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MSI K9A2 Platinum AMD Motherboards
Customer Reviews for MSI K9A2 Platinum AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
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Review Summary (680 Reviews): Rating + 4
OverallLast 2 WeeksLast 6 Months
Excellent Rating + 5 369ReviewsExcellent
newegg
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Good Rating + 4 168ReviewsGood
newegg
25%
Average Rating + 3 54ReviewsAverage
newegg
8%
Poor Rating + 2 34ReviewsPoor
newegg
5%
Very Poor Rating + 1 55ReviewsVery Poor
newegg
8%
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Reviewer Product Review
Videofreek
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/6/2009 7:21:07 AM

Rating + 5 Excellent Motherboard


Pros: Couple this motherboard with an Athlon X2 3GHZ CPU and 4GB of DDR2 800 memory and you have a very nice machine for editing video! I'm very satisified with the speed at which it can render video, one of my main concerns when I put this machine together.

Cons: None - everything fine worked 1st time

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Francisco
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
6/4/2009 8:21:04 PM

Rating + 5 Works well with Linux and XP


Pros: Works as expected, decent number of features.

Cons: None so far.

Other Thoughts: Have had 1 of these for a year (June 2008 to June 2009). Have had zero problems on a dual boot Opensuse Linux and windows XP.
Just got a second one a week ago for a client and about to order a third one for home.

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N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/1/2009 5:47:27 PM

Rating + 4 Trouble free and cheap!


Pros: Easy to install, plenty of space. No memory issues, really good manual.

Cons: I couldn't get the 5.1 audio to run on my home theater, i dont know if its an issue with the motherboard or the audio system. the optic audioo out broke off, the motherboard kept working anyway. Just be careful

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Mr.Kassner
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/28/2009 1:07:56 PM

Rating + 4


Pros: Yet another one of those objects that are never really noticed inside the computer and I can't think of really anything to put in the pros area, theirs not a single thing wrong with it, its just never done anything 'special'. Though I will say with the heat pipes it looks beautiful through the side panel on my computer.

Cons: No cons, its done its job from day one and not a single flaw. I had a older flash drive that if left plugged in when the bios was starting it got to "Scanning for USB devices..." and never went on. What happened with that I'm not sure and it only did it 2 times, but just to be safe and I needed a bigger flash drive anyways I went out and bought a 8gb U3 Flash Drive and it stays plugged in almost all the time, never a problem. Maybe the flash drive was just too old? I don't know. I gave the old one to my dad and he loves it, and I got a new 8gb flash drive so I'm happy.

Other Thoughts: It annoys you that "No RAID array was found." every time you start your computer till you either start a RAID or turn off the RAID card in BIOS. Its a quick and simple fix or just ignore it if you don't mind it taking 5seconds of your time on start up. Who knows maybe some day you will get a RAID and it saves you 1 button to push xD

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Penenutz
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/23/2009 6:02:33 PM

Rating + 5 I am losing hope over NE customers!


Pros: I am flabbergasted. I have had this motherboard for over A YEAR now and it has been nothing short of excellent. Now I know people can get a DOA every so often, and one should realize this is usually UPS's fault for bouncing around your hardware, not MSI sending you a bad board. But ALAS I read through these reviews and the stuff I see, and people giving it low eggers is just ridiculous. One guy adds more ram, probably different, doesn't work for him, he gives low eggs, another go appears to be using an older X2 and it doesn't crank for him, low eggs. Another guy appearentently is stuck in the 90s with a handful of IDEs and he buys this bboard, low eggs. I mean come on people, JUDGE THE board not your lack of compententcy on build a box!!!!!

Cons: I have a 9950BE OC'd to 3.4 Ghz with some OCZ Reapers OC'd to 1148! This thing just rips it. I will admit, toying with MSI's BIOS can be a roll of the dice, and I'd be the first to advice against unless you absolutely have too. But COME ON, please all youy knuclke heads, JUDGE the BOARD, not how ity reacts to your hardware difficeiences.

Other Thoughts: THANK you.
If you do need some advice, go to www.eggxpert.com, you'll get all the best help you'll need.

10 out of 10 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Mark
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: more than 1 year
5/20/2009 3:32:13 PM

Rating + 5 Awesome


Pros: This board is amazing. It is extremely well suited for OCing, I have my Phenom 9850 Black Edition with factory 2.5GHz at 3.0GHz stable air cooled. Combine that with with the 4 PCI Express 2.0 slots and you can have yourself quite a system

Cons: It won't sing to me

Other Thoughts: AMD Phenom 9850 BE
4 GB Adata 1066
Coolermaster 590 case
ATI Sapphire 1950 GT
250GB Samsung
Rosewill 750w PSU

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

dlc
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/15/2009 8:19:14 PM

Rating + 1 Re: Unstable


Pros: Never Deal With MSI Again when i Over clocked it. it randomly BSOD it has buggy bios they need work the out the bugs but!!! it stable when put it back normal .

Cons: We Just Hope My Next Build is better than one i have.

The Motherboard i be using next is: GIGABYTE GA-MA790FXT-UD5P AM3 DDR3 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard :)

Other Thoughts: This is My first writing review. Don't Buy It Ever!!!

1 out of 10 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/15/2009 2:22:30 PM

Rating + 1 Unstable


Pros: ...yeah couldn't think of any. Could be because I'm angry...

Cons: Doesn't work. Where do I even begin... Couldn't get an operating system to load on either of the controllers in RAID mode. Finally got Vista x64 and Win7 x64 to load on just a single drive only to have it BSOD randomly for no reason. BIOS randomly decides there is a password. Also randomly decides to turn the RAID controller on. Any drive plugged into SATA port 3 will randomly disappear. You cannot run the machine with all 4 RAM slots filled. All in all an extremely frustrating experience. Will be RMA'ing. Hopefully just a bad board and the replacement will be better.

Other Thoughts: Have tested all components and possible configurations. Hopefully the replacement will be better. If not then I am done with MSI. Quality just doesn't seem to be up to par anymore. Sticking with ASUS or Gigabyte.

1 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Dogfrost9
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
5/15/2009 10:12:02 AM

Rating + 5 Great Board for the price


Pros: I have Used a good number of different mother boards including Asus, Evga, Gigabyte, and MSI. Out of all of these, this specific board was the smoothest, most error free build I have done so far. Might have a lot to do with the fact that I went with Windows XP x64 instead of Vista this time around but anyways.. Works Great!.

I built a computer with this board, a AMD dual core processor at 2.7 ghz which I bought for $53 !!! on eaby. Put in a Radeon HD 4870 which I got for $130. Overall the PC cost me just under $500 to make (not including monitor) and I am playing EVERY game on 100% maxed out graphics EXCEPT for Crysis which I can play on mid to High. I am very pleased with the performance to price ratio.

Cons: The only problem I had with this board was the High definition Audio socket on the board is in the Bottom left corner and was just far enough away that I could not plug in my Cases Built In headphone Jack into the board. But could just as easy be the cases fault.

Other Thoughts: Consider Buying the "Open Box" version of this Board which is $94 ( $102 w/ Shipping ) but only if you already have an assortment of SATA cables and other motherboard cables lying around. Saves money, I bought the open Box and used my own cables and it Works Great.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Bakes
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/15/2009 7:49:43 AM

Rating + 4 Decent Motherboard


Pros: Works!

Cons: The control MSI control center software that came with the board crashed whenever I ran it. I tried the latest version from the MSI website with the same results. I have read about many other users experiencing the same problem. I would not reccomend using it. The Live BIOS update system scares me. There is a flash drive BIOS update tool that they advise using on their forums but you have to register to download it. After several attempts to register over the course of a couple days I never did recieve the confirmation email to complete my registration so I could not use the tool. I ended up making a bootable cd with ram drive support and used that to update the BIOS. It worked but I would not reccomend this process for the average user.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

oldnorsky
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
4/26/2009 8:14:55 PM

Rating + 5 Great board


Pros: Lots of features including plenty of SATA and PATA connections. Easy install with a 512 raedion PCI-E video card. Color coded connections a good manual too.

Cons: none so far

Other Thoughts: I'm running multiple WD hard drives with a dual boot system (XP/SP3, Vista). XP shows 4 gb memory, vista shows 8Gb. Installed fast, & has worked flawlessly since. Keep the drivers updated and there will be no problems.

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Greeko!
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/24/2009 11:54:23 AM

Rating + 5


Pros: This was my first computer ever built, and i learned how to do it off of google! (yeah i know, but hey it's working flawlessly baby!)

