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MSI DKA790GX Platinum AMD Motherboards
Customer Reviews for MSI DKA790GX Platinum AM2+/AM2 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
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Review Summary (64 Reviews): Rating + 4
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Excellent Rating + 5 32ReviewsExcellent
newegg
49%
Good Rating + 4 14ReviewsGood
newegg
22%
Average Rating + 3 8ReviewsAverage
newegg
13%
Poor Rating + 2 7ReviewsPoor
newegg
11%
Very Poor Rating + 1 3ReviewsVery Poor
newegg
5%
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Reviewer Product Review
screwu2man
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/18/2009 5:30:51 PM

Rating + 2 ehhhhh


Pros: nice board, good overclocker, nice box.

Cons: on board lan died after 3 weeks, on board audio always had a hissing sound, could not figure that out. Bios is a PITA to get updated. Search MSI forums to update with thumb drive.

Other Thoughts: Had to RMA this board, got refund and went with ASUS. This MSI board can overclock great. Wish the Asus could do the same.

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

John J.
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/14/2009 6:03:19 PM

Rating + 1 Beware if using this for an HTPC or Server


Pros: The board has a lot of features and a reasonably low price, but it's quite flaky (I realize this is a backhanded pro, but I'm short on them). When it did run, it seemed to function well.

The bios menus were reasonably well laid out and provided useful information, which helped a lot since the manual was basically useless unless you wanted to know only the most basic information.

I spent 5 years as a Network Administrator for a reasonable sized company working on a great many board and have worked in the high tech industry ever since so I'm reasonably well versed in what's good and what's not. I do hope that it's just that I ended up with a defective motherboard and it's not that MSI really did design something to be this bad. I guess, if you're just using this board for a basic PC and not using the on board graphics or RAID card, then it might be a good board, but it seems like you'd be paying for a lot of stuff that you're not using.

Cons: This board is an unmitigated disaster as an HTPC. It would work fine for days and then the video drivers would crash and make you have to restart the system. It's the phantom, intermittent problems that are the worst and drain the most time diagnosing and I haven't seen a board riddled with as many of these since back in the late 90's when Tyan experimented with dual Pentiums for the first time.

To add insult to injury, they don't even have a 64 bit HDMI audio driver for Windows Vista. This is something you discover usually when you have finished all your install work and are hooking it into your home theater system and wonder why you don't get more than 2 channels of audio and then spend hours debugging the system only to discover that you're using the default windows driver. I had to reinstall a 32 bit version of Vista and then I got 7 channel audio.

I've tried every variation of driver for the on board HD 3300 and none of them resolved the issue.

Other Thoughts: So after I finally gave up trying to get this board to work after about a month (and after I was outside of my return window), I thought I could try and reuse the board as a server board. After all it has RAID 5 capabilities and 5 slots, right? Well this produced a menagerie of different errors that often took hours to even get to (like crashing in the middle of formatting the array, or getting half way through an install and then saying "Cannot initialize UI subsystem". The RAID controller would also intermittently allow the DVD drive to boot or not boot. In case you're curious I was trying to install Windows Home Server, which I ended up having to install using a $60 PCI SATA RAID card because the onboard controller wasn't up to the task.

In the end you have to make your own decision, but I would stay far away from this board if you value your time.

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

almatic
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/13/2009 9:39:39 PM

Rating + 4 Well...


Pros: Looks great has almost everything.

Cons: I fried my first CPU in about 2 weeks, I thought it was this board so I RMAed it to MSI, and I got it back in about 2 weeks. Well it wasn't the board, MSI couldn't tell me what if anything they fixed.

The onboard lan works intermittently. It always works when I start the computer, but sometimes disconnects and I have to restart the computer.

Other Thoughts: Over all I like the board, I probe3bly would buy a cheaper brand if I did it over again. I did use LIVE UPDATE to flash the bios to 1.5 and it worked!!

I can't boot if I use the overclocking switches. (AMD 7750 kuma 2.7)

1 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Tim
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/13/2009 12:10:37 PM

Rating + 3 DEAD Networking


Pros: Seemed like a decent board.

Cons: Built-in network card inop after 1 1/2 months. Too late for RMA with Newegg and horrible tech support from MSI.

Other Thoughts: My first and LAST MSI product. Customer service is lost in definition on this company..!!! STEER CLEAR

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

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/23/2009 12:24:20 PM

Rating + 4 good board


Pros: Installed perfect, no real problems,and runs great. Tons of oc options in bios.

Cons: Came with 1.2 bios, would boot the Phenom II 940 but showed as unknown model until updated. Bios was a pain to flash, mainly because I never flashed using a boot disk, but once I found direction to make one on msi site, went smoothly. Next to no information about hybrid crossfire, I thought it would crossfire with any crossfire card, well after I finally found some unofficial sites with information I guess it will only work with a 34xx series card (I have a 4870, so less 1 egg due to lack of notification on compatible hybrid crossfire configuration)

Other Thoughts: Running Phenom II 940, MSI DKA790GX Platinum, MSI R4870 1G gddr5, 8gigs (4x2gig) Kingston Hyper-x DDR2 1066 (running at 800mhz), 2x120gig sata Western Digital HDD's in Raid 0, 650w Antec power supply, Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit.

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

Dany
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/14/2009 8:42:13 AM

Rating + 4 good board


Pros: less one egg because floppy port error(RMA it!) need to use usb bootdriver for second one!

Cons: good gamer board!

Other Thoughts: using usb bootdriver to update to bios V1.6, run faster than my son Q6600 with the same condition!

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

ooB
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
2/14/2009 6:00:02 AM

Rating + 5 Beats Expectations


Pros: Overall, a very nice motherboard. MSI has taken its AMD chipset line to a new level, they've improved over the years.

Using a Phenom II 940, and I have to say it is very nice for the price. With the old BIOS it booted the 940, didn't have to swap out the processor to update the BIOS, which got it up and running very quickly.

A huge advantage of the AMD/ATI platform chipset is that driver setups are very simple, for me, with a dozen or so systems and multiple versions of XP, Vista x86 and x64, and now Windows 7 x86 and x64, it helps to get drivers from one source, cross compatability between systems makes my life much simpler.

