Customer Reviews

MSI 790FX-GD70 Socket AM3--140 Watt CPU--AMD 790FX CrossFire--4DDR3-2133(OC)--ATI Quad/Triple CrossFireX--ATX Motherboard

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I purchased this board on Amazon after doing some research on the web, Mainly the tussle between Core I7 and Socket Am3. Core I7 is definitely faster but more expensive plus difference in performance is negligible UNLESS you're doing a Dual or Quad Crossfire gig.OK let me give you my full specifications:-

1. MSI 790FX-GD70

2. AMD Phenom 2 X4 955 3.2GHz, 6M L3 Cache

3. Zalman CNPS9700

4. Sapphire Radeon HD4870 1GB

5. Thermaltake Armor+Mx

6. Antec TPQ 850

7. HP 2159M HD Monitor

8. Corsair DDR3 1333 2x2GB (4GB Total)

9. Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB x 2

Folks I have this system up and running for about one month now with no problems. Some more specifications on the board as that is the main focus it has 4 DIMMS DDR3 2000+ up to 16GB, Four(4)PCI-E, Realtek 8 Channel bluray Ready Audio, Dual GB LAN, IEEE 1394, Raid, SATA2 , ESATA, Overclock Dial, Live Update, ATI Crossfire Technology, Express Cool (Eliminates noise), Rapid Boost (Stable Overclocking), AMD 790FX Chipset , ATI SB750 Chipset.Even has a Coaxial S/PDIF out jack /Optical S/PDIF out port. You gamers need to know though if youre going Quad there's not going to be much room to add anything else (the two PCI slots and the PCI-E X1 ) my card covers the PCI-E X1 the monster takes up two slots!! You'll also have to boost your power supply probably to a 1000 watts. Please note also that Socket AM2+ processors WILL NOT work In Socket AM3 boards, whilst Socket Am3 processors will work in socket AM2+\AM3 motherboards.

Bought this board wanting to do dual CrossFire, run an AMD Phenom 2 X4 955 3.2 GHz, and do striping RAID. I could only find 3 boards at the time that would support these requirements and this one looked the best by far on paper. It's a really stable board. After I got all my drivers updated, I haven't had one program freeze (other than IE) or a system crash. The few complaints that I do have is that the instructions for how to setup the jumpers is a little confusing, but no so much so that you can't figure it out. Another problem I had was that my front audio jacks don't work. I don't use them that much and it wasn't worth the effort of disassembling my pc to RMA it for this (and I have quadruple checked my connections). Also, I would note that I don't see how it's physically possible to run quad cross fire. Sure there are enough slots, but by the time I got two Sapphire Radeon HD4870 1GB cards installed, I barely had room for anything else. I guess if you have really tiny hands and an extra large case it wouldn't be a problem.

Great motherboard, dual 16x pcie channels for crossfire, 8x8x8x8 for quad. Overclocks over 4.1 for black edition Phenom 2's not uncommon. Will have to enter the bios to get 1600mhz memory (ddr3)to run at full speed.

Lots of fanboys and support sites for overclocking.

I used a beta bios ( bios 1.5b4) to unlock the 4th core on my 720be (2.8Ghz) then bumped the core voltage to 1.48 and set the multiplier to 18. (4x cores at 3.6Ghz)

It's a pretty solid MOB, the integrated True Blu Ray Audio system is great. The Over clocking features on it are not so reliable. I'm runing a AMD PhenonII X4 955 and DDR3 8 GBS Dual Channel 1333 MHZ/S. ATI RADEON 4870HDxxx.

Do not even think twice about this board if you want to overclock your cpu. This motherboard was designed for overclocking and makes it so easy.. even a Caveman could do it!!

If posting please post having what you use in your build and the uses of your system.

Case: Cooler Master HAF 932

Power Supply: Cooler Master 850W Silent Pro

CPU: AMD 955 PhenomII Quad Core Black Edition

RAM: DDR3 OCZ 2x2 4g 1066 Platinum Unganged

CPU Cooler: Corsair H50

Video: ATI Radeon HD 5750

Hard Drive: Western Digital 5400rpm 1 TB Sata 64MB cache. Model WD10EARS

Drive 1: CD/DVD Samsung model SH-S222

Drive 2: CD/DVD/BluRay LG model WH10LS30. Blu-ray Media by DIGISTOR upc 798304144666

Operating System: Windows 7 Professional

*NOTE* If your building for gaming look for at least a 7200 rpm drive for a minimum requirement in my opinion. Notice reviews for you'll come across a lot of opinions on this. Me personally would go for;

Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000HLFS 300GB 10000 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive over a Solid State Drive in terms of $/GB as well.

I use this system for Video editing primarily. Right now I'm using Corel Photo Pro X3 and Video Pro X3 Ultimate Bundle. UPC 735163130935

If you noticed I didn't go into much detail but if you like that email me.

