MSI AM3 USB 3.0 + SATA 6Gb/s 890GX Chipset AMD Motherboard 890GXM-G65
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- AMD 890GX Chipset/AM3/mATX
- Exclusive Military-Class concept components/Auto OC Genie/APS/DrMOS/Icy Choke/Hi-c Cap/Heatpipe cooling
- Integrated ATI Radeon HD4290 GPU/Hybrid Crossfire ready/Up to 16GB DDR3 RAM
- Lossless 24-bit Audio/7.1 Channel HD
- USB 3.0/SATA 6Gb/s
With the newest AMD 890GX chipset at its heart, the MSI 890GXM-GD65 is the best place to start when building your multi-media PC system. Military Class Components such as DrMOS, Hi-c Cap, Icy Choke, and All Solid Cap enhance your system performance, while MSI-exclusive technology such as Unlock CPU Core and Auto OC Genie can boost up system performance by up to 148%. The 890GXM-GD65 supports the newest 140W high-performance AMD CPUs, and ATI Hybrid Crossfire lets users take advantage of multi-GPU scaling performance from ATI graphics cards. Lossless 7.1 surround sound HD audio provides the fullest experience for games, music and movies, while USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s ensures the fastest peripheral connectivity.
Msi motherboard
MSI AM3 USB 3.0 + SATA 6Gb/s 890GX Chipset AMD Motherboard 890GXM-G65
List Price: $ 209.99
Price:
Excellent HTPC / Mainstream Board – Only OK for Overclocking,
The MSI 890GXM-G65 is positioned as a mid-range, fully-featured yet reduced size motherboard for AMD’s AM3 socket. Compared to the previous generation 790GX, the biggest change is support for SATA 6.0Gbps and the inclusion of DirectX 10.1 along with a slightly faster integrated graphics processor (IGP). Also, additional PCIe Gen 2 lanes make it easy for manufacturers to add third party controllers for things like USB 3.0.
When it comes to features, the MSI 890GXM-G65 has pretty much everything including optical audio out, HDMI/DVI (You can use either HDMI or DVI but not both), VGA, USB 3.0, 2x PCIe slots, eSATA, and more. (Firewire is missing but I don’t need it anymore) It also has many BIOS options for overclocking and core unlocking. (I was able to unlock and overclock my Phenom II 720 from a 2.8GHz triple core to a 3.2 quad core and optimize memory performance while undervolting the system to reduce power consumption and heat) The MSI BIOS includes a few unique features such as M-Flash that allows you to update your BIOS from…within BIOS! using any detected storage device. (I used a USB card reader with the update stored on a SD card!) The other noteworthy BIOS feature is support for multiple profiles, so you could create presets for overclocked, stock, and low power configurations. Finally, for those who care, there is no floppy disk drive connector, but there is a single PATA port for up to 2 devices.
For normal users such as the home/office/home theater crowd, the MSI 890GXM-G65 is an excellent all-around board that delivers a bunch of features and great performance at a low price. For serious overclockers and computer enthusiasts, however, the board is a bit disappointing. Despite the military-class components, fancy heatpipe cooling, and capable BIOS, the 890GXM-G65 is let down by MSI’s choice of rather basic CPU power components, which seems to limit overclocking headroom. My CPU works fine at 3.4GHz core clock and 2.6GHz CPU-NB on a 790X board, but using the 890GXM-G65, no amount of voltage would stabilize the chip at those speeds. (The system boots and benches, but fails linpack and other stress tests) Also, the board doesn’t respond well to overclocks that push CPU-NB or memory timings, requiring a manual CMOS reset instead of automatically reverting. Despite the relatively modest overclocking capabilities, however, I think the the military-class components and beefed-up cooling make this board an ideal candidate for applications where higher than normal operating temperatures are expected. (such as small form-factor low-profile home theater systems)
I currently use my system for work and light gaming, and after begrudgingly settling on a modest overclock, I’m satisfied with the overall performance. I’m using the IGP and Windows 7 64-bit and everything has worked as expected. (I downloaded graphics and system drivers directly from AMD and MSI) I think the MSI 890GXM-G65 does a lot of things well, and it can satisfy all but the most demanding users.
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|Awesome board. Simple to install, and worked immediately,
I bought two of these boards and swapped out my Asus motherboard for the Phenom II X6 (AM3) 2.8 Ghz processor. The Asus board costed more, but had so many issues and problems both with the Overclocking capabilities, the BIOS boot up, the Sound Card wasn’t working, and etc. I had so many issues with the Asus board that I bought these to try, and within an hour, I had the system up and running, overclocked, and the system is still running for a month now without reboot or shutdown, and every driver works including the sound card.
I strongly recommend this board for AMD Phenom II X6 (AM3) processors.
Thamks.
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|My First Build Ever,
Did alot of reading before I went ahead and made my purchase. I used my old case which was a HP Media Center (m7250n), used this motherboard with kingston value ram and AMD x4 965 processor. Couldnt be happier! I was nervous at first since it was my first build but everything went great. only problem i ran into was i had to change the boot order in the bios to boot from my disk drive in order to install windows 7(it was set to boot from USB only, weird…), no biggie. Great board! used the Overclock switch on the the motherboard and Im overclocked to 4ghz! Awesome! Recommended!
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