MSI Computer Corp. Motherboard North Bridge AMD 970 & South Bridge AMD SB950 Chipset ATX DDR3 800 AMD AM3+ Motherboards (970A-G46)

by MSI Computer Corp.

• CPU: Socket AM3+; Supports 64-bit AMD FX/ Phenom II X6/X4/X3/X2/ Sempron Processors; Supports HyperTransport 3.0; FSB up to 4.8GT/s
• Chipset: North Bridge AMD 970 & South Bridge AMD SB950 Chipset
• Memory: 4x 240pin DDR3-2133(OC)/1866/1600/1333/1066/800 DIMMs, Dual Channel, unbuffered; Max Capacity up to 32GB
• Slots: 2x PCI-Express 2.0 x16 Slots(Support SLI & CrossfireX); 2x PCI-Express 2.0 x1 Slots; 2x 3.3V/5V PCI Slots
• SATA: 6x SATA3 Ports, Support RAID 0/ 1/ 5/ 10

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 12 x 2.5 x 8.9 inches ; 2.5 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0073JYZ48
• Item model number: 970A-G46
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #9 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Computer Components > Motherboards
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 30, 2012

Product Description

MSI 970A-G46 Socket AM3+/ AMD 970/ DDR3/ CrossFireX & SLI/ SATA3&USB3.0/ A&GbE/ ATX Motherboard

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of the Bunch July 4, 2012

By SuzyQue

Amazon Verified Purchase

I wanted a relatively inexpensive but full-featured motherboard as a component in the system I am building. This product fit the bill in all particulars--its UEFI bios is fantastic--much better than the reviews of the UEFI in this board led me to believe it would be. This is my first UEFI product and, frankly, I could not see how it could be much of an improvement over a plain-Jane bios. I am happy to report that this board's UEFI exceeded my expectations--I won't be buying anything else without it in the future. Aside from this UEFI being as fully user-adjustable as I could have wanted--lots of "tinker" features--boot time for this UEFI from cold-boot power on to the Windows loading screen is roughly 5-7 seconds! A bios will generally take 20-30 seconds to get that far into the boot process--as a result, this board fully boots to Windows in about half the time of a bios board. Unexpected bonus!

My board shipped with UEFI version 1.4. Checking it out through the included MSI Live Update feature, I found the latest UEFI version for the product to be 1.7. I used MSI's Live Update through Windows and the update installed perfectly--without a hitch. Highly recommended. (Some people are scared of this method, but I've never been burned by it.)

I settled on the MSI product over, say, the Asus and other brands in the price range, because out of all of them only the MSI board provides me with dual PCIe gpu bandwidth (for CrossFire or SLI) of 16x x 8x. All of the other products in the price range supplied dual gpu support of 16x x 4x--which seems very unbalanced to me--the dual-gpu support in those cases would effectively be limited to 4x. You are much better off with 16x x 8x if you can't have 16x x 16x, than with 16x x 4x.... Of course, at the moment I am running a single PCIe gpu @ 16x. It's possible I might go to Crossfire/SLI in the future, though, which is why this spec was important to me.

I checked out this product @ Newegg and through Amazon. On the date I decided to purchase, Newegg's price was higher by $5 & Newegg offered no free shipping on the board as did Amazon. Products arrived in perfect condition. What more can be said? Happy customer. Read more ›

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars MSI 970A-G46 November 3, 2012

By adam h

Amazon Verified Purchase

Bought this motherboard for my new computer build.Alot of ppl tell me that this is a bad board but so far i disagree! From day one i installed all my equipment into it and it started right up picked up my ram cpu dvd drive and 4 other hard drives right away.Installed windows 7 ultimate x64 and this thing rocks!!!!!!
Heres my specs:
MSI 970A-G46
AMD FX-8120 3.1 GHZ 8 Core CPU
8GB G.SkillSaw DDR3 1600 Memory
MSI N630GT 4GB DDR3 Video Card
Thermaltake Water 2.0 Performer CPU cooler
Cool Power 980W Power Supply
Lightscribe DVD=/- Burner

From first boot it handles amazizngly!!!! People told me never never put a AMD FX-8120 into this motherboard but you know what? I havent overclocked it or anything but temps are low on MB and CPU no worries here.I LOVE having 8 cores compared to my old P4 computer. IT Kills install time!!!!!!!! Moving files from hard drive to hard drive is super fast most time i dont even have that lil window pop up sayin how long til it moved.. Buy this board if ur on a budget or you want a kick ass computer that will last you awhile. But just to repeat i dont overclock so i cant say if you overclock it how itll handle. but still a sweet MB

