Pros: -Sleak looking
-2133
-3.1
-I like the placement of the SATA ports
-Sturdy .. Military class for sure
-Bios is on point

Cons: -It's not handling my OC well. Temps are hoooooot at 4.4ghz on my fx4130
-Prlly not hot by many standards, but 45-50c constant is not to my liking

Other Thoughts: Not sure what to think about the temps with my OC. My Gigabyte GA-78LMT board ran way cooler but the ram restrictions were a drawback. I have a air cooler on my CPU that was a ***** to latch correctly and was hard to see if I even lined it up right. Maybe I will get a water cooler to avoid the headache.

Pros: This motherboard goes beyond expectations. Automatic OC through the BIOS works great. The PWM control is wonderful for the CPU. Overall operation is great. I've used the FX-8350, FX-8320, FX-8300 in the eight (8) core series. The FX-95w CPU's with eight (8) cores can be air cooled; however, may need water cooling for the 125w & above eight (8) CPU's. Experiencing different scenarios this motherboard would make a great gaming Desktop PC build. BIOS is great. Linux can be installed on this motherboard using single or dual boot. The eight (8) core FX CPU's at 95w with PC3-10600U 1.5v work best on this motherboard being air cooled with an after market CPU heatsink and fan. PCI Slot Wi-Fi works wonderful getting great upload and download speed.

Cons: Make sure you go by the hardware support list. CPU and RAM must match to get a quiet operation. Limited support for the FX CPU's. No VRM heatshield; well, I purchased a broke MSI 970A-G46 for the VRM shield. AMD would not send or sell a VRM shield because it does not come with it. An 8 core FX CPU 125w better get a 140w rated heatsink and fan (120MM).

Other Thoughts: Make sure the CPU heatsink and fan is rated above the wattage of the CPU.
DDR3-1333 1.5v
DDR3-1600 1.35v
FX CPU's 8 Core 125w use PC3-12800U 1.35v with heatsink & fan 120mm or 92mm fan w/120mm fan on top

Pros: It looks like it would be a nice motherboard, I had high hopes.

Cons: The first one I received displayed behavior I'd never seen before in nearly 20 years of building computers. It would fail to boot 95% of the time but every once in a while it would, usually after I reset the CMOS, replaced the CMOS battery, or removed then replaced a component such as the CPU. Occasionally the boot screen would appear for a second then disappear. After hours of swapping out parts and trying different things, I RMA'd it which in typical Newegg fashion was fantastic, amazing, painless, the best there is. When the second board arrived I was sure there was no way I could get 2 bad boards in a row but much to my dismay, it was completely DOA! I swapped out the power supply, CPU, memory, graphics card, hard drive, you name it but nothing had any effect. Even the heat sink on the CPU wasn't getting warm. Another RMA but this time a refund. I'll spend a little more and get an Asus board.

Other Thoughts: This MSI board was replacing an MSI board that gave up after many years of faithful service. I don't know what happened with the batch I got but I wasn't about to go down that path a third time. I used Asus boards faithfully for many, many years but they seemed to burn out after awhile. I remember reading the fantastic reviews about them on Newegg then checking back a couple years later and everyone else was complaining about their boards burning out so I switched to MSI. Well that didn't work out too well so now I'm back to Asus. I hope they've fixed the problems of the past.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Darrell,
Sorry to hear about the issue you reported. There is no known issue with our MSI motherboards and since you have two motherboard with issue, before considering an RMA can you check following steps below since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected firmly, clear CMOS.
2. Check your other major hardware’s (memory, video card, CPU and power supply) to ensure that they are not the cause of the issue.
3. If possible verify the board outside of the case to eliminate any grounding issue.
4. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 9am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: Easy set up. Great feature set. Durable Caps and Military Grade components. Love the color combo. My two sticks of Corsair Vengence in blue and two in black match the board so well, They are so purdy in there. UEFI bios. OC Genie is nice feature, it's a bit mild on the overclock but easy application.

Cons: Onboard sound not throwing out full spectrum, especially voices with DVD movies. Not sure if defect or user error, will keep working on it to try and resolve. No esata but just got a 3.0 USB dock/cloning station so not a big deal.

Other Thoughts: I recommend. Easy set up. Great performance. Less than 60 bucks means superb value.

Pros: Cheaper than most motherboards out there. Has USB 3.0 header for front hookup. There are 2 4 pin fan connectors and 1 3 pin fan connector. The steel PCI slot is pretty awesome too. That things seems pretty strong and durable. Has pretty much all the connections that I was looking for.

Cons: I would not overclock on this motherboard. I have an fx-6300 and tried to overclock it but the northbridge temp got way to hot. I was reading on this and apparently the voltage regulator modules do not have heat sinks. This was the same way with the original g-43 as well.

Other Thoughts: I would recommend this motherboard if you are not going to overclock. If you are using it for light to moderate gaming then it should be fine. I have played Alien Isolation on ultra as well as Star Craft 2 but then again those probably aren't very demanding games. This is my first build and I wish I would of spent an extra 20 dollars and got the MSI gaming motherboard.

Pros: - Product is amazing, pretty straight forward and easy to connect to and setup. Came pre-installed with CPU fan holders for quick CPU heat sink attachment

Cons: - Having an issue with front panel sound, keeps giving me static buzzing noises. Probably not due to motherboard, but will look into it.

