With a few minor modifications/suggestions, this could have been the ultimate 990FX product, but nonetheless, I can see a lot of people using this board and enjoying it. This board, at $195, performs well for its money compared to other boards in its bracket, and with some bonuses in the box, would fit well into a 990FX system. More on this is detailed in the Overclocking section. However while using the Bulldozer processor we were severely limited in terms of voltages and base frequency adjustments, limiting the range to which the overclocks can be performed. Somewhat odd behavior – the cards did not do this in other boards, and neither did our NVIDIA testing cards.įor overclocking, under Thuban the 990FXA-GD80 performed well giving respectable numbers. However on startup, the board caused my AMD graphics cards (note, 5850s) to spin at 100% for several seconds.
If you update this beyond BIOS B5, the system will display the new graphical BIOS which MSI is very proud about (and it works rather well). Users will note that different BIOS versions have different BIOS screens. The heatsink design and shape fits in well with the products image (despite the Military Class II paraphernalia obligatorily pasted across it), and the onboard PCIe layout has some thought behind it. Features such as the OC Genie, Power/Reset Buttons and a USB 3.0 header at right angles to the board are to be well received. Performance wise, the MSI 990FXA-GD80 is no slouch, roughing it toe-to-toe with the other products we have in this review. Do not get me wrong, MSI has some strong areas such as what comes In The Box with the board, however certain features like their fan header placement are not exactly optimal.
With our first look at some MSI AMD action in a fair while, I can say that while the 990FXA-GD80 is a nice board to work with, it is perhaps not the feature packed product to cover certain market areas. X79 Big Bang XPower II), and some that made me turn around and wonder ‘why?’ (e.g. As it is up to $15 more than the Gigabyte, I hope that we can pin down where the $15 goes.Īs a manufacturer, MSI has come up with some good products in their time (e.g. The board itself currently e-tails for $195, slightly more than the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX and the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 in this combination review, but should offer a good comparison point. So here we have the MSI 990FXA-GD80, which represents MSI’s higher end ‘mainstream’ offering. In most cases, the home user will only need a channel board, either at the high, medium or low end depending on need. For MSI, this rears itself as a set of numbers preceded by the letters G or GD: we have the 80, 65, 55, 45, and 43, amongst others.Ĭhannel boards are very important to all these manufacturers – they represent the bulk of consumer level sales whereas the gaming / overclocking / stability products are purely for niche environments. Where the ASUS channel boards are called the LE, the standard, the Pro, and the Deluxe, Gigabyte has the UD3, UD4/H, UD5, UD7, UD9, and ASRock has Extreme3, Extreme4, Extreme6, Extreme7 and Extreme9.