Cons: Just curious, i have an asus hd radeon 4850 connected to the first pci slot. the edge of the card barely touches the heatsink (i think?) now i heard crossfiring is better, so i wanted to get another 4850 video card. It seems like it would most likely not fit, except for the last pci slot (very bottom slot) Do these pci slots differ in any way (I.E. slot 1 runs cards faster than slots 2,3, or 4) Im a newb when it comes to these things but i catch on pretty quick. Also if another asus radeon 4850 wouldnt work out, is there another card out there that could be possibly smaller yet compatible with my first card? i dont want to spend money on somethin that wouldnt fit or work. Thanks alot any input is appreciated

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Faustus
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/22/2009 5:11:35 AM

Rating + 2 RAM Issues


Pros: I loved the mobo after I got it installed. Had just started making some decent money as a grad student (enough to save at least) and built a great system a little over a year ago. Compatibility with my VC, CPU, everything was great. I also have a giant case, so this is not a problem for me.

Cons: I recently bought 2 more 2GB sticks of RAM. Here is where I started seeing similar problems that have been posted. I run Vista 64, and should be able to run 8Gb RAM. This mobo could not even boot after installing the other modules. The actual slots on the card seem rather junky (the clips on the sides like to fall out.) I worked with only 6gb, and was able to get it to run BIOS, but after about 5 min, BSOD. This mobo can not handle 8gb ram.

Other Thoughts: It seems to be running ok now with just 4Gb ram, but I might be looking to upgrade my mobo in the near future. This is a pretty decent board, but I would not buy it, as all the slots should be functional. (This is not a power supply, vc, os, or other issue- which I tested for.)

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

VeryUnhappy
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/21/2009 5:03:46 PM

Rating + 1 Junk Motherboard... W-T-F MSI!!!


Pros: It booted twice. The outside box is pretty.

Cons: No diagnostic LEDs which I have seen in all of my MSI boards. No post issues. A lot of Bios options were greyed out when running a X2 processor.

Other Thoughts: It stopped booting, then NewEgg sent me back a board with goo on the bottom of it... after waiting a month for the board.. oh.. then the new one (or used) is DOA. I love sitting on parts for over a month that I paid for while waiting for a working Motherboard.

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Cougar
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/14/2009 5:30:46 AM

Rating + 5 My 3rd build


Pros: Plenty of space
plenty of slots for anything from video cards to ram

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: Purchased this as my third computer motherboard after doing much research. I normally use Asus but this works just as well if not better. Can easily fit 2 ati4850. I could not have asked for more! I am running my sound strait off the Mobo and wonder why people would ever buy sound cards.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Rhiani
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/12/2009 10:33:24 AM

Rating + 3


Pros: Supports up to 4 PCIe x16 cards, plus 1 PCIe x1 card. Plenty of on board USB connections, decent on board NIC, plenty of 3Gb/s sata connections.

Cons: Layout of the board: the sata connectors are poorly positioned. If you have a pair of high end PCIe video cards for SLI or Crossfire they will not be able to seat properly because of the sata connectors. This may not be an issue if you aren't using many of the sata connectors, but with a pair of hard drives and a pair of optical drives I need to use 3/4 of the available sata connectors.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

kc102
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/9/2009 7:46:12 PM

Rating + 4


Pros: 4 PCI-E slots, great overclockability, allows you to save 2 profiles in BIOS.
Good cooling on chipsets, spacious, 4 PCI-E slots

Cons: I have a ATI Radeon 4850 and for a card that size, there is only one place to put it and it still interfers with stuff. The bottom slot messes with the USB plugins and such, 2nd to bottom knocks out the SATA ports, the top is stopped by the horridly placed heatspreading pipes which leaves the 2nd form top. It blocks most of my HD slots, except for the very bottom one.

Other Thoughts: The PCI-E slot positions are the only horrid thing about this, otherwise it rocks.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

cat
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/7/2009 8:33:24 PM

Rating + 2 good mobo


Pros: i have no complaints on this boards performance,as of yet.

Cons: msi does not honor rebates,i purchased this board with a 20.00 rebate about 4 or 5 months ago,checked rebate status and it satates either did not recieve rebate or it is in the process of filed.Its not good to fool people msi,that just shows you be careful which company you buy products from,newegg gave excellent service .I am not the only one that,this has happened too.

Other Thoughts: maybe ill go asus next time.

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

xfloggingkylex
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/5/2009 9:58:39 AM

Rating + 4 Decent Board


Pros: Quad crossfire, good BIOS support from MSI, performs well. Attractive compared to some of the other boards. Passive cooling works well (currently have my north bridge cranked).

Cons: Poor SATA placement makes quad crossfire almost impossible with big cards. The last PCIx slot is too low to use anything which requires 2 slots. I haven't been able to get the north bridge of OC much, and since it doesn't have a multiplier, you can't increase FSB too much.

Other Thoughts: I ran a 9950 at 3.1 and now have a 940 at 3.7 on this board. Running 2x2gb 1066 memory was a bit of a pain at first. upping the voltage on the north bridge and having the memory at 2.1v solved that. I ended up getting a 4870x2 a few months after I bought this board, making the 4 PCIx slots worthless for me.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Sean
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/1/2009 5:13:43 AM

Rating + 1 This is what I get


Pros: None...

Cons: Woudlnt even post!. I replaced every single part in this case... and tested everything in roomies comp..this motherboard was a 140 dollar paintball target..its c-r-a-p... hopefully in a month since i make min wage...MAYBE i can afford something that actually runs....

Other Thoughts: I had to angered some computer deity

2 out of 11 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

dave
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/31/2009 3:57:07 PM

Rating + 5 REALLY GOOD


Pros: IT IS REALLY GOOD VERY FAST CAN CROSSFIRE REALLY GOOD I WILL GET IT IF I WAS YOU

Cons: NONE

Other Thoughts: REALLY REALLY FAST

0 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

LT 1210
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/27/2009 1:34:37 PM

Rating + 5 Great low-buck board


Pros: Great price for a great board. MSI has really got a winner with this one. With the AMD Phenom processor, this board is really fast. Couldn't be happier with the board-CPU-V/C-RAM set-up I got from Newegg!!!

Cons: RAM placement is a little tight with an aftermarket heat sink.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/25/2009 8:29:32 AM

Rating + 2 Ehhh.


Pros: Awesome Motherboard.

Cons: Died after 2 months.

3 out of 8 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

GeekArtist
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/23/2009 4:29:55 PM

Rating + 1 No good hunk of junk


Pros: Erm, it worked for a while.

Cons: System started rebooting soon after a while. After 2 months, computer had no juice. Eventually narrowed it down to the board. Three power supplies and 2 processors later, still no power. MSI returned the board to me after RMA, claiming it was fine. Trying to send it back for a 2nd RMA but we're just going to buy another board rather than jack with their terrible customer service. We bought 2 of these to build 2 identical computers and now my husband's rig is rebooting too.

Other Thoughts: MSI must have the crappiest RMA customer service on the planet. Terrible communication and very rude on the phone. From here on I will only buy hardware that NewEgg is willing to give a good warranty for.

6 out of 8 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/22/2009 5:38:53 PM

Rating + 4


Pros: Great chipset, AM3 ready, 4x Crossfire capabilities

Cons: Whomever designed the PATA port wasn't thinking very clearly, as it's hard to reach (since it's coming off the side of the board.) Additionally, the slot is larger than the cable, so you can bend the pins if you're not careful.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

NJDdjn
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/21/2009 4:07:58 AM

Rating + 4 nice MB


Pros: nice heatsinks. no problems so far.

Cons: BIOS doesn't let you set DRAM timings. (my memory defaulted to slightly lower timings. you can reset them using AMD OverDrive, but its not permanent after reboot)

Other Thoughts: no serious overclocking, although the motherboard does have that potential. bought for $144.99

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

Mike of Westport
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/19/2009 6:27:16 PM

Rating + 1 Caveat emptor MSI K9A2 Platinum


Pros: Newegg is great.

Cons: I had a problem with DOA MSI K9A2 Platinum. Twice. I have PC board analyzer. Message indicator is saying bios will not boot. I removed board from case, stripped down to CPU (new) and one mem board. No. Another mem board. No. I swapped PSU. No. Board only. No. Grrrr. Like a chump I ordered a replacement thinking it was just bad karma. It failed too in all these tests. Suggest you don't buy this board. Been building systems 10 years for home and office, built about 15.
ms

Other Thoughts: Ignore this, for natural search to spread the word.
MSI K9A2 Platinum will not boot.
Boot problem with MSI K9A2 Platinum.
MSI K9A2 Platinum will not start up.
Help with MSI K9A2 Platinum .
MSI K9A2 Platinum review.

1 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Stocklone
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/17/2009 7:46:44 AM

Rating + 5 Excellent Board


Pros: It ran beautifully over the past year. Haven't had any serious problems with it and performance and temperature are both excellent. Worked perfectly with XP and Vista 32-bit. If you don't care about AM3 this would be the board to get.

Cons: The heatsink pipe is quite close to the video card but it hasn't given me any troubles. Had to bump up the bios to get the Phenom II to recognize. It was kind of pain trying to find a beta bios on MSI's site since they make you go through this really long registration form but I was able to find a direct link to all of the beta bios versions in a post in the german version of MSI's forums using google. Hopefully their latest stable bios will soon include the Phenom II if it hasn't already.

