websites, etc - and many applications open. I also like the fact that this motherboard still has two slots for any discrete graphics cards that I may buy in the future if my requirements change. It has two slots, so crossfire - using more than one ATI graphics card at the same time - isn't going to be a problem if it becomes a necessity 3-4 years from now.
I also had no issues with sound. I mostly use Linux, and the Arch installer recognized the onboard sound right away, and I also had no issues with the ethernet adapter. Everything basically works right out of the box.
The motherboard also has one IDE slot, which means that you can salvage two IDE drives from any old computer lying around if you want to, this is great especially for DVD drives, which don't affect the system's performance in major ways. You can even use those old hard disk drives if you feel like it.
Here's what this motherboard has:
- It has all the USB 2.0 slots that you can wish for - 6, and has three places where you connect the cables from your case for even more USB ports.
- eSata - for highspeed external hard disk drives.
- HDMI - for blu-ray video playback on new monitors without the need for converters.
- RAID - for arranging the hard disks in arrays (great for some people whose data will benefit from redundancy).
- Gigabit ethernet - high-speed network connectivity for great transfer rates between computers on the same network if the hardware supports it.
- 128 MB included memory for the onboard graphics - more performance.
- 8 channel high definition audio.
- IDE - for up to two old PATA drives.
- It supports trusted computing - required by Windows 7 Ultimate bitlocker for full disk encryption and is likely to be heavily marketed because it will give vendors more control over DRM media (you're future-proof because you will be able to get it when they start requiring it), you will need to buy a TPM (Trusted Platform Module, a card-like chip that you connect to your computer) though. It's a good thing that they haven't included it by default as a lot of controversy surrounds trusted computing.
I decided to give MSI a try as I had some serious issues with Gigabyte and Asus motherboards in the past. So far, this wonderful motherboard has met and even surpassed all of my expectations. It worked right out of the box, wasn't dead on arrival - I didn't have to RMA it, came in wonderful packaging, and had all the things that you expect a motherboard's vendor to include. I only think that they need to include what those blue LED lights stand for in the manual, and maybe slightly redesign their website.
Notes:
- Make sure you choose an AM3 CPU. I personally choose Phenom II X4 955 because it has the best value for the money at the moment and is very future proof. It can be overclocked to the speed of the Phenom II 965, but those 200Mhz don't make any difference now.
- This motherboard doesn't support DDR2, if you have some DDR2 modules lying around from an older build and would like to use those then get an AM2+ motherboard, it will still support the new AM3 Phenoms as they're backwards compatible.
- This motherboard doesn't have USB 3.0 - the modern external USB devices that we all use are USB 2.0, which is likely to be heavily marketed in 6 months or so. I don't think that it's really worth the wait, as the eSata is more than great. It's good to keep in mind that USB 3.0 is still a new technology, so when it's available it's going be very expensive and won't be free from errors for a while. It will be two to three years before USB 3.0 devices start floating around. AMD and intel will not support USB 3.0 till 2011, but then AMD's Bulldozer - a new processor by AMD, more cores, more efficiency - will be available then and who knows what else. Even then, USB 3.0 devices will be backward-compatible, so you will still be able to use them with this motherboard.
Conclusion:
It's a great motherboard, has a great price, and has all that you need to build a very modern computer. It's well-documented and makes building your own computer easier than ever.
By J. S. Green
I paired this product with the AMD Phenom II X4 965 chip, which is quad core and runs at 3.4 Mhz. It is installed in an Antec 300 case with 550w power supply, 8 Ghz DDR3 and Windows 7 Professional.
Features:
- The board has lots and lots of I/O. ESATA, USB, Firewire 400, HDMI, VGA and DVI outputs, LAN, single Optical sound port, and six sound connectors.
- Internal inputs are available for additional 3 USB ports, Firewire, Optical sound, CD-in, Chassis Intrusion Switch, Serial port, Floppy Drive, SATA and IDE connectors, and high quality sound outputs.
- The board has a "clear CMOS" switch, which will take you back to factory settings, which might be useful if you get yourself into trouble overclocking.
- There is a block of two dip switches that allow you to overclock the board setting by 10%, 15%, or 20%. I found the settings in the BIOS to be more convenient, since I don't have to open the case to change them, so other than a brief test at 10% I didn't use these.
- There is a connector for a "trusted computing" card, but no such card is provided.
- There are an additional 2 PCIe x1 slots.
- The board came with IDE and SATA cables, a nice touch.
- NOTE: this board requires DDR3 memory. GET THE RIGHT MEMORY.
- The motherboard has a program available from the website that sets the BIOS memory to start up at a specified time, and hibernate/ shutdown Windows at a certain time. My past motherboards have had this as a BIOS setting, but after using it I find this to be a better system. I can control the settings without entering the BIOS, or even leaving Windows. It works very well.
- The board supports both "ganged" and "unganged" memory modes; unganged (where each processor is allocated a portion of the memory) is standard.
- The board supports AMD "cool n quiet" mode, where the CPU changes the chip speed. My Phenom 965 runs at 600, 2400, or 3400 - each core can change separately, based on demand. This results in a very cool running system at idle (30 degrees C).
- Support is provided to allow the CPU to control the heat sink fan speed. I notice that in the "cool n quiet" mode it is very silent, but when the cores go to full speed, the fan is noticeable. In other words, the variable speed CPU fan works well.
Drawbacks:
- Only 6 USB ports on the back. I actually have filled up all of them!
- I found the on board video performance to be a bit less than I prefer. It clocked out on the Windows 7 ratings at around 5, as I recall. I installed a GEFORCE GS250 board.
- There is only one x16 PCI slot; if you install two video cards it will become 2 X x8. I don't plan to use more than one card, so it did not make a difference to me.
- The onboard SATA connectors face the front edge of the board, so you have to bend the cable to install them. I think that connectors would be easier to use if they faced upwards rather than sideways. But it is not a huge issue.
- There is a "Reset" button on the motherboard. This is NOT the pin that connects to your switch - it is a button. I can't think of when this would possibly be used in normal conditions, since you would have to switch off the computer to open the case.
- The board has a tendency to modify the boot menu when you add hardware to the system. I have swapped out external drives several times, and each time the BIOS changed the boot order - a couple of times to an unbootable drive. I have learned that after installing hard drives, go into the BIOS and check the boot order!
Installation:
No real problems here, the booklet is helpful, although I had to check the pin outs of the front panel connectors several times.
Operation:
- The BIOS has lots of settings for overclocking and other controls. I found them very easy to use. However my standard configuration is not overclocked.
- The BIOS scans for external bootable USB devices at startup. This can cause some long startups if you have bootable backup drives.
- I have had no problems with the board while running Windows 7 Professional.
Even with the above quirks, I can recommend this board as a middle price unit. If you have a bit more money, the FX model has better graphics and 2 X x16 PCIe multi-video board support. But for a basic business unit, or a basic gaming computer, this is a good choice.
******UPDATE 7 Jan 2010 ***********
The only issue I've had with the board is that under Windows 7 Professional, the numlock defaults to OFF. I'm not sure if this is a motherboard issue or a setting in Win 7.
*************Update 8 Jan 2010 **********
A helpful user posted a fix for the numberlock, see comments below.
By Ajiron (Miami, FL United States)
No problems getting my Black Edition AMD CPU to its highest clock on air... a 400 Mhz jump. Would recommend to anybody, even if not an OC'er, it has all you could need even Crossfire x2.
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