Also, my OS of choice right now is Windows 7, using x64, build 7000. The system, although difficult to deal with interesting software incompatabilities and sometimes funny behaviors, is just too beautiful for me to turn away from. I'm actually not wanting to use xp for anything, even though w7 doesn't do all I need.

Quad is wonderful!

Cons: The board came with v1.2 BIOS, and yes, it was a pain to update. I cannot blame MSI for my grief since floppys are nearly extinct in my lab, ended using a dvd-rw to update the flash the first time.

Biggest problem was the BIOS checksum error. Having purchased an openbox version, I was always questioning whether or not there was something wrong with the board. But once I flashed ( and by the way I discovered the window's flash from the AMI website which was not supposed to work, worked very well ) those problems were over until the ati beta w7 beta messed it up again.

A resetting of default values (there is a convenient CMOS button on the mother board, and readjusting the sideport memory fixed that problem.

Other Thoughts: I bought the open box version and it came complete with everything, was very surprised about that, I would sometimes get the right board in a different box, and not a single accessory, but this time all accessories, softdisks (never used), manual, quickguide, etc. was included.

Initially started with a Antec Truepower 330, about 3 years old, and it worked fine, no problems, using two hd's and 2x2 gigs: absolutely NO Issues with power.

All the OS's worked, I've loaded all, and some a few times on different hd's, Vista x64 sp1 no issues at all, again, I am 'preferring' Windows 7 x64: I have not had a single BSOD once!

Running the 940 at full speed, even with a PS at 285W worked fine, not a single real motherboard issue has developed, that I can say, on any OS.

All in all, very happy with this MB, w7 graphics performance: Desktop Aero - 4.2; 3D Graphics 5.3. Processor 7.3, Memory 5.9 (skill 1066 running at 400mhz), disk transfer 5.9 (wd3200aaks single platter).

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

herrme
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/13/2009 5:10:49 PM

Rating + 5


Pros: Blazing fast works well with Vista and XP. I know benchmarks are faster with I7 but prices are way higher for the package. Best of all S3 sleep finally works reliably so I can save power but be up in 20 secs, also my same DSL line downloads noticeably faster on this chipset.

Cons: None for me. Limit 8 gig memory if you are super power user.

Other Thoughts: Great bang for the buck, great board and could be set up for gaming if that was your goal.

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
2/7/2009 4:35:57 PM

Rating + 4 msi vs asus


Pros: High end chipset. Good on board audio. Easy upgrade to am3 and 1066. I'm a big fan of heatpipe designs. Don't have to worry too much about excess heat and noise. Power buttons on the board. All outputs imaginable. Love the 2 usb ports where a ps2 would normally be. Keeps the keyboard and mouse separate. Solid caps.

Cons: Main drawbacks are not really the boards problems, but the extras. The included msi update software doesnt really work properly, nor does the downloaded stuff. Had to pull a floppy drive out of an old pc to update the bios. The packaging was a little odd with a blank extras cd and not much protecting the board. Also, the right angle sata connectors are kinda hit and miss. Awkward for my Antec 900, but may be good for others.

Other Thoughts: This board replaced an Asus m2n-sli deluxe. The asus was a solid board but I couldnt really upgrade it any further, so I decided to move up. Both seem to be made well. Lots of copper to move heat around. The main difference seems to be that the asus was made to sort of set and forget. I didnt need to adjust the bios or install drivers (except for the awful onboard audio). Everything just worked with Vista. This msi board seems to be more of a builders board. Made for someone who wants to be able to adjust and play with things. Drivers were needed for everything, and I had to play with the bios right off to get the cpu fan to slow down. I'll probably go with asus next time, but this is a solid gamer/builder board from msi.

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

Dataman
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/7/2009 11:56:36 AM

Rating + 2 Woes of MB


Pros: It works enough to Install Vista. It has many tweaks.

Cons: UMA and Sideboard memory when enabled caused effect like "Lost in Space" computer. Colored blocks on the screen and distorted txt. 128mb of Memory is Bad. I ran memtest on memory I got and it works (tried another from working machine too).

Other Thoughts: Support from MSI is a Joke. I put posting on system and got no reply. I tried to post on BBS and that system is bigger joke. Could not get verification email to join the system to post even.

I RMA the board. Not happy with MSI next build Gigiabyte.

0 out of 2 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
2/5/2009 8:52:23 PM

Rating + 4 So-So


Pros: Really no super pros about this board

Cons: Manually flash to 1.6 which is a pain in the ***, the x16 slot is not high enough to get heat pipes for my Radeon HD 4870

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

RHalstead.
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/3/2009 12:28:25 AM

Rating + 4 Not bad


Pros: These are more personal likes and dislikes for both the pros and cons.

Good MOBoard for the money. Easy to install. Integrated HD video and HD sound although I'll likely be running my current 3870 X2, 1 Gig video card. BIOS is easy to navigate. Has a handy switch for coarse OCing. Lots of room for a Zalman cooler and still easily mount 4 DDR-2 1066 memory modules with tall heat pipes Zalman cooler pulls air over the memory. Outlet lines right up with the back chassis fan which helps to keep things cool. Room to spare in a full size Thermaltake case with only a couple of exceptions.

Cons: Only 5 internal SATA connectors and 1 e-Sata. The internal SATA connectors come off at right angles to the Moboard, pointed right at the drives in a rather tight space. Sockets for drives 1 and 2 are mounted one above the other as are 3 and 4. This makes cable plug in a bit inconvenient, but not terribly difficult IF the wiring harnesses are neat. I'd prefer they come straight up which is far more convenient. Wish the new moboards had 3 or 4 PCI slots instead of just 2 and I miss the RS232 ports (yah, I know, old fashioned, but I have some legacy equipment and don't trust USB to Serial converters since wiping out one USB buss) Also has a 4 pin power connector for the CPU instead of the 8 pin connectors on all my other boards. No biggie far as I can tell, just preference.