Other Thoughts: If you have a Phenom II and this board auto recognizes your 1066 RAM as 800 then you need to find the exact specifications for your RAM which include timing and voltage levels. You cannot just bump the factor up to 1066 and expect it to work. I changed my RAM settings (RAS, CAS, voltage level, etc) manually and everything works great.

I haven't tried crossfire yet, but I hope everything will work out.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

daddybill
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/17/2009 6:19:03 AM

Rating + 4 Strange Support!


Pros: High Rated, and seems to be a good product

Cons: Hoping for stablity I bought 2 MSI Radon 3870 video cards.
The only upgrade drivers I could get was from ATI, and had some problems getting the driver to work with the cards. The video cards would not connect with the MSI drivers. After going to MSI tech support I was informed that they did not have tech support for vista 64.

Other Thoughts: Autodesk cad operators need to stay away from these products, it crashes often.
Seems to work ok with Adobe CS4 (64 bit)
It may be a good game combination but not a good production machine.

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

jeepdriver
Tech Level: average
Ownership: more than 1 year
3/16/2009 4:05:43 AM

Rating + 2 buggy bios


Pros: Booted first time with 9850be, 2gig Crucial Ballistix, X800GT.
Worked well for about 2 months.

Cons: After a couple of months, started having random lock-ups and system crashes. Updated the BIOS and it worked fine for a couple more months. Then started having lock-ups and BSOD's, anywhere from every 2 hours to every 2 days. Stop errors included hardware, software, problems, bad drivers, bad ram. Updated my drivers, tested ram, even tested my power supply (PC Power & Cooling 750w) Everything checks good. Updated the BIOS again with the latest version, and it stayed up 6 days before it crashed.
MSI Live Update only works after about 5 or 6 tries checking for updates. Lan quit working a couple weeks ago, dropped in a pci card.

Other Thoughts: Not worth the hassle until MSI puts out a stable BIOS.
Now let's see if I can get this review posted before this thing crashes.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

-N30N-
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/15/2009 11:38:13 PM

Rating + 5 McLovin IT!


Pros: This Board is Killer, Now I admit I am not an elite builder, but this thing was a breeze. Got my Dual Core in it, until I can afford a Phenom II. But it is pretty darn fast compared to the asus board I took out. Plus now that I can run all 4 gigs in a dual setup, it seems my computer is faster then ever. Even comes with a lot of Sata Cables, and some little wierd connectors for the power and USB jumpers. made hooking them up a breeze.

The The board runs about 12-15 cooler too. The asus was running hot, even with all 4 case fans set on high. Seems the heat pipes on this board we working pretty well I guess. :)

Cons: Not much of a complaint, but the main system fan connector sits right under the #1 video card slot. what a Pain to hook up if you get it in there first. :D not the boards fault that I don't really know what I'm doing. But it's all together and running smoother then i has ever.

Other Thoughts: System Specs

AMD X2 2.8
4 Gigs OCZ DDR2
WD HDD
EVGA 8800GTS
Swiftech Water Block
Swiftech Water Pump


I don't have scores, cause I don't really care about numbers. I'm just glad that I can finally play COD W@W with the graphics set on kill!!!

Not a single crash, and not a single artifact yet. Lovin it!!!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

SM177Y
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
3/13/2009 11:19:50 PM

Rating + 2 openbox=nogood


Pros: great layout, 790fx NB, looks cool?

Cons: SB600, pci slots dont work, doesnt run dual channel.

Other Thoughts: dont buy openbox. board works, but not how it should. creeked like the layers where splitting, had white stuff all over the bottom, like dried corroded water er somethin. rma buying ASUS M4A79 Deluxe, in combo with PII940=$344.99. cant beat that. newegg is decent :P

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/13/2009 8:24:18 AM

Rating + 4 Great mobo for the price!


Pros: This is important -> The bios on the board I received was already updated to the minimum firmware version to utilize quadcores. I read a number of reviews saying they needed a dual or single core AM2 processor to update the bios, but this has apparently been remedied.

Cons: Processor power is a P4, I'd rather have an EPS12V, but so far no problems.
<insert usual heatpipe comment here>

Other Thoughts: K9A2 Plat
Phenom 2 Deneb 3.0GHz
8GB Kingston HyperX
Vista Ultimate and Ubuntu 8.10 & 9.04 eater.

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

Saphirah
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/12/2009 11:43:27 AM

Rating + 1 NOT HAPPY W/ THIS MOBO


Pros: Wonderful deal with the Phenom II Deneb.
Ummm...shiny?

Cons: SATA Placement in HORRIBLE spot if you have any video card thats decently large.
For whatever reason I could never get this motherboard to boot correctly more than once without having to reinstall, or take out everything but a single RAM stick and one video card (have 2 x1950 pros for crossfire). After having to take this system into the shop thinking maybe I messed it up, I got it back and found out it came to me more than messed up seeing as it bombed on me again after a few boot ups.

Other Thoughts: Bios overclocked my motherboard without me having touched it, and I believe it tried to overclock my RAM also, causing a few sticks to burn out. I would not recommend this motherboard, had nothing but issues with it from start to finish and it ended up costing me more money than if I had just spent a little more money at the start..... :*(

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N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/12/2009 12:50:07 AM

Rating + 5 SICK


Pros: Speed, Installation, Plenty of Expansions and Fan ports. Comes with 2 crossfire connectors. Bios is really easy just put in cd and it works, i had zero issues with this board, and this is the first time i ever built my own computer.

Cons: If you have a big video card you wont be able to put it in just any of the pcie slots, the sata input is also in the way of the video card. the audio is in as far a place as can be. Large heatpipe on the board as well.

Other Thoughts: Get this thing. If you are looking for a great gaming motherboard this thing is it. You will not be dissapointed. If you get one that is DOA, do not be discouraged just replace it, the wait will be more than worth it.

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BennJ
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
3/11/2009 10:19:59 AM

Rating + 2 MSI needs to step up


Pros: the board is capable of running my AMD Phenom II X4 920 2.8GHz processor and it supports 1066 DDR2 RAM

Cons: i got all my hardware set up and ready to boot... but wait, no post? thats right, no post. i got it to work with a little bit of fiddling with my SAPPHIRE 100260SR video card to seat properly and then i went to class and came back to try to turn it back on to flash my bios then OOPS! no post once again.

Other Thoughts: MSI let me rush RMA it, but i live in Ohio and they are in Cali. I have been waiting two weeks since i sent it out. i wish they had an east coast location. looks like this is what i get for getting an open box product.

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Terr
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/10/2009 4:41:35 PM

Rating + 5 Couldn't ask for a better motherboard.


Pros: Easy to install and use. Plenty of room for the stuff I want. Everything I thought of that could go wrong didn't...

Cons: The motherboard just barely squeezes into my case, so I have to move some stuff around a lot when upgrading. More the cases fault though.

Other Thoughts: This is the first computer I have built instead of bought whole. That said, I don't have anything to compare it to. It runs great. No complaints. When I want to figure out how to do something (hardware or BIOS) it's pretty easy to figure out...

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MetalEmpire
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/10/2009 7:17:11 AM

Rating + 3 Ok board


Pros: It runs vista x64 stable. I have 2 ATI 4870's running on this with an older soundblaster PCI xfi fatality. It has 2 x16 pci express slots. Built in promise raid works great built in ati/amd raid works great too.
MSI tech support supplied beta bios to me fast.

Cons: Had to use beta bios 1.7b4 to recognize AMD Phenom II 940. Won't run my 8gb of OCZ memory as 1066. The PCI express 1x slot gets blocked by my video card. The other PCI slot gets blocked by my 2nd video card.

Other Thoughts: The board layout should be a little different. I think new boards should accomodate 2 slots for a video card.

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llcane
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/8/2009 9:09:10 PM

Rating + 2 MSI in dust


Pros: Board worked on the first boot. Extra overclocking programs can with mobo.

Cons: Anything above a basic set up brought blue screen of death or failed boots. It says 1066 Memory but it is not stable on this board. Tried to use 8GB Ram and had problems. Wrote MSI tech several times and still no good. This was my first MSI mobo and my last.

Other Thoughts: I bought it because nothing beats the price for the options but MSI can do better and needs to. This is why ASUS is beating them. The problems I have had others have also had and they still have not been addressed

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Sage-BRIG-
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/8/2009 1:45:58 PM

Rating + 5 Awesome, one negative tho


Pros: It has everything you want, I am unsure of the guys who could not get a larger GPU in, I am running two 4850's with aftermarket zalman heatsinks just fine, maybe they need bigger cases; comes with great heatsinks all around, several on board fan controllers; tons of sata ports, etc

Cons: The LAN stopped working a couple months ago and the only response from MSI was to RMA it (like that is an option without going boardless for awhile) or flash the bios (not worth the risk, just installed AM ethernet card) Also, only one PCIE1 slot and its blocked by the first GPU slot, poor setup. I resolved by using an extention cord and running out of case to back for my PCIE Xfi sound card. OC progrmas not compatible with 64 bit systems

Other Thoughts: If you plan on going crossfire, make sure to have a significant PSU, I had a 550, it was not enough; Easy OC abilities, I am running 3.1 steady. RAM needs to be altered to 1066 in the bios and all else done using AOD and dual core center

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/8/2009 9:12:21 AM

Rating + 5 Nice board, Works well with Ubuntu 8.10 64 bit


Pros: Ubuntu 8.10 (64 bit) installed without a hickup. Has yet to need an undesired reboot.

