Get excellent graphics and computing performance with MSI's NF980-G65 motherboard. Based on NVIDIA nForce 980a SLI chipset, this ATX form-factor board is designed to support the latest AM3 Phenom II, Athlon II and Sempron 100 Series processors.
Dominate your applications and games with up to 16GB of DDR3 memory fitting into four 240-pin slots with dual channel support and 2600 MHz Hyper Transport technology for increased performance. Onboard Gigabit Ethernet LAN means that you can connect to other networked devices without running into a bottleneck.
The integrated NVIDIA GeForce 8 series chipset can be augmented with three PCI Express 2.0 x16 graphics cards to achieve SLI-linked performance at a fraction of the price. Video can be output through the DVI, D-Sub or HDMI ports and accompanied by eight channels of sound from the Realtek ALC889 audio chipset. Six 3Gb/s SATA connectors give you the ability to store massive amounts of data locally with several RAID configurations possible for extra security and high-speed performance. Four USB 2.0 ports give you additional options in connecting and expanding your system.
AMD AM3 Processor SupportBased on the NVIDIA nForce 980a SLI chipset, the MSI NF980-G65 AMD motherboard supports AMD’s latest generation Phenom II processors, as well as Athlon II and Sempron 100 series processors in AM3 socket, providing unprecedented computing power to match the performance levels you are looking for.
Scalable DDR3 MemoryFour 240-pin DIMM sockets support up to 16GB of unbuffered (UDIMM) DDR3 memory at speeds of up to 2133MHz, ensuring ample capacity for any application.
NVIDIA Hybrid SLI TechnologyBased on NVIDIA's industry-leading SLI technology, Hybrid SLI technology enables a motherboard GPU and a discrete GPU to work together to deliver multi-GPU benefits. It provides boosted graphics processing ability through GeForce Boost and improved energy efficiency though HybridPower.
Gigabit Ethernet ConnectivityThe MSI NF980-G65 AMD motherboard features a fast Gigabit network interface for high-speed LAN connections at up to 1000Mbps data transfer rates with advanced security features to ward off malicious attacks. Gigabit LAN is ideal for supercharged seamless streaming of Internet audio and video content.
SATA II with RAID SupportThe second generation SATA interface delivers up to 300MB/sec transfer speed, doubling that of the first generation Serial ATA. The on-board six SATA II ports support RAID 0, 1, 0+1, and 5 for better performance, enhanced data security, and flexible capacity upgrades.
Pros: First I have to say I love this board. The color, layout of everything and even the easy overclocking switch( more on that later) it seems to be great placement of everything in comparison to my last mobo. Has enough USB headers for all my add ons inside the case and yet I still have no issues with any of them not posting properly like on my old mobo.
Cons: While I admit this is a great board, but it comes without problems as does anything else that is new. From my experience I have experienced quite a few set backs but have been able to overcome them all. 1. no post....found that the bios has a no post button you have to press in order to overide the errors and allow it to post, F1 key is what you have to press. 2. Startup issues, when i powered on I have to hit the reset button everytime to get it to post properly...but thats more due to the fact I never did a clean install of my OS and just ported everything over to my new setup. not worth taking a egg off for my laziness 3. temperature diodes is all wrong, I have used various software to try and read the temerature of the board and none come even close to reading it properly....this is where a infrared heat gun works it s best
Overall Review: While I have listed a few cons, I really do not think that its deserving of taking any eggs off for this as its a new motherboard with only a factory bios, as more issues come to light MSI will issue a bios update that should fix these issues. On a side note: for anyone who does not have this board you should not be making comments about it as you give false hope and misinformation to those who may be interested in buying it.