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Garbage January 20, 2013

By Serge Nechiporuk

Will not boot with more than two sticks of RAM.
Will refuse to run two sticks of RAM at anything above 1066 MHz. Upon changing clock/voltage to get it closer to the RAM's normal speed, will reboot twice and clear all BIOS settings.
Will not show any video for first couple minutes after turning on, than a minute of two letter codes on bottom right, then finally a POST screen. Exchanged the first board after not getting any video, let the second one run for a longer time until I got this far.
Will not read a wireless keyboard/mouse receiver in POST or BIOS.
Will not really read a wired mouse in BIOS - you can move the cursor but the left mouse button just moves the selection.
Returning my board back and staying away from MSI like fire from now on. If you're attracted by the cheap price, just factor in the hours you may have to spend putting it in and removing it, and the shipping costs for sending it back.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars I loved her but she's gone and left me alone ... February 9, 2013

By Paulo

Amazon Verified Purchase

My second MSI motherboard and my first disappointment with the brand.
There were 4 months of joy until I decided to test my computer with the program blender. Were less than 60 minutes working at full load and the motherboard died two days later.
Do not know if this was the problem, but I saw the news that the 970 chipset boards do not get along with octacore.
Now I do not know if I can send the motherboard from MSI for RMA because I have no desire to use a refurbished board .... still do not know if my processor died too because I don't have another motherboard for testing, but the motherboard does not turn on any lights or LED.
I do not know if she went to heaven or hell of pcs.
Rip.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars So far so good. September 9, 2012

By SBriggs

Amazon Verified Purchase

Has been running 24 hours a day for 1 week and no problems. I think I have a bad sata port but I will never need 6 so no biggie. Worked right out of the box with my AMD FX 8120.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Best features for price. April 4, 2012

By Gus Maldonado

Amazon Verified Purchase

I love this board have always been a fan of msi I have owned asus, ecs and biostar I would probably put this board up there with asus nothing wrong with other brands I just personally like msi do to it's design, features and esthetics. I purchased this board as an upgrade to my rig along with a kingston v+200 ssd sata 3. The first thing I noticed as I went into the bios to switch my ssd to ahci mode was it wasn't your regular bios rather a gui type which you navigate with your mouse. It took some time getting used too but eventually I managed, not sure if I like it yet. On occasions when I would be in the bios and not move my cursor for some time cause I was reading the manual the cursor would lock up prompting me to restart. Another thing I noticed was the inacurate cpu temp reading in bios showing 44c when after windows 7 install the program core temp showed 26c possible bios update no biggie for me I know the motherboard sensors are off anyway they obtain there reading from the back of the motherboard behind the cpu. Overclocking was easy I have a black edition amd 1090t so I just bumped up the multiplier and now I am running at 3.6ghz might push that up later to 3.8 I don't like messing with voltages so definately not 4.0ghz. Other than that with my ssd installation of windows 7 took about 10 minutes or so, sata 3 is fantastic! This board also comes with usb 3.0 which I can't wait to test out. Lay out is great both sata 3 connectors are facing up and the remaining 4 are at the edge of the mother board and are angled. You have 2 system fan 3 pin headers on board and the best part CROSSFIRE although at x16 x8 the difference between the two x16 x16 is less than 10% performance that's right you won't miss out on much. Also you can add up to 32gb of ddr3 ram not that you'll use that much.... The board comes with 4 small blue led's that indicate the cpu power phase which I don't mind but are sort of bright. MSI warranty I think is 3 years comes with solid caps which should extend the life of the board MSI boasts military class components not sure how true but have been tested to work under low pressure, high & low temperature, humidity, shock and vibration since I don't sit my case on top of a running dryer I can't comfirm or deny these claims :)another thing to note is the north and south bridge run hot to the touch kind of worrisome but that was also the case with my other msi board (msi 880gm-e43) but nothing ever became of it that board ran great until I got rid of it and I expect the same for this one. Although I did list serveral things that probably do need attention that's only because I wanted to give you a unbiast review. I am completely satisfied and all an all I will still look to msi FIRST for all my motherboard needs. My pc is strictly for gaming I am currently running Battlefield 3 like nobody's business, I am always one of the first players to spawn in multiplayer games. I posted one pic of motherboard already installed I was to anxious installed the minute I got it so I didn't take a picture of it by itself. Now to my specs:

am3 1090T cpu 3.6ghz
HIS iceQ turboX 6950 2gb vram
G.skill 8gb 4x2gb's ddr3 ripjaws
Corsair H60cpu cooler
Killer nic 2100 gaming network card
Kingston v+200 ssd 120gb
Western Digital 250gb back up

Quick couple of notes this motherboard does NOT have onboard video and I tried using winki which is a small operating system that you can use from the bios to access the internet or even back up your hard drive does need work but can see myself using it for a quick look at the net or offload a quick picture on to facebook. I actually uninstalled winki due too to many issues like for example the right click selections due no register and I have not found a way to actually set my language so some times at the back up your hard drive option in the bios it asks for your language since the mouse selections don't register I find myself trying to figure out in spanish or chinese how to get back to the language settings. Also the mini operating system looks very sleek but for example setting your internet could be difficult for beginners. So I just went ahead and uninstalled I'll take my chances with windows 7 system image back up. Read more ›