MSI 790FX-GD70 Socket AM3 Motherboard Review

[Apoptosis]

MSI 790FX-GD70 Socket AM3 Motherboard Review

MSI brings an AM3 socket motherboard to the table that is suppose to be their flagship. Will it be a board that will rival other makers in performance and overclocking? That is what we intend to find out as we look at the MSI 790FX-GD70 motherboard!

We have the opportunity to look at another AMD Socket AM3 motherboard in our review today. This one is the 790FX-GD70 from MSI and it is poised to be the flagship motherboard of the AM3 lineup for MSI. MSI has been around for quite some time, and so it is no stranger to competing in the motherboard business. This board sports the 790FX/SB750 combination of chipsets, so it is the best that you can get now in the AM3 scene. It also has a total of four X16 PCIE slots, so it is ready for a multi-GPU setup to take gaming to its graphical extremes.

Article Title: MSI 790FX-GD70 Socket AM3 Motherboard Review
Article URL: http://legitreviews.com/article/1004/1/
Pricing at Time of Print: $179.99 at Newegg

[FeRaL]

Wow, talk about disappointing, 1.45V and pow!

[Apoptosis]

Wow, talk about disappointing, 1.45V and pow!

Yup, MSI is sending us a new board and we'll try again... It seems to be a common problem as Gomeler has known people to blow the Voltage Regulators on these boards also. It looks like we were very lucky as the processor survived...

[ajmatson]

Epic Fail. These board do have a fault with their voltage regulators however the G65 I have had no issues getting a 720 to 1.5 volts stable.

[Gomeler]

Epic Fail. These board do have a fault with their voltage regulators however the G65 I have had no issues getting a 720 to 1.5 volts stable.

Agreed. The G65 is a rather well built board, I was dumping 1.85v through a 955 with it. I don't know what is up with the GD70, too frequently the fets blow up, embarrassing for MSI

[HACKhalo2]

I haven't heard anything about faulty Voltage Regulators on this board. I've googled, looked at the reviews on Newegg, and asked on OCN about it (which is why I want one), and not one thing about something like this.

[Gomeler]

I haven't heard anything about faulty Voltage Regulators on this board. I've googled, looked at the reviews on Newegg, and asked on OCN about it (which is why I want one), and not one thing about something like this.

I know a guy, Ton from Team Ironmods, who has killed 4 of these boards. Chew* from Xtremesystems has killed 1, and then we have this sample at LR that randomly blew up at a very safe voltage. Unfortunately it is the only decent AM3 board with 4 usable PCIe slots so they keep using them and keep killing them. Perhaps if you keep the voltages below 1.5v they won't blow up, but then why give the option for 1.5+v in BIOS?

[HACKhalo2]

I haven't heard anything about faulty Voltage Regulators on this board. I've googled, looked at the reviews on Newegg, and asked on OCN about it (which is why I want one), and not one thing about something like this.

I know a guy, Ton from Team Ironmods, who has killed 4 of these boards. Chew* from Xtremesystems has killed 1, and then we have this sample at LR that randomly blew up at a very safe voltage. Unfortunately it is the only decent AM3 board with 4 usable PCIe slots so they keep using them and keep killing them. Perhaps if you keep the voltages below 1.5v they won't blow up, but then why give the option for 1.5+v in BIOS?

Huh. Everyone on http://www.overclock.net that has the board never had problems like this that I know of. People on their were pushing 1.5 vcore to OC the 955 to 4.0GHz.

Could it be a bad batch?

[Gomeler]

Could be a bad batch.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... ost3830875
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... ost3831184

Ton told me in person about his dead GD70s, so no forum posts on them.

[x.clay]

I actually have one of these in mail and I read your review after I placed the order. Not really want you want to read when you are considering a little overclocking

[Apoptosis]

I actually have one of these in mail and I read your review after I placed the order. Not really want you want to read when you are considering a little overclocking

MSI's R&D team flew to the United States yesterday and will be looking at a number of the boards that have been blown up lately. We overnight mailed ours back to MSI yesterday, so the engineers from Taiwan can take a look at our board as well. I'll let you know what they determine. I'm not sure what exactly could cause this as it could be a number of things. I'm impressed by MSI's dedication to fixing the issue on this board though. I doubt they'd ever issue a recall, but it would be nice to know if a new revision of the board has a 'fix' to what is happening here.

Looking at Fedex 869737201920 it seems our review board is in California already and should be delivered soon... I'll be sure to keep everyone updated on this.

[x.clay]

well hopefully they will get things sorted out before I buy the rest of my parts. I have been reading the rumors about the 965 BE and am considering holding off until the release for my next upgrade.

[Gomeler]

well hopefully they will get things sorted out before I buy the rest of my parts. I have been reading the rumors about the 965 BE and am considering holding off until the release for my next upgrade.

Don't hold off for the 965BE, it is simply a 955BE with marginally higher stock voltage for stability. Buy a 955 and feed it 1.375v and you'll have a 965 in everything but name

[x.clay]

I have been kicking around that idea as well. If I go for the 955 I am hoping for a price drop when they release the 965.