Other Thoughts: This one replaces an Asus Crosshair moboard with the AMD X2-6000 which I liked, but unfortunately it did not have the AM2+ socket for the quad processors. I haven't had the chance to try this board with over clocking on the 3 Gig 940 Deneb and am looking forward to that trial.
Another good board for the money although it is not my favorite.

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

Igottricked
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/2/2009 7:37:42 PM

Rating + 1 Newegg Fault ?


Pros: it might be good if u can use it's full capacity

Cons: newegg sells this thing as a combo with a 940 Phenom 2, but if you go to msi site and check the board it just supports the 920 even with a bios update........

0 out of 7 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
2/1/2009 2:36:58 PM

Rating + 5


Pros: very nice product, very quiet.

Cons: can not run sli only crossfire that i know of.

Other Thoughts: still waiting on rebate.

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

burntham77
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/30/2009 6:39:39 AM

Rating + 5 Great Board


Pros: Stable, well-built board. The layout is good enough so that you can have two double-slot graphics cards and still have some free PCI and PCIeX1 slots open. BIOS flash was easy once I figured out how MSI does theirs. Phenom II 940 works great on it. eSATA is great. I hooked a new external eSATA drive up to this and it is far faster than USB or Firewire. The BIOS even recognized my fairly new USB printer by name.

Cons: It took some time playing around with MSI's update software to find the part where it says "Make a BIOS flash and recovery disk". Have a floppy disk and drive handy (they are still useful, even today).

Other Thoughts: Phenom II 940, 4 gigs Corsair DDR2 (2x2gigs), Sapphire Radeon 4870 1gig DDR5, Corsair 750 watt PSU, Antec 900.

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

Dopamin3
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/28/2009 2:19:49 PM

Rating + 5 Solid Board


Pros: ACC was able to push my x2 7750 pretty high (3.4ghz). Bios is loaded with great features such as overclocking the onboard video. The newest bios (1.6) also supports smaller voltage increments for better stability and fine tuning. Runs 4 gigs of OCZ ram at its timings fine. Helpful user run forum on the MSI website. DrMOS and the circu-pipe cooling is a great feature. Good SATA port locations, the 4 on the side make it easier to hide cables to make the case look overall better.

Cons: MSI doesn't include the newest bios flashing utilities from their website, and the checksum was wrong when I tried to flash the bios to the newest version. To fix this I used a force switch to get it to work (/P /B /N /C). Someone else mentioned about missing a TPM connector and mine didn't have one either, but I don't even know what they are lol and the board is perfectly stable without it.

Other Thoughts: I am very impressed with MSI and will probably go to them in the future. Let's hope I get the rebate!

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

HomburgPokes
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/28/2009 2:29:09 AM

Rating + 5 Very Impressed


Pros: * Easy to Overclock
* No problems during install.
* Fast board, loads of options.
* Would definitely recommend.
* No problems with Phenom II 940 / Vistax64 / RAM Recognition
* MSI Website is regularly updated

Cons: * I'm not in love with the orientation of the SATA connectors.
* Manual is ok. It is accurate, but not thorough with the BIOS setup screens.
* The MSI Extras CD was essentially blank. Had one small file on it, but I knew to grab the latest editions of the software from the web.
* BIOS Update utility is flawed, have to get AMI BIOS update (but the BIOS files are current and often updated)

Other Thoughts: I don't usually overclock, but this board combined with the Phenom II 940's abundant overhead makes it easy. I started by using the onboard dip switches to bump the speed to 3.45GHz and it has been rock solid. There's plenty of room to go. * I don't use the onboard video, and frankly I wish they would get rid of it.

3 out of 3 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
1/25/2009 12:42:55 PM

Rating + 5


Pros: works great so far w/Phenom II 940

Cons: came with older v1.2 bios. the new bios (v1.6) requires you to find the correct ami flasher, NOT the one they supply or is on their website!!!

use the flasher from:
http://www.ami.com/support/downloadagreement.cfm?DLFile=support/downloads/amiflash.zip&InpDrvID=90

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

PolarFX
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/25/2009 10:09:08 AM

Rating + 5 Amazing Dragon Platform


Pros: Very stable. Great All-in-one solution.

Cons: Bad floppy connector emplacement. No TPM thingy on version 1.2 (Like i care). Needs Bios 1.4 or later for Phenom II.

"Unless your a bios moron then this can be a real con".

Other Thoughts: Setup with Phenom II 940, 4Gb OCZ DDR2-800 Crossfire Edition, Visiontek 4870 (TwinTurbo Fan).

This setup left my old FX-62, K9A combo in the dust. Extremely satisfied! It deserves 5 eggs even with minor cons.

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

Grammy
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/24/2009 8:04:03 PM

Rating + 5 Overall impressed


Pros: Fanless=silent
Good onboard graphics
Good onboard sound
more USB ports than I know what to do with
external SATA connector
included crossfire cables

Cons: Did not initially recognize the processor, AMD Phenom II 940 needed a Bios update.

Other Thoughts: While the onboard graphics are good for integrated graphics, they still are not enough to handle most new games with settings on high. Not really a con, I knew this beforehand and to be honest I was impressed with how well the onboard graphics performed for most everything except intense gameplay. Nevertheless I have a radeon 4850 on the way!

1 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
1/22/2009 11:17:08 AM

Rating + 5 Outstanding Motherboard!


Pros: Decent quality built-in ATI graphics accelerator.
Great expandability with 2 PCIx 2.0 slots, 5 SATA plugs, multiple fan ports, etc. The list goes on!

This board is EASILY worth the price. I would have paid more! My computer is lightning fast thanks in no small part to this wonderful motherboard.

Cons: None so far!

Other Thoughts: AMD Phenom 2.6 GHz Black Edition
4 GB OCZ Reaper DDR2 1066
Visiontech ATI Radeon HD 4870 512Mb

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

Alex4fun
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/20/2009 6:34:09 PM

Rating + 3 DOA


Pros: looks pretty good with all the features and i'm now waiting for replacement before I'll be able to say more

Cons: Doa

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

Mrskizzot
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/20/2009 4:45:57 AM

Rating + 5 great mobo


Pros: easy OC , a lot of options. No problems getting my phenom up to 2.8. Runs stable and fast.

