MSI unveils AM3 Phenom II motherboards

Posted at: 8:02am 23rd January 2009 by Ben Hardwidge

Pair of AM3 motherboards take AMD’s Phenom II into the age of DDR3 memory

Although AMD has yet to officially reveal all the details of its forthcoming 941-pin AM3 CPU socket, MSI has already announced two new motherboards that will support the company’s first foray into the world of DDR3 system memory.

The first board, the 790GX-G65, will be based on AMD’s 790GX chipset and will feature integrated Radeon HD 3300 graphics, including 128MB of dedicated DDR3 SidePort memory. The board will also back this up with a useful array of connectors, including VGA, DVI and HDMI ports, which could make it appeal to those wanting to put together a media centre PC. As well as this, the board is capable of supporting Hybrid CrossFireX with a second Radeon HD 3400 card,

With its two 16x PCI-E graphics slots, the board will also support usual CrossFire configurations via two graphics cards, and there are two 1x PCI-E slots and two PCI slots on there as well. Meanwhile, four dual-channel DDR3 memory slots can support up to 16GB of RAM.

Next up is the 790FX-GD70, which is based on AMD’s 790FX chipset and aimed at the higher end of the market. The board features four 16x PCI-E graphics slots, as well as MSI’s five-phase DrMOS power design, which the company says will have no problem supporting quad-core processors with a TDP of 140W. Like the 790GX-G65, the 790FX-GD70 also supports up to 16GB of dual-channel DDR3 RAM and comes with two 1x PCI-E slots and two standard PCI slots too.

Both the motherboards will support MSI’s M-Flash technology, which allows you to test-drive a new BIOS via a USB thumb drive, among other features. The two motherboards will also be equipped with AMD’s SB750 Southbridge chip.