Appears and feels well made. Shipped with all the cables one would need for a basic install.

BIOS is easy to work with (note: I don't overclock). Manual simply adequate.

Cons: None yet.

Other Thoughts: Read other reviews regarding the real number of SATA connectors available.

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Cruz7o3
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
3/6/2009 9:49:29 PM

Rating + 1 *** Second card cannot be recognized ***


Pros: The motherboard was easy to install, everything went well, I updated bios to make sure all my stuff would work. So far so good, but....\

Cons: I have two HIS Radeon 4670 HD 1GB IceQ. One was recognized, but the other one cannot seem to get recognized. I have both installed and the ATI Catalyst wont even show the "Crossfire" section. When i go to my device setting, it only shows ONE card. So im a bit confused.

Other Thoughts: So far its good, but I wont recommend if no one can help me figure out why my other video card cant be recognized.

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orion10301
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/5/2009 9:30:35 PM

Rating + 1 Not working


Pros: Great specs and loaded with upgradable options and plenty of ports. Fairly responsive customer service... but phone support would have saved me weeks of back and forth trying to get the board up and running (just RMA'd it).

Cons: Could not get it to work.

Other Thoughts: I hope to report back with 5 stars when the replacement comes.

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bapfreak
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/3/2009 7:59:26 AM

Rating + 5 King of the AM2+ Dynasty


Pros: Was the first AM2+ motherboard to be able to handle Phenom 9950 ( Supports 145W TDP ). Onboard firewire and lots of Sata ports with RAID. Chipset drivers and onboard sound work in both Windows XP/Vista and Linux without a lot of screwing around. 4x8x PCI-Expresss Crossfire capability. Completely stable motherboard. Not as picky with RAM as others. Lots of BIOS options; close to an "Enthusiast" class motherboard without the outrageous price. The bios can be automatically detected and upgraded in Windows XP without scavaging the internet for some bizarre website with the bios update ( unlike some motherboard companies )

Cons: Gigantic heatpipe looks awesome but feels as cheap as an empty soda can. Motherboard layout is good, but not great for newer video cards that are huge. My GTX 260 only fits in the very top slot as it covered very important things anywhere else. I had to put pressure on the heatpipe to get the video card in; it was not fun. I know that a GTX 260 is an Nvidia graphics card, but the newer ATI graphics cards are just as large and will have the same problem. I hate to say, but I don't see how four or even two 4870s or equivalent will fit on the motherboard with how big they are, but two to four 4850s should fit fine as they are smaller cards.

Other Thoughts: MSI is working on support for Phenom II processors, but the bios isn't quite out yet. Better than some companies that don't plan on upgrading their old bioses at all. I suggest you upgrade the bios when you get this motherboard. The board won't be quite as fast or stable until you upgrade to bios 1.6. Just a note that this motherboard will run 1066 RAM as 800 RAM if all four slots are populated. You can override this with the bios settings, but it will cause segmentation faults almost immediately. The mild speed increase from 800 to 1066 isn't really worth the trouble anyways. I had a board from another reputable company before this one, but their AM2+ board only supported 9550 and 4 gigs max of RAM. So i upgraded and couldn't be happier. PS - this board loves OCZ Reaper.

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N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/2/2009 5:05:07 PM

Rating + 5 Awesome MB


Pros: Great arrangement. Plenty of sata ports and the AMD790FX chipset is a dream. Had to flash the BIOS in order for it to recognize the Phenom X4 9850 and to recognize memory over 800 Mhz.

Cons: Only problem was the heat sink on the motherboard. When using the very top PCIe slot, the heat tube for the chipset gets in the way. Moved the graphics card to the next slot to alleviate it.

Other Thoughts: Very nice setup. I'm running the AMD Phenom X4 9850 BE on a MSI K9A2 Platinum MB. 4gb ogf GSkill PC8500 memory. Evga 8600 GT, 2@250gb HD: XP on one and Vista on the other. 600 watt Modular PS, Liteon DL Burner with a LG Blu-Ray drive. I'm overclocked to 3GB on the processor and slightly overclocked on the graphics. All in all I'm very impressed with the new setup. Eat your hearts out Intel!!!

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juggs
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/2/2009 2:50:05 AM

Rating + 5 works awesome


Pros: price to features stuffed it with a 9950 AMD and she was off and running with no issues even detected my ram at better than advertised settings.

Cons: didn't install itself

Other Thoughts: if installing a aftermarket CPU cooler suggest getting fans for n/s bridges and mosfets.
heats pipes will probably keep the heat down, but never hurts to ensure.

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Nums
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/1/2009 8:52:30 PM

Rating + 5 Great!


Pros: Great OC capabilities and has ran rock solid since the first day I got it.

Cons: Only a couple minor things, the sata ports are located in a dumb spot, if you want dual graphics cards, your going to need to get 90 degree sata cables. My other complaint is the slight interference with my graphics card and the boards heat pipes, nothing major or anything to worry about, I would just prefer that it wasn't touching. Also doesn't recognize the Phenom II, but it doesn't really matter, as long as it works. :)

Other Thoughts: My rig:
Phenom II 940 @ 3.7GHz
MSI K9A2 Platinum
2x 2GB G.skill Pi 800MHz
Sapphire 4870 1GB
Western Digital 640GB 32MB
Antec Twelve Hundred
PC Power&Cooling 750W
Vista Ultimate 64-Bit

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Dadman 5
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/27/2009 1:13:49 PM

Rating + 5 Still Happy 1 Yr Later


Pros: I have had this card operating in my system for just over 1 year now. I use the Promise RAID driver included and run RAID 0 config with 2 320MB drives. RAID configuration was a little difficult to get working initially, but has been working stably for a year now. No problems...no complaints and now the price is better!

Cons: RAID driver was a little difficult to configure. Needed to disable on board RAID to use the included Promise RAID controller.

Other Thoughts: Running a Phenom 9600 processor. I will probably want to upgrade to the Phenom II now that it's out. HD 3870 graphics card runs all games great with the 9600 and this board.

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RICMonster
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/27/2009 5:11:04 AM

Rating + 4 Annoying Problem - UPDATE


Pros: See above. With an MSI provided BIOS update (not the one available through their download website and see "Other thoughts below"), this mainboard works well and is competitively priced for the feature content.

Cons: This mainboard isn't perfect, but it does work as advertised. I would have rated it a 5 if RAM speed wasn't tied to CPU type.

This mainboard still does not automatically recognize 1066MHz RAM. MSI says this is the correct behavior. They claim AMD expects 800MHz ram and 800MHz is the correct default setting. Again, manually setting RAM speed does work.

Other Thoughts: Contacted MSI about my difficulties with their mainboard. They sent me an updated BIOS - I happened to have a floppy drive and boot capable floppy on hand; This update would have been much more tedious without one. After successfully loading the BIOS update, the system is now working properly.

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Sabin
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/26/2009 5:05:48 PM

Rating + 4 This bad boy is still running strong


Pros: Wanted to write a quick update review. Everything is still running strong and cool since Aug. of last year.

Cons: Decided to update the BIOS to 1.6 for my inevitable purchase of the Deneb. Did not know that it would nerf the overclock settings. Lowest possible voltage setting for processor was much higher than on 1.5 resulting in a (unwelcome) 7c increase in temperature, ram timings don't allow for any setting to be lower than 5...which is fine if A) you don't plan on overclocking or B) have 1066 ram. However, mine is 800 and rated to run at 4-4-4-12, not 5-5-6-18. So do yourself a favor and stick with 1.5 unless your getting a Phenom II.

Also the PCI-E layout is very frustrating. Doing Crossfire, you'll be lucky to have access to one of the other 2 PCI-E slots. What's the point if they are covered by vid cards?

Other Thoughts: The OC options on 1.5 are great and pretty straight forward. The board is stacked with features, though due to some design choices (PCI-E slots in too close of a proximity, heat pipe too close to PCI-E slots) it sucks in some cases. I think a layout revision would be necessary. In terms of reliability, I can count on MSI, but I'll definitely look at the layout a little closer upon my next purchase.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

RICMonster
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/26/2009 10:50:09 AM

Rating + 3 Annoying problem


Pros: Easy setup, mostly worked with default settings and right out of the box, Good feature content for the price, Good board layout, plenty of SATA and USB connections, two user-values BIOS stores

Cons: Loses BIOS settings with each power cycle (ugh!), Didn't recognize CPU or RAM PC8500 correctly - For the RAM, had to set overclocking options to set the RAM to its rated clock speed (but it did work and is working correctly)

Other Thoughts: On the loses BIOS settings, the good news (if you can call it that) is if you have saved your desired settings in one of the two save areas, all you need do is "Load" user values, hit F10 and allow the system to reboot.