Cons: Not any that iv encountered so far.

Other Thoughts: I had to manually set the memory to 1066, not a big issue.

0 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
1/19/2009 2:18:50 PM

Rating + 5 Great board, runs fast


Pros: overclocking options in BIOS, stable, great graphics for embedded system, feels fast, able to overclock embedded graphics by 150 Mhz, lots of upgrade room for future

Cons: G.Skill 1066 2x2GB kit only runs at 385 Mhz at stock clock speed instead of 400 Mhz with AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+(3.1 Ghz)

Other Thoughts: cpu will only overclock by 5 %, now running @ 3.25 Ghz with memory @ 407 Mhz, fantastic upgrade in graphics over old system with Sempron 3400(2 Ghz oc'd to 2.2 Ghz) and nVidia 5500 FX card, can upgrade to Phenom II X4 and high end graphics card later when prices come down for another huge increase in performance

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

xH2Ninja
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/14/2009 5:47:32 PM

Rating + 2 Freaky


Pros: Easy manual OC. Easy BIOS adjustments. Works well.

Cons: Initial flash is a pain. Once it goes through Operating System configuration becomes freaky. Adds Web sites to your trusted sites and you will NOT be able to remove them. Keep trying and it'll just frustrates you how the "thing" took over your system. Nothing to be worried about I suppose, legitimate MSI Web site; I however, would like to take command of my entire system. I own it, I payed for it, get your hands off it.

Other Thoughts: Leave your customers the choice to manually connect to MSI.

2 out of 4 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
1/10/2009 10:38:08 PM

Rating + 5 Really good motherboard


Pros: Very well made and it looks fantastic, even better in person,Black PCB looks killer, overclocking switches on the motherboard takes a phenom II to 3.6ghz+ for novice overclocking. Has more usb ports than almost all the other motherboards in this price range, 4+1 power, well layed out, quick connectors for the front panel switches. Liveupdate to flash the bios and very nice overclocking bios.

Cons: AM2 Back plate doesn't fit a Thermalright Ultra Extremes mounting screws so you need to buy a new one .

Other Thoughts: really well done for the price killer looking, fast as heck and great dual heatpipes.

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

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/4/2009 3:39:47 PM

Rating + 3


Pros: Lots of nice options pluse crossfire capable.

Cons: Arrived DOA would not turn on at all. corner of board was bent. Hope it wasn't a return that they sent me. Sent back RMA hope to get a new one soon.

Other Thoughts: Replacing older MSI board which I'm still using until I get a good board. Msi has good products. Don't count them out. New Egg sent me a UPS tag to send the board back.
Good customer service so far!

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/26/2008 10:00:20 PM

Rating + 4 Close but no Cigar


Pros: Best Onboard VGA ever, plenty of connections, above avg craftmanship.

Cons: Extras disk empty, Can't update BIOS with live update untill bios gets updated manually 1st.

Other Thoughts: I don't know about vista 64bit, but xp x64 isn't worth getting. Does not appear to be faster then 32 bit. Was not able to get a 64 bit driver for my lexmark printer, and not all my games will install.

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

Marsh.
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/24/2008 6:27:13 AM

Rating + 2 Replacement Board had same defect


Pros: Great motherboard, many features.

Cons: Original board was missing the TPM socket as was the case with the replacement board. Still I do not have a board that is usable. Shipping boards back to newegg is an expensive proposition.

Other Thoughts: Newegg was been very good about shipping the replacement board. MSI must have shipped a bad batch of boards? One bad board is a defect. Two with the same defect is a cause for further review by newegg. Could all their boards haev teh same defect?

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

eadthem
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
12/21/2008 9:48:02 AM

Rating + 5 great mobo


Pros: great mobo rember to use 1.8V ddr2 ddr3 ram on AMD am2 am2+ am3 mobos this is a common mistake. using fan control options a coolermaster case and pc power and cooling 610W. retail amd athlon x2 4850 45W was able to make a great gamming system that was dead silent for 550$. With cpu fan off most of the time(cpu cooling goal set to 40c) and front case fan at 50%. software install for chipset drivers and onboard gfx card went far better/faster/easer than expected. used windows xp/mandrivia 2008.

Cons: none found yet

Other Thoughts: TPM modual is optional and is not a common option. alot of pepole see TPM as invasion of privacy true or not.

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Marsh.
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/11/2008 4:41:39 PM

Rating + 2 TPM Socket Missing


Pros: Great features, bord seemed to have everything, including upgradability to AM3!

Cons: When assembling the board, the TPM socket was found to be missing.

Other Thoughts: MSI Quality Assurance should have picked up on this problem? Can't help but wonder how many baords are missing this socket/ What else could have been missed?

1 out of 6 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
12/6/2008 4:39:42 PM

Rating + 5 EXCELLENT


Pros: No complications at all. This board is better than the KNA MSI series I bought before. I dont have my video card yet and this board puts out some great sound and video. Running now on 1440x600. Works great with my AMD Phenom 9500 x4, OCZ 2x2GB RAM, 640 GB Western Digital Hard Drive, OCZ 700w power supply. I Auctually opened 15 Enternet browsers, 3 music videos, and 1 movie today and not one had any lagg. Ran perfectly. Hard to beat this motherboard. This is my second build from New Egg and again very pleased.
Over Clocking very easy with MSI digital controls. I have not had to over clock yet. Yes this is a gaming motherboard. Sli mode ready and comes with all internal wires and hook ups

Cons: absolutely none

Other Thoughts: If someone has written a bad review on this product they either have a damaged product,dont know what there doing, or skimp on there processor and rams, causing the whole thing to run like a slug. My amd is unstoppable in this thing. Make sure you have enough power coming from your power supply to run everything. That can also cause problems. Thanks New Egg

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

wayne
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/4/2008 10:43:23 PM

Rating + 5 Nice motherboard


Pros: Nice board with alot of features, You can overclock with the flick of a switch. I love Msi Great motherboards. For my first build had no problems

Cons: none

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

Karath
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/21/2008 10:34:58 AM

Rating + 2


Pros: Good performance, good integrated video is a definate plus if you have a videocard die.