This particular board has been tested with the 955 getting up to 6.2 but under extreme cooling.

Look at Pier 17 Game Play using this board having a constant 60 fps on Crysis 2 (YouTube)

Look under tomshardware dot com for reviews or Maximum PC

My first computer was a Texas Instruments that used cassette tapes for data storage and playback sounded like dial up modems and then on I have built and and played with and of course got into trouble once but now .... nevermind.

Backup: Laptop MSI FX700-056US with good reason of course.

Have fun hope you like the mobo, maybe soon the mobo will have Operating System On board SSD havin zero boot with cap charge of course.

I purchased this board about 8 months ago and have been using it since. I paired it with a AMD 955 BE CPU and 8 gig's of Corsair DDR3 1600 RAM. After building the system everything posted perfectly first start up. This board is also a OC's dream with both BIOS and on the fly OC'ing using the on board OC dial.

MSI has also been on the ball with regular bios updates, with the most recent ones this board now supports AMD's new 6 core cpu's. I just yesterday purchased a another board for my girlfriends new gaming computer. Pair this with some good ram, a nice 6850 card and their isn't a game out there that I can not run on max settings in full 1680 wide-screen.

Don't waste your money on a cheaper motherboard, spend a little more to pick this up, it's well worth the price.

bought cause it was an msi computer and i have been a long time fan of them

affordable and all its specs met what i wanted to build wonderfully. never had ANY issues whatsoever. bios options are nearly limitless. very good at handling everything under the sun. PLENTY of room to expand with its 4pci 2.0 slots. i highly recommend this to anyone looking for a nice board at an affordable price. although it is outdated now. it has the room to keep up in the game for a few more years.

All other reviewers seemed to cover the great stuff about this MSI Motherboard, I just want to add...

I am using this board with Linux Mint 9 KDE. I just run the Mint 9 setup disc and Mint 9 sets up the board perfectly. Mint 09 did not setup HDA ATI-HDMI audio output but, HDA ATI SB ALC889 Analog is good enough for me.

I have a dual boot option between Mint 9 and Windows 7, I have never entered Win7 after setup, why would I, I am running Linux.

I WAS ALL HYPED UP TO GET THIS NEW LATEST AMD MOBO FROM MSI!!!! I have personally had 2 MSI boards featuring old socket 478 [...] and they have been great performers!!! I had purchased 2 MSI NForce4 MoBo's for customers in past, so I was hoping for great results again with this new AMD board!!!! This MoBo is filled full of features that other MoBo's do not have for this particular chipset setup!!! BluRay Audio, LOTS USB ports, 4x CrossFireX, Coolest (as in temps) MoBo i think i've ever ran!!!! But unfortunately it is so unstable and this mobo is nuttin but bad news -

-First off I had Geil 2133 OC memory installed, couldn't get it to perform no where near that, fastest was 1333mhz!!!! switch to Kingston HyperX 1600 and tried CORSAIR XMS3 1600 and both worked as stated then!!! Tried every setting in memory setup with only 1600mhz working decent or the initial 1333 or 1066 on most startups or no post, resets!! used three different memory makers, of the 3 only the 2 1600mhz rated workd perfect!!!!

-Second of which is restarts are very common in WinXP and more in Win7 x64!!! The restarts come up with a screen on inital restart stating "HyperTransport Overload Error" and then repeats a restart every 20-30 minutes...MSI has no fix as of now with there "Tech Support"!!! Found if you hit the restart button right away after you see the BIOS screen, it seems to extend the restart period of time!!! (still very lame)

-Third situation -i believe- is AMD Overdrive is a hyped buying conspiracy i swear, manufactures dont even give support for it (for the ones that label there product Black Edition compatible) and AMD has no clue what it is when u call in about either!!!

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I have never had this much trouble building a PC, and nuntheless it was for a loyal customer of mine that i have built 3 Gaming rigs for in last 3 years!! I have put together 100's of PC's rangin from OLD socket 370 Intel 440BX chipsets bein overclocked huge with 1.4ghz Celerons almost a decade ago to 2days's hottest Intel 1366 or AMD AM3 boards with multiple graphics cards for extremists, and by far this has done more wrong to my image as a reputable computer builder then anything good that has come out of it!!!

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I already purchased an ASUS M4A79T Deluxe board and everything worx AWSUM now, reverted back to ASUS after having good results on my personal older A8N32-SLI Deluxe!!! I will probly not buy another MSI board for sumtime after this incident!!! I own 2 PC's that have Black Edition CPU's and they are fast, cheap, and effective on games!!!

Xclio Case

Quad 3.4ghz 965 Black Edition

4gb 1600mhz Kingston HyperX

2x ATi 5770 1gb CrossfireX

ASUS 8x BluRay

WD Black 1TB SATA Hard Drive

CORSAIR 850w Power SUpply

with these components i cannot find a happy place for no restarts/BSOD's!!!!