[Review] MSI 790GX-G65 AM3 Motherboard

[sno.lcn]

I'd like to thank MSI for letting me test this board.

790GX-G65​

Specs.

CPU
• 64bit AMD® Phenom II CPU.

Hyper Transport Bus
• HyperTransport 3.0 supporting speed up to 5200MT/s

Chipset
• AMD® 790GX and SB750 Chipset

Main Memory
• Supports four unbuffered DIMM of 1.5 Volt DDR3 800/1066/1333/1600* (OC) SDRAM, 16GB Max

Side Port Memory
• DDR3 SDRAM 1Gbit

Slots
• 1 mazarine PCI Express x16 slot with x16 operation (PCI Express Bus SPEC V2.0 compliant)
• 1 light-blue PCI Express x16 slot with x8 operation (PCI Express Bus SPEC V2.0 compliant)
- When 2 PCI Express x16 slots are all installed, the PCIE x 16 lanes will auto arrange form x16/ x0 to x8/ x8. Do not use the light-blue slot when only one PCI Express x16 card is installed.
• 2 PCI Express x1 slots
• 2 PCI slots, support 3.3V/ 5V PCI bus Interface.

On-Board IDE
• One IDE port by AMD® SB750
- Supports Ultra DMA 66/100/133 mode
- Supports PIO, Bus Master operation mode
- Can connect up to two IDE devices

On-Board SATA
• 5 SATA II (1~5) ports by AMD® SB750
• 1 eSATA port by AMD® SB750
- Supports storage and data transfers at up to 3Gb/s

RAID Function
- SATA II 1~5 support RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 or JBOD mode by AMD® SB750

Audio
• Chipset integrated by Realtek® ALC889
- True Blu-ray Audio Support
- Flexible 8-channel audio with jack sensing
- Compliant with Azalia 1.0 Spec

LAN
• Realtek PCI-E GbLAN controller 8111DL
- Integrated Fast Ethernet MAC and PHY in single chip
- Supports 10Mb/s, 100Mb/s and 1000Mb/s
- Compliance with PCI-Express Bus specification v1.0a

IEEE1394 / FireWire
• Chipset integrated by VIA® VT6315N
- Transfer rate is up to 400Mbps

Internal I/O Connectors
- ATX 24-pin power connector
- ATX 4-pin 12V CPU power connector
- CPU x 1 / System x 3 FAN connectors
- CD-in connector
- Front panel audio connector
- Front panel connector
- Chassis intrusion switch connector
- 3 x USB 2.0 connector support additional 6 ports
- 1 x Floppy disk drive connector
- 5 x Serial ATA II connectors
- 1 x ATA133 HD connectors
- Serial port connector
- Clear CMOS button
- Power button
- Reset button
- OC switch
- 1 x IEEE1394 connector support additional 1 port (optional)
- 1 x TPM module header (optional)

Back Panel I/O Ports
- 1 x PS/2 keyboard or mouse
- 1 x 6 in 1 audio jack
- 6 x USB 2.0 ports
- 1 x RJ45 LAN jack
- 1 x optical SPDIF-out port
- 1 x eSATA port
- 1 x DVI-D port
- 1 x Graphic Card port
- 1 x HDMI port
- 1 x IEEE1394 port (optional)



Now for some photos.

This board has just about every BIOS option you could ask for, with plenty of extras.

One thing I love about this board is how incredibly fast and easy BIOS flashing is.
I had been spoiled by Windows-based BIOS flashing utilities (which MSI includes as well) but this takes the convenience a step further.

Here's a video I made of the entire flashing process.

 

[sno.lcn]

Test setup.
CPU - AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE
Motherboard - MSI 790GX-G65 (Thanks MSI)
RAM - 2x1gb Kingston HyperX 2000mhz
VGA - GTX 280 (except the first '05 test, it was a GTX 260)
HDD - WD Raptor 36bg
PSU - Gigabyte ODIN Pro 1200w
CPU Cooling - TR Ultra-120, DI/LN2 @ Dragon Evo 2.4

More testing will be coming. If you want to see anything specific, just let me know!



Every step of the setup process was seamless, I actually didn't run into a single hitch.

It came with all the accessories one could ask for, the manual was very detailed, and the included software cd was fairly robust. MSI also includes their own overclocking utility, which is great for both the beginner and seasoned overclocker.

Overall the board feels very stable, and is incredibly easy to work with. BIOS recovery from bad overclocking settings is decent, and when it is unable to recover, help is only a click away with the onboard clear cmos button. With four slots to save BIOS settings, getting back to your latest working configuration (assuming you saved it) is effortless.

At such a low price, I'm happy to see it still heavily geared toward the enthusiast. The list of overclocking features and BIOS options is almost overwhelming, and nearly every setting in BIOS has a description, telling exactly what that setting does, which was especially cool for the RAM settings.

Overall I give this board a 7/10.
For the price though, it gets a very strong 9/10.

 

[HolyCow02]

Wow very nice. I am thinking about getting the 790FX board for my AM3 build. Hopefully it works as nice as this one.