I haven't tried the overclocking features (yet) but there are many listed in the BIOS settings.

The board is working as advertised other than noted above.

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Saber
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/25/2009 8:18:05 PM

Rating + 3 could be beter


Pros: holds alot of peripherals. runs stable with 8GB of ram. overclocks pretty easily. solid range of rear input

Cons: VERY touchy. if you change ram sticks it wont run until you take out all hardware except one stick, the CPU, and the graphics card and then slowly run, turn off, reattach ONE part, then repeat until everythings reconnected. Two of the sata ports cant run boot drives or anything but HDDs. The copper pipe is very close to the HD 4850 i have. Weird setup with the PCIe x16 slots

Other Thoughts: the heart of my first custom rig. It runs fine but has some annoying issues (see cons). not a terrible board but probably more trouble than it's worth. Sorry MSI but i wont be buying from you for quite a while

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plbproductions
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/25/2009 8:40:09 AM

Rating + 5 Outstanding *** but need more quad core support


Pros: Works well, Super fast board. Using quad core 3.0 ghz processor.

Would recommend to Anyone I build for.

Cons: Did not like the fact the raid drivers were not on the motherboard disk, had to go to MSI site to find the promise driver. The raid drivers that were on the disk were sound blaster, and will not work.

Other Thoughts: I would suggest that MSI check there motherboard drivers before they burn there disk to see if they actually work with the board they are sending. No quad core support drivers although it is quad core ready. Do not load duo core drivers, if your using quad core proc. blues screen of death if you do. I hadn't built a computer for myself in a while, Using this one in my music production studio. Kinda of overkill for what I need, but I can kick B-tt on some video games when I am idol. :)

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Oldjoe28
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/24/2009 3:43:41 PM

Rating + 1 All show, no go


Pros: Specs looked great. Beautiful looking board. Tons of PCI slots

Cons: Wouldn't even post. Heat tubes interfere with the first slot I wanted to put my video card in

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Makton
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/24/2009 5:51:31 AM

Rating + 3 Is great when it works


Pros: 4 way Crossfire. 2 way 16X crossfire. stays fairly cool. It's a mainboard that does what I want.

Cons: Quality seems to have dropped a bit, as I been with MSI since 2001.

Other Thoughts: Had openbox board first that was DOA, now the new board bricked on a needed bios update. board sent to MSI to be fixed. Their bios update still uses DOS and you need a floppy drive. Haven't owned one of those in 5 years.

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Jakester
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/23/2009 12:24:09 PM

Rating + 5 Solid Choice


Pros: Purchased this from newegg with new AMD Phenom II 940 Deneb. Installation was a breeze. The bios is a bit complex for newbies. It runs great with 1.5 bios! The Promise Raid was pretty easy to set up as this was my first time setting up a raid array. I love it!

Cons: Included fold out and manual not very helpful. The Online manual from the manufacturer's website was alot more informative. User to User forum was extremely helpful.

Other Thoughts: My first build from scratch. Dragon platform:
MSI K9A2 Platinum
MSI 4870 1 gig harddrive
940 "Deneb" Black Edition processor
AMD/ATI and Newegg Rock!!!

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darter9000
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/23/2009 12:19:05 AM

Rating + 5 Simple installation, works fine


Pros: It was a simple install, on par with any other motherboards really, with some extra features that does make testing simple.

Cons: It does seem a bit cramped in the PCI-E/PCI slots though

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Dylan
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/23/2009 12:04:44 AM

Rating + 4 Good stable board


Pros: I bought this board to go in a pretty slick gaming rig and it's held up well so far. It's got an.... alright BIOS (AMI v1.4 for those interested). I really like the heatsinks functionality for the NB and SB. They look pretty neat.

Cons: Not really a con unless you are planning on slapping a fairly large graphics card in your computer, but I have a HD4870x2 and the thing covers almost ALL of the SATA ports and is also touching the heatsink pipe that leads down to the SB. I was able to purchase some right angle SATA chords to fit underneath the mammoth card but you would think that MSI woulda thought something like that through, especially for 150 bones.

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Dan
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/22/2009 2:40:59 AM

Rating + 5 Great investment


Pros: This motherboard has everything you need and more. Easy to physically install, well thought out labeling for motherboard plugins and perfect performance under extreme gaming applications!!!

Cons: Now slot on the motherboard for AC 97...no big deal.

Other Thoughts: For a custom built gaming PC you can't get better than this for such a great price!!!

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N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/20/2009 5:06:43 PM

Rating + 4


Pros: plenty of PCI to go around, runs 8gigs fine, started up on first install no problems, been running for 6 months no probs

Cons: back cover panel did not fit with my raidmax case, not really the mother boards problem though.

Other Thoughts: easy raid set up, a little pricy but an above average motherboard. good buy.

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N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/18/2009 6:18:11 PM

Rating + 4 Reconsidered Review


Pros: I was very unhappy to see$150 MB not fully functioning. Turns out it was a Windows XP SP3 glitch for onboard audio not working.

Cons: Maybe since MSI knew about this they should have include the fix with instructions. There tech support was good getting back to me.

Other Thoughts: 8) Install the audio driver. Restart Computer.

After Restart it will go through several hardware wizards.

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Steve-O
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/18/2009 5:15:57 AM

Rating + 1 Trouble 2x


Pros: Plenty of SATA connections. The jumper connection blocks are handy. I like the additional USB ports in back.

Cons: Layout is not so good. When hard drives and graphic card in, hard to reach the SATA connections to check if they're loose.

Other Thoughts: I have had this board replaced once already and then the second one pretty much went down. Intermittent loss of hard drive connections, RAM issues, not recognizing some of my cards, and then the blue screen of death. The mobo is way too expensive for it not to work perfectly. Not impressed with MSI and I am not going to buy another mobo from them.

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VampRR
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/17/2009 1:30:46 AM

Rating + 5 NICE!!!


Pros: I have had this MOBO for a couple of days now and im really happy with it i dont really use RAID but has nice O.C options i would recomend!!!

Cons: none that i can think of at this moment

Other Thoughts: Agena 9950 x4
Hyper x 4G@1066
Radeon 4850 512MB
MSI K9A2 platinum
Corsair 650w

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Frobozz
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/16/2009 7:36:03 PM

Rating + 4 Good board


Pros: Set up easy.

Cons: No problems so far

Other Thoughts: It did just what I wanted it to. No compaints here

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
2/16/2009 1:49:03 PM

Rating + 5 Ram Speed


Pros: Good board with a great price!
Remember that AMD cpu's have the memory contoller in the CPU! This means the board has nothing to do with what speed is suported. The board simply supplies voltage to the DIMMS. The board has been qualified(the lanes connecting the CPU pins to the memory slots) to handle 1066mhz.

Cons: Guys who don't read the documents on the processor they just bought and then complain when they bought 1066 ram and a cheap CPU that doesn't support it! The people building these must be using some old socket A junk or an Intel prior to i7 and forgot to read. They are still looking for the 100,133,166, 200 jumper for the FSB.

Other Thoughts: People should obey the sticker "No user serviceable parts inside".

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Strallmag
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/14/2009 3:58:51 PM

Rating + 5


Pros: I plugged this thing in and it hasn't been any problem. The utility programs were nice, and easy to use. And haveing 4 PCIEx16 is nice. And the price was good. what more can I say.

Cons: Haven't found any yet.

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zero
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/14/2009 1:31:02 PM

Rating + 1 JUNK


Pros: Was fast when it ran

Cons: EVERYTHING!!!! Memory would not read at correct speeds, contacted MSI and they told me to pound salt basically and it was my problem. NEXT the raid drivers went to junk, would load raid array maybe 50% of the time i booted, updated drivers/bios etc made no diff once again MSI was NO HELP. Now just today the board itself went taking down 3 harddrives ( a raptor and two 500 gig cudas) and unknown what else yet, this is all new equipment less than 2 months old all ruined now. BEWARE this board will not run 8gb 1066 ram, if u run 4gb u will have to manually set the speeds and timings the board will not do this. flashing ure bios will be near impossible and their liveupdate program is no use. and if you do buy this board, expect MSI to care no further than when they get ure cash in the bank. ive never been treated so poorly as a customer i have dealt with MSI stuff for years but will never buy another of their products.

Other Thoughts: BUYER BEWARE! when u buy this product you are your own tech support, and keep ure lucky horseshoes and four leaf clovers next to ure case.