Good overclocking, but...

Cons: The DRMOS is awesome, but MSI have completely skimped on its cooling. In a passive or watercooled setup, it will self destruct (in a matter of minutes at full load) unless a fan is rigged to the mosfet cooler. This may not be an issue for non Phenom processors.

Other Thoughts: In a board in the performance market the mosfet cooling is a serious disappointment. If I can return it for my money back I will be getting a DFI board.

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

Jellybean
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/19/2008 2:34:07 PM

Rating + 2 Dead in less than three months


Pros: Lots of features, good onboard video

Cons: This mobo died after two and a half months. There was no overclocking or board modifications.

Other Thoughts: The onboard video is disabled when either PCI slot is used. I was hoping to use it to run a second monitor but that was not possible.

1 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Satisfied Customer
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/13/2008 6:49:31 PM

Rating + 5 Exceptional Motherboard!


Pros: The HD3300 is the probably the biggest pro here for me. Not only does it have (nearly) all the bells and whistles you could possibly want, but it's onboard graphics is better than my previous backup option - a Radeon X300SE PCI-e card. My rig is running extremely stable now, and all the compatibility problems I had with the nVidia chipset have disappeared!

Cons: No RCA S/PDIF out. I don't have an optical cable yet, but for me that's ok because I use my X-Fi w/ front module for sound. Still, and I understand why, it would of been nice to have the jack there, even has a jumper block/dongle solution. I knew this when buying it, but eh...

Other Thoughts: If you're going to buy this motherboard, and you can afford a Phenom, my suggestion is to go for it. I popped in a Phenom 9950 and the thing just screamed! AMD Overdrive is really nice! Also, I can play BF2 with my X-Fi again! Yay!!!

Was buying DFI in the past, but I'm not so sure about them anymore. MSI has been making some really solid products, and this is one of them. Would definitely recommend this over others.

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

BenjiToo
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/13/2008 6:42:04 PM

Rating + 1 Unsupported


Pros: The ATI chipset and I/O specifications, but you can get this with any other mainboard maker, and I recommend that if you want the 790GX.

Cons: Poor documentation. I mean really poor. Like pictures instructing backwards wiring. The software is buggy and wont work. If you wanted this as a basic work box it might work, but for the fun of computing DO NOT choose MSI.

The advertising is misleading; it is not 1GB of Sideport. It is only 128MB. The 1GB is a hybrid of sideport and main memory VGA driver memory in one of those shady min max relationships fortunately it is actually limited to 2.5GB so it can't take over your whole system. Don't use the Auto settings for the IGP.

Other Thoughts: Tech support doesn't have to have the answer just care about getting the right answer, and this is not the way MSI's tech support works. They give you any answer that sounds like their advertising rather than a knowledge of the product. I accidentally clicked on the egg I gave it and now can't take it back ;-{.~

5 out of 16 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
11/12/2008 7:44:36 PM

Rating + 5


Pros: Used my old case, MB went right in, all hook ups easy.
Oversized poster of MB with all ports ided made it easy to find all ports.
All necessary cables.
Runs very cool, have not tried to overclock but switchs easy to use.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Newegg shipped fast.

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

ManagedTech
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/9/2008 8:00:59 AM

Rating + 5 All the bells and whistles


Pros: Out of the box it works great. Just add a cpu and memory, and it's a very nice system (hi-speed video memory, HDMI video out, HD Audio, Digital audio out, gobs of usb ports, support for 140w cpu, etc.). But then factor in the room for dual pci-e gpus, 5 sata ports, 4 sticks of DDR2 memory, etc., and you've got lots of potential for expansion.

Cons: I can't think of a single con - I am now a MSI fan.

Other Thoughts: AMD Phenom 9950 2.6GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Black Edition, CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500), Antec Nine Hundred case

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

DrMOS
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/5/2008 9:54:43 PM

Rating + 5


Pros: This is a GREAT motherbaord. I used this on my first system build. I love it! The easy OC switch is nice. Flip the switch and its over clocked! This thing handles. HDMI is nice along with the dsub and dvi.

Cons: On board graphics aren't the best, but hey...they're on board. If you plan on gaming, get a new video card. If not, then the on board gfx will do.

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
11/5/2008 1:10:29 AM

Rating + 5 Big Slick


Pros: Great features, very easy to use OC utility, and lots of onboard usb. Power connectors very easily accessable. SATA connectors a royal pain in the keister with an Antec 900.

Cons: This board is bulky and large, was actually a semi-tight fit into an Antec 900. SATA connectors a royal pain in the keister with an Antec 900. No onboard firewire connection for my front of case plug-in. FDD plug in slot is in a funky place(I don't use it, but if I did it would be...interesting getting the cable plugged in).

Other Thoughts: Was not stable up to the speeds I expected to be able to OC my Athlon x2 3.1Ghz, although I expect that is an issue with my PSU, and not the MB.

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

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/26/2008 8:44:07 PM

Rating + 4 Great board, horrible bundle


Pros: Newegg got this board to me fast and everything is working on it so far. Extremely fast with a phenom 9950 and you can change anything imaginable in the bios. (haven't tried onboard video.)

Cons: Drivers cd did not work correctly. You would usually download the latest drivers anyway but this is kind of hard to do when you don't have any ethernet drivers to start out with. Extras cd is blank.

Other Thoughts: Other then the included driver/software cds everything on this board is very nice.
dka790gx
phenom 9950
his radeon hd 4850 iceq4 turbo
4gb corsair dominator 1066

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

Hancor
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/14/2008 6:55:03 AM

Rating + 3 RAID is a NO GO...


Pros: This motherboard was very unstable with me while running in RAID. I bought a PCI RAID controller to start using instead of the onboard AMD RAID. Nvidia for sure has the better onboard RAID setup. This motherboard was alittle too expensive for what it had to offer. If you are looking for high-end gaming, I would suggest a FX series chipset. I am currently running the new FX series DFI AM2+ socket motherboard with the SB750.

