MSI 790FX-GD70

I must say that's a pretty nice mobo. Both visually and performance wise.

Its a bank holiday... STOP WORKING !!!!!

Nice review :P

Great mobo review Richard. Just ordered one of these boards up after reading this review by yourself. This is my first AMD board ever so I am looking forward to the new architecture over Intels old FSB! Will miss SLI but am happy to run my Nvidia cards through this board.

Well done on working on a Bank Holiday too. I am as well so I know how you feel/ felt!

Originally Posted by tejas
Great mobo review Richard. Just ordered one of these boards up after reading this review by yourself. This is my first AMD board ever so I am looking forward to the new architecture over Intels old FSB! Will miss SLI but am happy to run my Nvidia cards through this board.

Well done on working on a Bank Holiday too. I am as well so I know how you feel/ felt!

:) I still prefer Intel's tbh - feels more natural to me, but it takes time to learn the ropes of feeling of a new architecture so I encourage patience ;)

No holiday for me right now - spent the last 2 hours doing PRs and helping organise an upcoming competition :( (Also, Tim probably spent about 3hrs reading it this morning too :P poor sod haha)

this or the older one be very good for folding (4x video cards 9600GSO, GTX295 9800GX2), this one at last thay put the SATA ports on the side as on the older board thay the video cards whould block the SATA ports

Looks very good, its taken a while for the Am3 board reviews to surface. I bought the GA-MA790FXT-UD5P basically 3 months ago now, and I have still barely seen a review of it.

The board layout for this board is one of the best ive ever seen. Despite the mention of the northbridge/drmos heatsink getting a bit warm, its in an ideal position, and the combo heatsink frees up more room for the expansion slot (something that seems to be an issue on the x58 boards).

other thing was the SB750 sata ports were tested, as was the JMB362 esata port.... but not the JMB322. You seemed to suggest that the two jmicron chips are the same, or at least give the same performance. Any clarification on that?

have to say, it looks really nice, but the two PCI-e x16 / x8 electrical slots are a bummer... This could be MSI's/AMD's version of the skulltrail

Originally Posted by Ross1
other thing was the SB750 sata ports were tested, as was the JMB362 esata port.... but not the JMB322. You seemed to suggest that the two jmicron chips are the same, or at least give the same performance. Any clarification on that?

I'll fish out the numbers, but I didn't put them in.

Null - two x16 or four x8. Normal for the 790FX. The Skulltrail has an extra PCI-Express multiplier from the NF200 chipset, but x8 vs x16 doesn't make much difference at all.

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
I'll fish out the numbers, but I didn't put them in.

Null - two x16 or four x8. Normal for the 790FX. The Skulltrail has an extra PCI-Express multiplier from the NF200 chipset, but x8 vs x16 doesn't make much difference at all.

ok, well it was to my understanding that you cant use a full pci-e gfx card in a pcie x16 /x8 electrical because its only half the performance...

Nice review and concrats to MSI for finally make a good looking motherboard. Now make a lite version without ide/floppy...

I always liked MSI, their P35 boards were great IMO.

I'm dying for AMD to release their 6-core CPUs so I can warrant an upgrade!

£140 for a top end AM3 board.... Jesus AMD really are offering a much more credit crunch-friendly platform option over Intel.

lol. I agree with you Richard tho and I was only kidding about the old FSB thing! ;) 1333FSB is still plenty esp with the large L2 cache on the Intels.

I currently run an Intel Yorkfield QX9650 and it is super with no problems. Just curious to try out AMD on my second folding/ part time gaming rig to see how it compares in day to day operation. Good luck with the PR's and competition.

I better get back to work myself! :)

That board is gorgeous, I wish other companies would put as much consideration into the visuals of their boards.
Yellow/Orange/Red headers on a Black/Blue board? Fail.

Kudos to MSI for making a board that doesn't look like it was put together from the scrapings of Foxconn's factory floor.

the nb and the pwms are very well positioned to watercool it easily :)

http://anfi-tec.de/forenbilder/09.04.19/4.JPG

http://anfi-tec.de/forenbilder/09.04.19/2.JPG

Originally Posted by D-Cyph3r
£140 for a top end AM3 board.... Jesus AMD really are offering a much more credit crunch-friendly platform option over Intel.

I have to admit - I haven't even taken the cheaper GD65 (790GX) out the box yet... :o

Andreoid - Gorgeous mate!! Looking lovely.

Originally Posted by null_x86
ok, well it was to my understanding that you cant use a full pci-e gfx card in a pcie x16 /x8 electrical because its only half the performance...

x16/x8 at PCI-E 2.0 spec is ~1-0.5FPS difference. I got the slots wrong the first time because they are all the same colour and rechecked my results.

Originally Posted by tejas
lol. I agree with you Richard tho and I was only kidding about the old FSB thing! ;) 1333FSB is still plenty esp with the large L2 cache on the Intels.

I currently run an Intel Yorkfield QX9650 and it is super with no problems. Just curious to try out AMD on my second folding/ part time gaming rig to see how it compares in day to day operation. Good luck with the PR's and competition.

I better get back to work myself! :)

Actually higher FSB = better memory write/copy performance so the more the merrier.

Originally Posted by null_x86

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
I'll fish out the numbers, but I didn't put them in.

Null - two x16 or four x8. Normal for the 790FX. The Skulltrail has an extra PCI-Express multiplier from the NF200 chipset, but x8 vs x16 doesn't make much difference at all.

ok, well it was to my understanding that you cant use a full pci-e gfx card in a pcie x16 /x8 electrical because its only half the performance...

pci-e 2.0 slot in 8x mode same speed as an PCI-e 1.0 16x slot, most video cards at the time only need PCI-e 1.0 8x, even with the GTX295 as it only copys the data to one video GPU the SLI built into the GTX295 does the copy command over to the other GPU

Nice review, wish i could afford an upgrade to Socket AM3 at the minute :(

There's a nice article here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-2.0,1915-11.html which shows that fps doesn't really drop-off significantly on pcie 2.0 until you drop down to x4 speed at higher resolutions, and even then some games won't be affected.

Wow.... a Msi board (other than the p35 platinum) that has only minor flaws....I thought I would not see the day that happened.

Originally Posted by leexgx
pci-e 2.0 slot in 8x mode same speed as an PCI-e 1.0 16x slot, most video cards at the time only need PCI-e 1.0 8x, even with the GTX295 as it only copys the data to one video GPU the SLI built into the GTX295 does the copy command over to the other GPU

so basically, if i am understanding you correctly, you could use this board for 3/4 way SLI?

Originally Posted by null_x86
so basically, if i am understanding you correctly, you could use this board for 3/4 way SLI?

No.
You can't use SLI on a board with a AMD chipset.
However, you can run crossfire with 4 cards.

You can run 4 nvidia cards as well, but they will work separately, not in sli.

Originally Posted by naokaji
No.
You can't use SLI on a board with a AMD chipset.
However, you can run crossfire with 4 cards.

You can run 4 nvidia cards as well, but they will work separately, not in sli.

meh, so 4way crossfire?

Originally Posted by null_x86
meh, so 4way crossfire?

Yes, that will work.

Originally Posted by Andreoid
the nb and the pwms are very well positioned to watercool it easily :)

http://anfi-tec.de/forenbilder/09.04.19/4.JPG

http://anfi-tec.de/forenbilder/09.04.19/2.JPG

Nice! Got to remember this when I get my vacation money..