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N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
2/13/2009 5:10:41 PM

Rating + 5 best MB


Pros: This board is nothing but awsome :) the reaosn some have issues and others dont is based on other items being out in the MB not the MB its self. Im runnign a gtx 260 card / phenomx3 /seagate 80gig hard drive / OCZ SLI-Ready Edition 1066 Ram and this MB and running a 13950 on 3dmark 06 with no hicups :) set ram to 1066 on MB and phenomx3 to 15.5 @1.351 volts and been running some time now with no issues at all.

Cons: none

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jed4145
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/13/2009 12:06:00 PM

Rating + 5 Solid performer, everything in the box


Pros: I used this MB in my first computer build. I had done quite a bit of research and saw a lot of pros with this board. (4) PCIE x16's, 6 Sata's, large heat sink, good reviews, etc. I really didn't know what to expect as far as contens included with MB's. I was very impressed to find a plethora of cables in the box. It had everything I needed to do my install, including the lengthened crossfire cables, and some left over cables.

Cons: Unless you use 90 degree SATA connectors, you pobably won't get more than 3 graphics cards on the board. Also, if you don't have a full tower, you may only get 2 cards in. In my case the power suppy is too close to the bottom PCIE slot. I also have a floppy connector, so the bottom slot is not usable for a huge card.

I can't get my OCZ Reaper memory to operate at 1066 on this MB. It becomes very unstable and causes crashes. I've got 8 GIG running at about 940 right now.

A lot of this was caused by my in-experience, but, I had a horrible time setting up RAID 0. I think it was a combination of Vista not recognizing my DVD drive on install, the manual driver installation for the RAID controller, and other factors.

Other Thoughts: As stated with other reviews, the included manual sucks. If you go to their site, MSI has a lot better manual available. The BIOS lets you adjust just about anything.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Bill
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
2/13/2009 11:08:11 AM

Rating + 5


Pros: It works well with BIOS 1.6 to recognize and post with the second generation AMD X4 processors. BIOS rev 1.6 released 10/2008. It recognizes SATA II stand alone drives and has no issues loading Win XP, Win Vista 32 or Vista 64. Works great with GSkill PC2 6400, and Nvidia 260 series PCI-E 2 video adapters. No conflict with SB600 South Bridge.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: With at least the 1.6 version BIOS, it will play with the latest Phenom II X4 45 nm CPUs. Although I purchased it locally, I still think Newegg customers could use some practical comments since this is one of the bundle options available.
Newegg truly impresses me for high quality customer service and responsiveness.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/13/2009 10:43:41 AM

Rating + 4 Home theater


Pros: Board works with AM2 6000+, 8 gig of ram all recognized, using vista 64 SP1 basic OEM, crossfired using 4670, with blu-ray 7.1 sound on fiber optic port (24/96 PCM). I have a Zelman CPU fan and frequently overclock with no heat problems.

Cons: RMA'd first board, it happens if you are a builder, new board shipped in a couple of weeks.

Other Thoughts: Used half sized cards instead of full sized based on other reviews. Cost of a pair of 4670's same as the 4850 I own and runs visual faster. FRAPS validated observation. Looks as if MOBO engineered with 4670's in mind. I'm running WinDVD for LG blu-ray and upscaling into my Sony AMP to JVC 37" 1080p and I am happy with the result. Using Directx 10.1, ATI 9.1 and the vidio driver is factor not ATI's. All trouble some apps I have placed into the DEP and resolved most problems with GameSPY, NWN, 1702, and other apps. Used Realtek ATI sound driver (found on Realtek site) to get sound over HDMI - DVI connection but only got 5.1 sound.

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Phenomenal
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
2/12/2009 10:52:08 AM

Rating + 3 AM2+ Beware


Pros: I bought this a few days ago with a Phenom II 940 3.0Ghz and was running an HD4850. With this setup everything ran fine, but the processor would show as unknown in windows which caused some issues down the line.

Cons: This board will not recognize new Phenom II cpu's even with the AM2+/AM3 BIOS from MSI. Flashing the BIOS was a NIGHTMARE. I had to get a bootable version of DOS that supported creation of a RAMdrive (MSI tells you to find a friend who is running Win98 or ME and get a boot disk that way, what a joke, I ended up using Hirons boot CD), burn the BIOS files to a CD, boot into DOS and wait for the RAMdrive to load, put in the burned BIOS CD, transfer the files to the RAMdrive and finally run them. After all this it STILL didn't recognize my CPU which wouldn't be that big of a deal except you can't access the unlocked features of the Black Edition and without the board recognizing the CPU as AM2+ the memory defaults to 800Mhz instead of 1066. I decided I could live with all that until I went to upgrade my video card from an HD4850 to an HD4870 X2. The 4850 works just fine but I can't even get signal with the HD4870 X2. MSI tech support is non-existent: they just let the phone ring and ring

Other Thoughts: I have tried everything in order to get this board to work with my setup to no avail. I guess I'll just have to get a different board that is actually compatible with higher end components.

If you aren't running an AM2+/AM3 chip or an HD4870 X2 this board is great.

Setup:

AMD Phenom II X4 940 3.0Ghz Black Edition
MSI K9A2 Platinum Motherboard
2x2GB PC28500 DDR2 1066 Patriot Viper Memory
Diamond Radeon HD4870 X2
Thermaltake TR2 RX-850 850 Watt PSU
CoolerMaster HAF case

Even though it failed miserably for my setup I still gave it 3 eggs because my problems seem to be fairly case specific. I would still recommend this board to anybody with an AM2 chip.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Joe
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
2/11/2009 10:33:15 AM

Rating + 5 SOLID


Pros: Works perfectly, no issues ever for the last 7+ months.

Cons: I wish it had one onboard DVI, but that's just my cheap side talking.

Other Thoughts: Returned another board F*X**** and purchased this one. I should have spent the extra few bucks for this one right away! I had a bunch of ASUS boards and a couple of MSI and this one is one of the best. No BIOS issues at all. It's nice to set it up once and it just works.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Rauchster
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/10/2009 10:43:33 PM

Rating + 4 Good board for the average user.


Pros: Good points abound on this board. Most apply to the everyday user and what they want.
Stable, very few issues once it's running, good speed, able to handle a large variety of CPU's.
More than enough USB ports on back panel, and header on board. Combine with PCI card and you can easily get 12-16 USB ports.
Built in FireWire, plus dual PS/2 connection for adaptation with older keyboard/mouse systems.
Capable of handling 7.1 Surround Sound systems right out of the box as well.
PCIx16 2.0 capability with XFire is nice for the gamers.
eSATA is also a nice touch for those with the know-how.

Cons: Minor things that won't affect many average users, but can be a pain for assemblers or a high-tech user.

Heatsink placement can affect top PCIx16 slot.
SATA cables will affect longer cards in third PCIx16 slot.
Floppy cable and a couple header affect bottom PCIx16 slot, and it's low enough to seriously affect heat output.
The only viable option (if you have floppy and SATA drives) is the 2nd PCIx16 slot. XFire is nearly impossible, without some modifications to either the heatsink, or careful twisting of SATA cables

64-bit is atrocious.
I've fought against it for nearly a year, and I've given up on it. I've tried BIOS updates, flashing BIOS, clearing CMOS, resetting to defaults, and much more. OS (XP/Vista/7) has never recognized a full 64-bit support, only reading 3.25Gb Memory when there was 8Gb in the comp.

RAM slot placement is too close to CPU slot, can affect aftermarket CPU cooler alongside large RAM.

CPU doesn't have much support/stability for aftermarket CPU fa

Other Thoughts: I would've gone 5 eggs if either the 64-bit support worked, OR the PCIx16 slot placement was better thought out. I could handle one. But having both pretty much denied me of having my dream system.

Specs:
AMD Quad-Core 9600 Phenom Black Edition OC'd to 2.66Ghz
Zalman 9700 CPU Cooler
OCZ DDR2 800Mhz RAM 8Gb (Still only sees 3.25)
MSI NX8800GT Video Card
2x 500Gb Seagate Barracuda 32Mb Cache (Data)
1x 36Gb Western Digital Raptor 16Mb Cache (OS)
Corsair 750W PSU

Going to be replacing this with an ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe, and give it a try, just because I'm disappointed enough in this one. I'll be using this in a backup system, for it's stability, but nothing more.

Still a great board for the average user/gamer.
Not so great for high-end tech-heads.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/10/2009 10:10:58 PM

Rating + 1 Okay board, bad tech support


Pros: It's an okay board. It does what it says. There is a lot better out there. That's about it.

Cons: It doesn't like the corsair xms ram. I've read that I'm not the only one.

Other Thoughts: Tech Support is horrible. First of all they can speak english... it's obvious that there not using the best translator out there. There instructions make no sense at all. Even read me files have horrible english and grammar errors everywhere, which make it hard to understand what there trying to say. Once i found out what there where trying to say and verified it with them... my problems became bigger and became worse. Good luck flashing the bios on any MSI board, unless you have first hand experience. MSI decided to stop talking to me and now they aren't helping me at all. That's there tech support for you. I gave this board a 1 and will give all MSI boards a 1 or 2, not because of the board, but because of the lack and lazy tech support they have. No professionalism at all. at least they have tech support unlike some companies...