Cons: On-board RAID is a bad word that newegg will not let me leave in a review, would run fine for hours on end and then just lock up or break to BSOD. Also, the RAID would not always find itself on bootup.

Other Thoughts: Get the FX series if you don't need the on-board video the GX series offers.

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

lambesk
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/7/2008 1:10:44 PM

Rating + 5 Excellent motherboard


Pros: Good crossfire implementation that is only bettered by a 790FX. DDR2 1066 support is excellent as well and my motherboard came with bios 1.1 which helped too. Support for the newest AMD 140W CPU's. Clear CMOS button is nice and well located. If you need to save some money, the onboard graphics are surprisingly good. I play Guild Wars and Dawn of War with no problems at all at 1680x1050. I pulled 31 fps average on F.E.A.R. at the default high graphics settings which is respectable for onboard.

Cons: All very minor. I didn't like the placement of the front panel audio connection. It was in the lower left which could interfere with the bottom PCI slot. The start and restart buttons on the motherboard seem kinda pointless. Make sure to get the 1.2 bios to fully unlock the full potential as some options were not available with 1.1. Also, setting up the RAM settings was a bit confusing at first.

Other Thoughts: It's been a long time since I used an AMD product, but I can definitely say they've come a long way since then. This is a very stable board. I've had Vista and Linux running on it without any crashes for several hours at a time. I have yet to try overclocking with it, so I can't comment on that aspect yet. However, there are more overclocking options in the bios than you can shake a stick at. Better to have the options and not use them than to need them and not have them. :) Once I get a pair of 4800 video cards, this computer will be unstoppable.

5 out of 5 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
10/5/2008 12:05:32 PM

Rating + 5 Very nice board


Pros: its reallly fast on boot up. i really like it. its alot better then my Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6 There's alot of space for pci x1 slot for my tv tuner and a space for my x-fi in the x8 slot. and im able to use my sapphire 3870 and HIS 3870 x2 perfectly without getting in the way of everything. very nice board indeed. i even had room to put the extra usb hub in there so i have all 5 slots totally filled up. MSI, rocks way to go guys. All you have to do is install the live update 3 from the CD provided and scan for updates and automatically and it compared the version of ur current bios to the bios u have not and just do update now, and bam 1 min bio updated and restarted and your done. so, yea. the bios update totally fast, love it.

Cons: nothing really. well, the MSI Extra disk didnt come with anything on it. besides you can just go to their site and get the stuff you need from there.

Other Thoughts: havnt overclocked it yet but i will try soon..

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

Daveburt
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
9/28/2008 10:24:39 PM

Rating + 5 Good Solid Board


Pros: Well built, ACC actually works, onboard video works well but I'm now using an ATI 4850 (allows higher HTRef clocks). Very good bios OC features, lot's of options.
I actually got ~300Mhz higher OC using the same chip I was using on a K9A2. 3.27Ghz / 2250 IMC.
The Power/Reset/CLR Cmos buttons onboard are a very nice feature!

Cons: 1066 Memory runs fine at minor OC's, but to crank it up you need to drop to 800 mode and clock the HTRef up to keep stability. Pretty sure this will be fixed with next Bios update. Thats about the only con I've found...

Other Thoughts: I would highly recommend this board. As with any Phenom system there is a big learning curve to Overclocking. But the board is quite capable of giving good results.

I had to purchase from a different E-tailer, NewEgg was out of stock at the time.

3 out of 3 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
9/25/2008 12:47:12 PM

Rating + 5 Solid, solid board


Pros: Everything you need and then some. Installed Vista 64, a bit of a battle getting the correct video drivers - ATI info is not clear, do I need the IGP or not?!

Flashed Bios to ver 1.2 and everything is rock-solid. Moved up to this from an ASUS A8NSLI Deluxe, never tried MSI before but now I don't know why I'd get anthing else.

Temps averaging in the low 40's, CPU runs 38-42 on avg.

This board has been everything I hoped for, the heat pipes are clean, no setup issues, included documenation was adequate. Compared to reviews I read of other boards and manufacturers this board is tight!
9950BE, Vista 64, 4gb Crucial Ballistix, Raidmax Smilodon (530w psu built-in), OCZ Vendetta 92, Hitachi P7K500.

Cons: SATA input labels are not clear. Haven't found an real info on what's better, UMA or UMA+SidePort for the VGA segment in the Bios. Good luck flashing Vista 64 - HINT: get the HP USB formatter, and the MSI flashing tool from the MSI forum.

Other Thoughts: Vista shows a 4.6 experience score, video is the lowest, everything else is 5.9 I'll be adding a 4850 shortly to help that.

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

chizzO
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/23/2008 3:54:03 PM

Rating + 4 decent enough so far...


Pros: worked right away, fast, tons o ports, very good overclocker

Cons: AS THE DUDE BELOW ME STATED, THE UPDATE FUNCTION IS PRETTY MUCH USELESS ON VISTA...hopefully they will have one available soon, my msi extras cd also blank.

Other Thoughts: this mobo, amd phenom 8450, 2 gigs ocz 1066, sata hd & dvdr+, vista64 home basic, xion 550w psu

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

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/22/2008 1:31:11 AM

Rating + 4


Pros: worked great out the box. The features on the board are good. All of my ports etc. worked as advertised.

Cons: had to flash biosright during initial runup. The update function is a big pain. MSI released this board and then seems to have decided not to worry about display drivers. Also my MSI extras CD had no actual files on it. What kind of junk is that? Would have liked another fan plug down on the bottome of the board

Other Thoughts: All in all i am very happy with the board itself. I have been using it for a week now and it does everything i asked and more. I would buy this board again. The new egg combo deal was a bonus. Like i said before MSI need to get it together and put out the display drivers.

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

Nate
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/16/2008 7:59:12 PM

Rating + 3 Some issues


Pros: Hello all. Well first of all let me say I love the 9950/MSI 790 gx combo from New Egg. Im afraid I may have received a lemon, though. Set up was fairly straight forward- MSI does a good job of providing all the drivers via download. The board layout is comfortable and as long as you have a good sized case- there should be no problems with wires/connections. All the onboard goodies seem to function properly- really no issues setting up the board at all.