Other Thoughts: - Definitely recommend this motherboard

Pros: bought this on the first and i literally got it the day after i ordered it which is freaking awesome. first thing that caught my eye was the steel pci-e slot; it looks freaking amazing and it feels super solid. looks like it has a lot of room for a big cpu cooler and if you position it right you might even be able to use your high profile ram sticks. comes with 2 usb 3.1 type a so thats already a huge plus for me. the price for this board is what really got me. full atx board with usb3.1 and military grade 4 for 70 bucks?! thats amazing.

UPDATE: So I installed the board finally with a FX-8350 just recently and she does get the job done. She has good enough space for you to possibly add a large high profile heatsink without you running into any major problems. The full black board just looks so sexy giving off a sleek and sneaky profile. She does provide SLI/Crossfire configurations as well. The steel PCI-E 2.0 16x slot just feels super tough and I'm able to give her all of me with no hesitation at all. Being a military class motherboard, you would expect it to be touch, rigid, and to be able to take a beating and be tossed around( although i do NOT suggest you guys doing this) it certainly lives up to the MSI claims. There are 4 pin fan headers all over the board so you will be able to PWM control your fans with ease (although there is only a single 3 pin fan header that is located on the bottom of the board)

Cons: Although it does provide alot of stuff that any pc builder would want from their motherboard, there is just 1 thing i really dislike about her. There is no heatsink on the mosfets of the board leaving it fully exposed and having no heat dispersion what so ever. The chipset heatsink is also fairly tiny as well but for such a low price it is kind of expected to have some drawbacks. I HIGHLY suggest that you do not overclock on this board UNLESS you know for sure that you are able to provide enough cooling to your system.

Other Thoughts: So would i suggest this board to anyone out there that is on a budget and wants a board that gets the job done? Well yes of course, you most likely can not find a board this cheap that offers a front USB3.0 header with 2 USB 3.1 Gen2 ports in the rear. She gets the job done if all of your kinks and desires are just for the system to run and nothing else more

Pros: It's a very nice re-design of regular G43 which was fine on it's own.
Excellent visual design, black and white is modern and looks better than brown/blue of old board.
It has all the necessary connections possible on 970 chipset, including USB 3.1 (with internal connector)
Good layout, all connectors are easy to use.
Nice BIOS, easy to navigate, lots of controls.
It has 3 fan headers (+ CPU), out of which 2 are controlled in BIOS and very nicely controlled (it's FAN 1 and 3 only, #2 is full speed)
Board does not flex much.
North bridge got cooler compared to old version when on idle.
CPU temps went down a bit as well, I don't know what contributes to it. I use same ACFA11 cooler on all of them (old and new versions)

Cons: Overclocking could be hit or miss. One FX 8350 went up to 4.2GHz with 4.4Ghz TB, with only 0.02v extra, another 8350 build did not want to overclock at all. It depends on other factors as well so hard to say what was it.
No SLI (not required here, get 990FX)
Fan header #2 is not controlled, but at least it's there.
Northbridge can get ridiculously hot, depending on case I have seen it shooting to 100C which is bad

Other Thoughts: It is my go-to board for most AMD builds. I have good luck with it and I like layout and BIOS, it does not give me a headache and works well - I have used around 20 old G43 boards and about 3 new G43+ and all are good. I think one old G43 failed so far.

Pros: This board looks solid and had the features I needed. Enough fan connections for my Rosewill case. Little over an inch narrower than the Gigabyte. Purchased an FX-8350 Black with board. Easy to hook-up everything, Sata cables included

Cons: Sata connection were a little trouble to connect. Big hands and bad eyes the biggest problem, that's on me. Ethernet connection will dislodge if moving the tower. The c-d for drivers did not load Ethernet or sound card drivers. No big deal.

Other Thoughts: Upgraded to Windows 10 in Jan/2016 and problems started with computer. Noticed hard drive making a louder than normal noise. Internet Explorer started stopping and restarting and Windows would stop working. Bios screen would flash instantly to Windows start screen. Then screen went black with no drive detected. Tried to reinstall Windows 7, still no drive detected. Bought new SSD from BB, and installed it. Placed windows cd in drive tried clean install. Mobo bad. That's why I went to Newegg. installed new Mobo and CPU. installed Windows 7 and it works. Wished I had been backing up on a regular basis. Performance scores 7.7-7.9. Temps staying in the 28-35 C range, start ups are fast. Board has everything I wanted or needed, and I will recommend this board to anyone looking for their computer build. AMD FX 8350 Black. MSI 970A-G43Plus. FXF Radeon-6850, Rosewill 600W PS, 16 gb G-Skill mem, Rosewill tower case/4 fans, BD/CD players. Oblivion and Diablo here I come.

Pros: Delivery was fast.

Cons: Hooked it up and tried to turn it on with no luck. Dead as a doornail. Have to return it and try something else.

Other Thoughts: I will contact MSI Customer Service, but they have terrible hours and I have to wait two days until I get off work to try and reach them. Sad, I was really hoping for an extraordinary build here, replacing my old defunct ASUS with this one.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Marina,
Sorry to hear about the issue you reported. Before considering an RMA can you check following steps below since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected firmly, clear CMOS.
2. Check your other major hardware’s (memory, video card, CPU and power supply) to ensure that they are not the cause of the issue.
3. If possible test the system outside of the case to eliminate any grounding.
4. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com