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kyle
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/9/2009 10:34:26 AM

Rating + 4 Decent Board


Pros: Pretty much plug and play, easy to OC, haven't had any major issues, seems like a high quality board.

Cons: Bought an AMD Phenom II 920 Processor as a combo deal with this mobo on newegg. Comes up as "AMD process model unkown" and keeps wanting to revert RAM to 800 MHz instead of 1066. I call tech support and find out apparently the Phenom II processors aren't supported (yet?). They apparently have a beta bios out for this board to support the Phenom II processors, but no official release, even though on the website it advertises it as being AM3 and Phenom II compatible. That kinda seems like false advertising...but hopefully the bios will be released soon that supports the Phenom II. My 920 still works fine, but it doesn't recognize the model and gives me issues when I try to overclock.

Other Thoughts: Having 4 PCI-E X 16 slots attracted me to this board, but there's no way you could use all of them with how big graphics cards are now. I have a 4870 right now and I'm pretty sure it would be impossible to fit another 4870 in the other slot that can run x16.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

rouster5
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/8/2009 7:40:50 PM

Rating + 5 This board is great


Pros: Eveyrthing works. Which is a very big plus these days. I have a raid 0 raptor setup running on the promise array at a 120 mps per sec, a 4850 crossfire config, dual channel 1066 corasir memory, "running at factory rated speeds and timmings," The Big Barney Bad Boy 940 PII overclocked to 3500 with cool & quiet enabled. A corsair 850 single rail, powering it all. Gives me a 3dmark06 score of 16350. And it was the cheapest build I ever did!
I have always used asus, but I am in love with MSI now.

For power, price, and performance this board hits the sweet spot. Get it now.

Cons: who knows what the future will bring, but right now this board rocks (PERIOD)

Other Thoughts: love it, live it, tech it.
One day geeks will rule the world.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Lyotchik
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/8/2009 12:58:20 PM

Rating + 3 BEST BUY in 970 Chip Set


Pros: This motherboard offers the features of similar products costing $50-75 more. Heat pipes cool major chips providing a very cool running, quiet system. Some people have reported problems fitting video card over heat pipe. It was a tight fit with a single Sapphire HD 4870 on both builds, but both cleared. Clocked CORSAIR TWIN 2x4096 memory to 1066 with no problem.

Cons: Printed manual is inadequate; online version is only a little better. I doubt that someone who had not built previously could get a working system from these instructions.
BIOS setup was a nightmare.
ATI SB600 is dated.

Other Thoughts: I built 2 systems based on this mb, having built 3 systems previously. While no pro, I have had sufficient experience so that I expected no real problems. Setting the BIOS had never been an issue, but these builds were nightmares. I spent 4 hrs on the first trying to get into the Promise Technology RAID setup. Following the instructions, you are to enter a "1" to enter set up routine. The system never responds. Never understood how I finally got it unlocked but suddenly it happened. Spent 1 1/2 days on the 2nd build and never did get it open. Finally ignored all Promise Technology SATA connections.

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Big_M
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/8/2009 10:30:54 AM

Rating + 4 Awesome


Pros: A great motherboard, handles my overclocks pretty well with no problems.

Cons: The heatsink design on the board blocks long cards from the first PCI-E slot without bending them.

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N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/8/2009 7:53:43 AM

Rating + 2 DO NOT BUY!


Pros: Built for ATI / AMD. Which I have always been happy with.
(That's the 2 eggs.)

Cons: Would not recommend this to anyone. For a board over $100 it should work.
After Fresh windows install. (Should always do with new MB)
1. On board audio will not work.
2. Several unknown device errors.
3. Manual doesn't help at all on important stuff.
4. Bios is very bad. Good luck figuring out how to boot from CD-Rom drive.

Other Thoughts: Always bought MSI for prior builds. Will not ever again.
A new build should not be this difficult for people know how to build.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/7/2009 11:15:02 PM

Rating + 4 Solid board, SB600 AHCI issues


Pros: - Lots of ports for both internal and external components.
- MSI has a history of issuing updates with decent regularity.
- Detected the correct settings for my Phenom II processor although it shows up as "unknown".

Cons: Enabling AHCI for the SB600 SATA controller in XP Pro is a royal pain. Here's how I was ultimately able to make it work:

- First, MSI does _NOT_ include a floppy with SATA drivers on it, so you will need to create your own by downloading the SB600 RAID drivers from MSI's website before beginning.
- Go to ATI's website and navigate to the driver's download page for CrossFire Xpress 3200.
- Use the "optional downloads" link and choose to download the South Bridge Driver.
- Extract, but DO NOT INSTALL the executable, find the SM Bus folder and save that to a floppy/CD/whatever.
- Use the RAID floppy to install the RAID drivers when prompted by the Windows XP install program.
- After XP installs DO NOT install the chipset drivers that came with the motherboard, they will wipe out the RAID drivers and kill AHCI support.
- Instead, go into the hardware manager and select the SM Bus Controller and update that driver using the driver you saved earlier.
- Install other drivers as nor

Other Thoughts: I know that AHCI support does not help performance and that setting the RAID to IDE mode in BIOS will work for most people, but I use eSATA drives for data backups and storage of my photographs so I need the hot-swap capabilities that AHCI provides.

If you need AHCI support in XP, without a hassle, you will want to use a motherboard that has one of AMD's 700-series southbridge chipsets. If you don't need AHCI, everything will install very smoothly and this is an excellent board. It's just limited by what I now know is a know issue for the SB600 southbridge. Serves me right for not doing my homework.

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farmerTom
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/7/2009 3:57:19 AM

Rating + 3 This was a lot of work.


Pros: Once I finally flashed the bios with the 1.74*** beta bios everything worked fine. But I've had this thing for over a year and it wasn't working.

Cons: Do not use the :Live bios Update: It flashed my two video cards, I had to flash them back to life. I couldn't find the bios made for my cards, (gddr3's) so I used a (gddr4) bios.....it worked, but its not what I wanted to do.

Other Thoughts: I think the ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe would have been a better choice.

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N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/6/2009 3:16:28 PM

Rating + 4 Great Service Good Board


Pros: After getting replacement, board is fast, easy to setup with very easy to understand case connectors. Lots of USB ports!! I am very pleased with the mobo even after the first DOA. Sometimes you get a bad one, but like usually, Newegg fixed the problem.

Cons: First mobo was DOA. Verified quickly with MSI and Newegg RMA'd. Board has an issue with MSI N260GTX. MSI says it is a bio issue, but no current fix. Every 1 out of 3 boots, video fails to boot but a simple reboot will fix it.

Other Thoughts: Newegg customer support was outstanding. However, I did make the mistake of sending in the Rebate prior to verifying the board was DOA. Newegg has a vaugue policy of not honoring RMA's if you have removed the UPC code. The fact I purchased a replacement board to facilitate the replacement saved my bacon. Also, buying a replacement board to speed up the RMA process negatively impacts any email discount on the original product. I had an instant discount code from email that was not applied to the replacement board. However, Newegg honored the discount once I contacted Customer Service.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Clutch442
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/5/2009 5:07:09 PM

Rating + 5 Great board


Pros: I have two 3870 cards a Visiontek and Sapphire Toxic in crossfire, a TV tuner card, 5000+BE CPU AC freezer64pro cooler, two sticks OCZ 800 Mhz mem, two hard drives, floppy, two optical drives and a card reader. Also have 2 psu's, a 500w Antec and 450w Thermaltake power express
Everything fits and runs like a champ.
Will update soon to PH2

Cons: No complaints

Other Thoughts: I also flashed to the latest 1.06 bios and my cards and cpu are overclocked.
I can't comment on the 1066 memory.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

NUKE
Tech Level: average
Ownership: more than 1 year
2/5/2009 2:51:40 PM

Rating + 1 worst mobo ever


Pros: has a lot of features

Cons: i cannot buy a big graphics card because the sata ports will be in the way...i cannot run my memmory at 1066 dont know why...i have tried a lot of things to fix this ..including buying another brand of memmory..DO NOT BUY THIS BOARD... i cant even use the software that comes with the mobo..it crashes my computer ???

Other Thoughts: im never ever going msi...i just bought a pain in the ..not neweggs fault. i have had this mobo for more than a year and im really angry about it....if anyone is trying to get this mobo keep this in mind as well..amd is not doing very good right now...spend your money on the i7...i hate to say it..but amd has nothing out there for us.. just the graphics cards..

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Syk0tix
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
2/5/2009 1:36:13 PM

Rating + 4


Pros: Very nice board, it works!

Cons: Large graphics cards will not fit unless the copper heatsink for the chipset is bent on the board. Not a hard fix, or dangerous for the board. Take care while doing this because you do not want to bend it too far, and make sure the board works before doing this.