Cons: Well here we go. The sideport memory never worked on this motherboard- always gave me terrible lines and artifacts- couldnt even see to get into the bios with it enabled. Tried this at various mhz and with various amount of borrowed ram. Never worked! The onboard video started going haywire too. I have been playing some COD2 DX9, 1024X768- nothing special- and I started to get a "halo" effect around the bottom and right side of the screen. For the first few days there was no issue.

Other Thoughts: Heat/Stability have been fine...40 degrees idle for both the chipset and processor (stock w/ paste). The bios has a million.5 settings for overclockers- heck I cant figure out how to set the ram to run at the correct speed...oh well. Have revision 1.2 bios and seems to be fine. Manual could go further in to depth for the various bios settings :)

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

Mr Dufus2u
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/16/2008 1:44:28 PM

Rating + 5 Nice Board


Pros: Good layout and features; good quality components; nice hardware extras, appreciated the cpu combo

Cons: Stock cooler on 9950 touches cooling fins on north bridge cooler; MSI extras cd only contained 1 zero byte file so I'm not sure what's missing.

Other Thoughts: For my first home build, this went smoothly. The extra labeled pin-out sets were interesting. The board came up the first time and recognized memory, and the sata HD and DVD burner. Both 64 bit linux and XP 64 are running on it, though there was some driver pains involved.

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

galls
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/15/2008 2:34:37 PM

Rating + 4 great board


Pros: Great instructions, easy to set up. No complaints

Cons: Stock cooler on the retail AMD|PH X4 9950 2.6G AM2+ actually touches the nb heatsink when it is installed. unbelievable. but true.

Other Thoughts: AMD|PH X4 9950 2.6G AM2+
PSU ABS|BZ900 900W
MB MSI DKA790GX PLATINUM AM2+ 790GX
CASE Thermaltake|VH6000BWS
VGA SAPPHIRE 100242-1GL HD4850 1G

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

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/13/2008 8:45:34 PM

Rating + 4 790GX


Pros: Lots of features, and 1G of sideband memory.

Cons: MCI needs to update their support. As of now, the display driver freezes on a regular basis. If they are selling a product they should at least see that it works right.

Other Thoughts: 9950 Black, 4MB of 1066 OCZ, Vista 64

0 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

G
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/12/2008 12:36:13 PM

Rating + 5 Great Board


Pros: I just built a new PC on this board, mostly to improve my non-gaming needs. I used to run a single core so I needed something way better for my multi-tasking tendencies. This board has a lot of great features that make it easy to set up.
1. The most powerful Integrated Graphics right now (128MB DDR3 integrated). In my case I have a video card for my primary monitor, but my secondary monitors can be hooked to the integrated for increased performance.
2. Two PCIe that I can use if I buy a secondary graphics card (I like extra monitors).
3. Powerful overclocking features.
4. Very extensive instruction manual for beginners (though I'm not really a beginner). The whole thing is written in English so all the pages are devoted to new information.
5. So many extra features that I'm still discovering them after using this board for better than a week.
6. All my hardware was recognized immediately, as I installed a fresh copy of Vista64

Cons: There are settings that you need to make sure to adjust in the BIOS. Most importantly enable the integrated graphics/onboard memory if you intend to use it.

Crossfire is only 8x/8x rather than 16x/16x. This is not a big deal to me because I usually game at 1680x1050 resolution, which can be handled by a single graphics card. For work and school I need even less graphics power, but more CPU and memory.

Other Thoughts: I do tons of stuff on my computer, most of it simultaneously. Having the available integrated ports along with the PCIe slots allows work and play more effeciently. I tend to swap parts in and out of my computer frequently, and this board definitely has the ability to expand on. Will be great when I buy a 4870 (Reg or X2), or a quad-core, or another 4GB or memory.

My PC: MSI 790GX Plat, AMD 6000+ OCed @ 3.3GHz, Xigmatek 1283 Cooler, G.Skill 2x2 DDR2 800MHz, Coolmax 950Watt modular PSU, Asus ATi X1900XTX 512MB.

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

ne00panda
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/11/2008 6:54:44 PM

Rating + 5 AWSOME MOTHERBOARD


Pros: This motherboard has everything i need and more.

Cons: none at all

Other Thoughts: Be careful with it and take your time installing.

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
9/11/2008 2:09:17 PM

Rating + 5 WOW


Pros: After running a pathetic Asus 780G board since last March, all I can say is thank you MSI!!! After turning on advanced clocking calibration in the bios and doing no overclocking at all, my Phenom 9600 scored 700 cpu points higher in 3DMark06 than the Asus board ever did. I kept all other parts the same including my Radeon 3870 and using MSI's supplied drivers my fps in Microsoft FSX flight simulator more than doubled and go over 200 fps in some areas. Check the FSX forums, that's almost unheard of. This board doesn't even flinch running Prime95. The cpu temp stayed at 48C to 49C and the motherboard temp stayed in the low 40's. Disclaimer, I run a Xigmatek HDT 1264 heat sink which does blow downward onto the board.

Cons: The bios, 1.00, which ships with the original version of the board does not correctly read 4GB of RAM. With Kingston HyperX memory, I had to install Vista with one stick and then flash to bios 1.01 to get 4 sticks to work.

The location of the floppy drive connector is at the very bottom of the board in the center and unless you have a really long cable, you have to run it all the way across the top of the board which isn't that esthetically pleasing if you show off your board through a side window.

Other Thoughts: The cons are so minor compared to the features and performance that I couldn't bring myself to deduct for them. Way to go MSI and AMD!!! If you are hesitating like I was to change boards because like many of us Newegg shoppers you have an OEM version of Vista, don't believe all the alleged"experts" in the various internet forums. By reinstalling Vista to a different drive partition than the original install and keeping everything but the board the same, Vista approved the install and activation was a simple 10 second internet validation.

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

ldd_recoil
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/10/2008 10:17:22 PM

Rating + 4 Almost Perfect...


