$194.99
www.msi.com
All you AMD fans wanting to blast through New Year’s with eight cores in your FX-8150/8210 are going to need a suitable platform. Or perhaps you know such a chip is in your future, but you want to get the board now and carry on with your current CPU. Your best way forward is with a flexible product based on the latest AMD chipset (990FX northbridge, SB950 southbridge) with support for socket AM3/AM3+. Several options are available, but few can boast the feature breadth of MSI’s 990FXA-GD80.

Not surprisingly, MSI hits all of the I/O port high notes: 7.1 analog audio, both optical and coax SPDIF, 400 Mb/s FireWire, two USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 2.0, and two combo eSATA/USB 2.0 ports. MSI specs the onboard audio at 109 dB SNR. We haven’t put this to the test, but, if accurate, this easily puts the motherboard into discrete audio range. Just to the left of the external CMOS reset button, you’ll also find PS/2 ports for the legacy-obsessed. Four 16x PCIe 2.0 slots are interspersed with two 1x PCIe slots and a single PCI slot. You’ll find more USB and 1394 headers on the board as well as six 6 Gb/s SATA ports. Note that MSI includes the latest UEFI BIOS improvements in order to enable 3 TB and greater hard drives to be bootable under 64-bit operating systems.
There’s a lot of bulky heatsinking madness on this unit—so much that MSI opted two screw the fins to the PCB rather than use the typical plastic connectors. (The LEDs that light up to show how many of the eight total power phases are active is a great touch.) Good thing, too, because if you’ve ever enjoyed the one-touch simplicity (and surprisingly good results) from MSI’s OC Genie button, you know that you’ll often want that extra performance pop, and you’ll also want the extra cooling needed to keep things safe and stable.

Cooling is only part of MSI’s answer to stability needs, though. The company uses what it calls Hi-c CAP, which are solid capacitors that incorporate the very temperature-resistant element tantalum. Also check out the row of ten super ferrite chokes (SFCs) along the CPU socket. These use a permeable ferrite core and, according to MSI, run 35 degrees Celsius cooler than traditional chokes.
The 990FXA-GD80 is compatible with both SLI and CrossFireX, plus it’s certified under THX TruStudio Pro. This is a top quality platform from top to bottom and a stunning way to usher in 2012.
- CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
- Motherboard: MSI 990FXA-GD80
- Memory: PNY XLR8 MD8192KD3-1600-X9
- Power Supply: SilverStone Strider Gold Evolution 1000 W
- SSD: Crucial m4 256 GB
- Graphics Card: Gigabyte GV-R695OC-1D
- CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K
- Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme
- Memory: G.Skill RipjawsZ F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZHD (4 GB x 4)
- Chassis: SilverStone Raven RV03
- Zotac Infinity Edition ZT-50102-30P GeForce GTX 580
- Noctua NH-D14 SE2011
- Creative Labs Recon3D PCI Express Fatal1ty Professional Edition
Mine was the one with the 4 SSD.
My floppy disk totally turned to a hard disk drive.
I can't wait for part 2 already.
Depends on if you use an aftermarket cooler or the stock one
Why are some things suggested in this guide mostly the worst value you could get for that sum of cash?
For starters:
-MSI 990FX-GD80 wouldn't be my top pick. That would go to a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD(x) board. Why bother getting a board that's more expensive than the best processor for the platform (or one whose lower-end boards don't catch fire).
-i7-3930K? Ivy's just around the corner and will run on 150 dollar boards that do more than X79 could think of.
-Silverstone 1000W PSU? Seasonic's already got their X-1050, which has 80+ Platinum certification instead of gold for the same cost.
Some things I guess I just don't understand, then. You list some parts that have really good value, such as that RAM and Powercolor graphics card along with the 955BE, and then go to the polar opposite. I don't see the reason for that.
Get a life you freak
Get a sense of humor you rude little man.