Other Thoughts: Phenom II 940 oc to 3.7
ThermalTake BigWater Liquid Cooling
Nvidia 9800 gx2
8 gig G Skill ram (1066)
Razer Barracuda Soundcard
ThermalTake

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Frank
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/5/2009 1:01:29 PM

Rating + 3 Good Board


Pros: New Egg delivery was fast got it next day on standard shipping. Everything is there as far as connections. Cool copper cooling pipes pipes.

Cons: No drivers for XP x64 have to download them. Realtek Ethernet doesn't work bad XP x64 drivers from realtek

Other Thoughts: If you putting 1066 ram in there you will need to adjust it in bios otherwise it will run at the default 800 mhz

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kfinpgh
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/5/2009 10:24:16 AM

Rating + 4 Nice mainboard with some minor flaws


Pros: Easy to install and seems to support a lot of different configurations. MSI website is very comprehensive and reasonably helpful. The mainboard itself is nicely laid out and should give me years of service.

Product came with M caps. These nice gizmos allowed me to connect several case leads (HDD LED, power switch, etc ...) to one block then install the entire block onto the pins on the mainboard. That was a lot easier than using needle nose pliers to line up the individual connectors with the pins.

Jumpers and pins are color coded and well labeled.

Cons: Printed manual confusing. I got a more accurate board diagram from their website.

CD did not contain drivers for XP, so I had to get them from the MSI website.

Live update for the BIOS hasn't worked for my XP configuration yet.

This board uses 1.8 volt DDR memory. That is more expensive than other types, so do your research first. I bought the Kingston memory for this board from NewEgg.

Other Thoughts: Overall a nice piece of work. It made for one of the easiest system builds I have done.

There is no explanation for the 3 LED units in the middle of the board. One is amber, one is white and one is green.

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N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/4/2009 5:49:34 PM

Rating + 5 Nice Board


Pros: Nice board with room to upgrade. Installed a Phenom 9950 with an ATI 4870 and it was a breeze. Only my 2nd build and everything works nice.

Cons: Board can be a little cramped with a big video card. It's hard to get to the sata ports on the board and also hard to get to the memory slots.

Other Thoughts: Overall nice board and booted up on first try.

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Disappear
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/3/2009 12:30:16 PM

Rating + 5 Phenom II


Pros: I bought this board for my Phenom II 940, It was straight plug and play. Supports 1066! Everything worked first try. Plenty of room on the board, no problems with CPU Cooler in the way of Ram.

Cons: I can figure out how to manually update Bios, and MSI Live update 3 doesn't support Vista. This is more of a MSI problem for me, not the board.

Other Thoughts: Amd 940 OC 3.5
MSI k9A2 Platinum
Radeon 4850 OC
8GB Crucial RAM
Vista 64bit SP1
700GB HD 32MB Cache
Antec 300 w/ 500W PS
33c Idle 42c Full Load

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Falchard
Tech Level: average
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/3/2009 11:52:48 AM

Rating + 4 Ups and Downs


Pros: This thing is definetly a step up from my old motherboard. It was able to hold 4 dimms of memory, and a new Phenom II processor. Its cooling setup is much better then typical coolers. It has 4 PCI-e x16 lanes for some cool crossfire.

Cons: The BIOS on this thing are not so good (mine was shipped on 1.4). I am glad people told me the newer BIOS are not as good too so I don't flash them. Updating your BIOS is also a chore with this board and MSI doesn't offer any descent alternatives. Its LIVE Update does not support Vista 64-bit.
The RAID drivers also weren't good. I was hoping I can RAID on the SB600 SATA connectors, but that wasn't happening. I moved them to the Promise 3 Connectors, but it looks like I have to wipe the striped mode I already had the 2 drives in.

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Kizer
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/2/2009 12:31:21 AM

Rating + 5 Awesome Board


Pros: Everything fine on this board so far. MSI=WIN

Cons: Nothing wrong, works just as it is supposed to.

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N/A
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/31/2009 11:32:27 PM

Rating + 3 its ok


Pros: ok board first build

Cons: flimbsy and seems a bit brittle

Other Thoughts: good for first build

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Bert
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/30/2009 10:12:54 PM

Rating + 4 Does the job!


Pros: installation guide is great! This board is over designed for everything in my system except my video card! installation was a huge improvement over the k9a platinum (older version)

Cons: one heat-pipe does get in the way of larger video cards, but a slight bending (not as far as would even come close to effecting performance) made way for the card. This card doesn't deserve a 5-egg because of the lack of post-installation manual. even using the downloaded manual, you must be experience with overclocking and bios before pushing the limits on this board.

Other Thoughts: The bios set-up allows for a lot of tuning, and so far I've found it rather forgiving. One time the mobo sent out a beep ever two seconds as I fooled around with it, but this resolved once windows booted.

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Batmanasb
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/29/2009 6:04:18 PM

Rating + 4 Poor spacing


Pros: Great overclocking in BIOs and it resets for u... no switch!!!

Cons: The heat pipe is in the way of the first PCI x16 slot. I'm not sure if it's safe to have my GPU touch it? Also the Sata slots are blocking one of the other PCI slots... it leads right into it. But maybe my Radeon 4870 x2 is way to big in the first place :)

Other Thoughts: I managed to fit one of my GPUs in so im fine!!!

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Guy
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/29/2009 12:20:54 AM

Rating + 5 MSI good stuff


Pros: This is an awesome board if your trying to build a budget gamer system. Easy to install. looks nice and runs great. Big Asus fan now converting to MSI! Runs WoW at a nice steady 50 fps on a single graphics card.

Cons: MSI Live update is worthless. My advice would be to use the driver disk to get your LAN up and going then just go to MSI and manually download drivers. It will save you time.

Other Thoughts: System.
K92A board
3x Seagate 7200 HDDs 160gb 2xraid.
Asus EAH4850 1gb graphics card
4 gigs hyper x kinston 1066
Phenom x3 8650

My goal was to build a system for less than 500, and I did. Well worth it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Andy "theCompMan" M
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/28/2009 9:48:37 PM

Rating + 4 Love the board, but....


Pros: Great board, ran perfect out of the box. 2x 16x PCI-E slots are awesome, good location for the SATA, kinda hard to access, but meh. Great overclocking ability as well. I haven't really attempted much because I just have stock cooling, but I know it's possible.

Cons: THIS HAS NO BIOS BEEP. I FIND THIS VERY HARD TO BELIEVE. I'm dissappointed to be honest. What kind of a bios doesn't have a beep? I went to run one of my old PASCAL programs which produces a piano using the BIOS beep, but no go.

Other Thoughts: Oh... btw, the Optical port fell RIGHT OFF of the board after a month and a half of owning this board.

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osrk
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/28/2009 9:17:32 AM

Rating + 5 Great Board!


Pros: Onboard everything. 4 PCIE x16 slots. Stable

Cons: The latest stable bios from MSI seems to be unfinished but it's only a slight annoyance.

Other Thoughts: When I bought it I never thought I'd use the 4 pcie x16 slots but in hindsight it was a great move. This board is currently running 4 9800gtx+'s with no problem and 24/7 uptime. MSI hit a home run with this board.

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ramdacc
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/28/2009 8:51:52 AM

Rating + 4 Solid Performer


Pros: This board has been working great for me for months. I have an Athlon 64 X2 6400+ with a pair of 2GB DDR2-800 OCZ Plat. Rev. 2, 2 hard drives, and a TOXIC Radeon 3870 HD. This combination has been giving me solid gaming performance and framerates and it's relatively inexpensive as well.

Cons: This thing does take a suprisingly long time to boot up. Even using a SATA II hard drive and windows XP the boot times are around 50 seconds with very little software running at load. For the life of me I can't figure out why. It may have something to do with the Promise drivers...but I really don't know.

Other Thoughts: When I originally purchased my video card here on newegg to go with this board I had planned on purchasing a new one a few months later. Well, here I am looking for a match to my video card to run in XFire and, well, it's been deactivated so now I'm gonna have to buy 2 new cards. Im dumb I should have bought them together @ the same time.

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Tizen Kotoko
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/27/2009 3:01:54 PM

Rating + 4 Great potential, great price.


Pros: I purchased this board along with the 2.2ghz Phenom, about a year ago as a general purpose / gaming rig. They have served me well and have allowed a few upgrades / expansions during that time.

This was (still is) a great board for future-resisting against new technology with Quad Crossfire support and up to 8gb of ram.

Cons: MSI boards have some particular PSU requirements that some Coolermaster products have been incompatible with. Avoid the "COOLER MASTER Real Power Pro RS-750-ACAA-A1 750W ATX12V / EPS12V", as I've already learned that mistake the hard way.

Other Thoughts: While this may have had a great bang:buck ratio a year ago, the new Core i7 920 processor is currently king of the hill, today. Now is not the best time to take a chance on AMD. Wait until the new Phenom IIs hit, and see how they stack up.

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