Pros: Simple Layout and design. Curcu-Pipe cooling is non-intrusive, yet is very effective, especially considering that it is passive. BIOS is awesome, and very easy to tweak for OCing. This new southbridge and chipset lives up to all the hype and expectations for phenom owners. OOn-Board video is better than any other i have used by far.

Cons: The Bios Needed a flash right out of the box to properly recognize the 4 gigs of RAM i installed (2x2GB). and MSI's live update had a very difficult time letting my do anything via VISTA. Furthermore, the SATA-RAID 0 mode is notcompatible with Vista x64, due to the lack of signed(working) drivers. Even though the disk says x64 drivers are included they do not work for Raid 0 striping mode. It is obvious that this board is not fully supported by MSI at this point, and can only hope that this will change being as new of a board that it is.

Other Thoughts: I would recommend this board to anyone even avid gamers, but would suggest they wait for a newer release(revision) of the board, and maybe wait to see nvidia's answer to the onboard video market is. Dont misunderstand this board has all the potential in the world, but was released a little premature.

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

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
9/10/2008 11:18:42 AM

Rating + 5 Very nice


Pros: Everything works, everything is fast. I ran into no space issue adding in a few cards and a big cooling solution. The clear CMOS, reset and power buttons made overclocking much easier as did being able to store settings that I could reload.

Cons: I don't like the side facing SATA ports and I wish there was another case fan jack towards the front of the board.

Other Thoughts: Part of a new build. Phenom 9950, 4GB of Corsair DDR2 800 nice combo.

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

N/A
Tech Level: average
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/9/2008 4:15:10 AM

Rating + 4


Pros: IT WORKED!!! I received 3 ASUS DOA's (very uncommon) So just to have a board work is exciting. Onboard video is nice for diagnostic purposes and onboard HDMI is nice also. Id buy it again

Cons: Seems to be a bit slow some of the plugs are in stupid places and arent clearly labeled. But the instructions are awesome so all you ahv e to do is refer to the manual.

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

OP
Tech Level: average
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/8/2008 7:53:41 PM

Rating + 3 Dead on Arrival


Pros: Desirable heating solution
Colors look good for users concerned about display.

Good board if you only plan on using a single video card.

Cons: My board arrived Dead. No POST.

Be aware that when you are ordering this board that
it does not support dual PCI 2.9 16x bus and will only
put out dual 8x/8x.

The description clearly tells you this but not all will know.

Pipe design could have been better, but it's fine.

Other Thoughts: If you are planning on using Crossfire, I suggest
searching for an alternative product if you want to
maximize your performance. Search a board
capable of 16x/16x.

Newegg shipped mine the same day, and I received
it when UPS' tracking site claimed it would arrive.

Box was packed very well.
(I used UPS Next day air services as it is the service
which seems to have the least amount of ware on boxes)

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

mik2uzl
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/8/2008 3:48:51 AM

Rating + 5 Linux running quick & smooth at 3 Ghz


Pros: Running the latest linux kernel (2.6.27-rc5) everything feels quick and smooth. Also using the latest radeonhd driver. I have not tweaked the o/c settings but my Phenom 9850 is stable at 3 Ghz (15x multi), tested with stresscpu2. I really like the way DrMOS keeps the power mosfets temps cool with the Phenom at 100% load. I definitly prefer this MSI board to the *M3A78-T i tried earlier.

Cons: none yet

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

Gleamor Brother
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/8/2008 12:35:02 AM

Rating + 3 Not as good as you think


Pros: Cool looking front box!
SB750 chipset AMD 790GX
MSI

Cons: My DVI port dont work at all. i had to put in a poopy HIS H26XQT512ANP Radeon HD 2600XT IceQ Turbo HDMI Dual DL-DVI card in it to work. i am having slow computer experience with only 2 drives hooked up 1 being the hard drive SATA and the other being a IDE CD/DVD 22X windows xp it takes 10 mins to start wow

Other Thoughts: i am RMAing it as we speak
running it with the AMD Phenom X4 9950 / 2.6 GHz - OEM and 4gb of crucial ballistics 4-4-4-12 my motherboard experience says that this board is not good hoping to get a replacement fast.

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

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/7/2008 11:46:03 AM

Rating + 3 DOA


Pros: Its a a serious board with loads of features. If it wasn't DOA it would probably be a pleasure to install. Circupipe north bridge cooling is official

Cons: DOA. on back order now have to wait until who knows when to get my replacement

Other Thoughts: Only two Reviews? I hope that not a bad thing

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

Gleamor
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/31/2008 9:35:11 AM

Rating + 5 Very stable


Pros: As the first to review my findings of the boards capabilities, I can honestly say that it seems to be the most stable motherboard I have seen for some time. Considering I setup a raid0, used crossfire and 1066 DDR2 mems w/ vista, it has not had one incident or problem. Furthermore, I cracked into AMD Overdrive to crank up my 9950 Black Edition and after running stability tests for 8 hours, I am stable at 3.2 Ghz and a temp of only 48C. This is with a 50% power CPU fan that only gets to 100% after 60C. It never does!Before getting excited, you should understand that I placed some of the highest rated components on this awesome motherboard, in hopes that these results would be stable. How it may work in a mix of quality levels, I am not sure.

Cons: No regrets, Vista installed under 11 minutes, this board was worth the wait. Besides the performance, the low temperatures will ensure long health for my computing needs.

If I had to complain about anything, I would say that there is no Bios updates for it yet. But who needs it! I am very satisfied!

Other Thoughts: For the raid0 I used 2- 300GB Velociraptors and I have to say, they are insane. For the Graphics, I installed 2-Sapphire HD 4850 Toxics due to their Zalman coolers. For mem's I used Corsair Dominators, simply because OCZ were out of stock. The cooling fan I purchased for the phenom is great. I had a Zalman 9700 and loved that but for this chip I used the 9300AT, again from Zalman. Lastly, I used the Zalman 750W modular PS which helps having 4 rails and again, less overall heating.

This PC is the fastest I have built and seems to be the lowest temp doing so.

Great motherboard! Way to go MSI!

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

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