Features
- DrMOS
- GreenPower
- XpressCool
- RapidBost
- Support for all AM2/AM2+ CPUs including the 9950 and 9850 140W and 125W TDP CPUs
- 790GX Northbridge
- SB750 Southbridge
- HT3.0 speed up to 2.6GHz
- AM2 CPU supports HT 1.0/2.0
- AM2+ CPU supports HT 3.0
- Supports Dual DDR2 667/800/1066 (only for AM2+)
- Radeon HD 3300 VGA core
- CrossfireX
- Hybrid CrossfireX
- 128MB DDR2 1333MHz SidePort memory
| MSI DKA790GX Platinum Spec Sheet |
| Powered by MOBOT |
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| Part Number |
DKA790GX Platinum |
| Manufacturer |
MSI |
| Price Check |
Find Best Price |
| Downloads |
BIOS
Drivers
Manuals |
| Chipset |
AMD 790GX |
| North Bridge |
AMD 790GX |
| Socket |
AM2+ |
| Processor Types |
AM2+ / AM2 / Phenom / Athlon 64 FX / Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core / Athlon 6 |
| Number of CPUs |
1 |
| Front Side Bus |
1066/800/667/533/400 |
| Memory Type |
DDR2 |
| Memory Channels |
Dual |
| Maximum Memory |
8GB |
| External Graphics |
PCI Express x16 |
| IGP |
AMD HD3300 |
| South Bridge |
AMD 790GX |
| Audio |
8-channel |
| IDE |
133/100/66 |
| SCSI |
None |
| SATA |
3.0 GB/s |
| RAID |
0, 1, 0+1, 5 |
| LAN |
10/100/1000 |
| Firewire |
None |
| USB |
USB 2.0 |
| Expansion Slots |
|
| BIOS |
AMI |
| Form Factor |
ATX |
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THE 790GX chipset is AMD’s latest offering and supports the newest Phenom X4 9950 CPUs that require a 140W TDP (Thermal Design Power). Some previous 780G chipset motherboards were unable to run the new processors due to the power requirements of the 9850 (125W) and 9950 (140W) CPUs, so it’s a good thing that AMD supports their own latest CPUs with their latest chipset as it was rather silly to have NVIDIA integrated graphics the only choice for those CPUs.
With the launch of the Athlon 64 CPU, AMD moved the memory controller from the chipset to the CPU. This means that the memory support is dependent on the CPU and not the motherboard. If you install a AM2+ CPU like the 9950 into a 790FX motherboard DDR2-1066MHz memory is supported. An older CPU like the 4800+ X2 will only support DDR2-800MHz but will work on this motherboard without issue to compatibility.
The new SB750 Southbridge brings RAID 5 support to the AMD chipset arena, Advanced Clock Calibration, Super I/O, the fix for the SB700 internal clock generator malfunction, and support for the new features that were featured in the SB700 including support for 14 USB ports compared with 10 on the SB600 chipset and support for up to 6 SATA devices compared to four on the SB600 Southbridge. DrMOS is MSI’s server class component chip. This chip replaces the Discrete MOSFET chips that are present on most motherboards with something called a Driver MOSFET. DrMOS has the advantages of lower working temperatures, high power efficiency, lower power loss and high-frequency CPU support on a smaller chip than standard MOSFETs.
GreenPower is MSI’s trademark for power efficiency with DrMOS. Compared to Discrete MOS, DrMOS can save up to 7W in CPU PWM meaning less energy consumed and better environmental impact than traditional MOSFETs. XpressCool maintains a low temperature under the most stressful situations. RapidBoost delivers higher quality power with lower spike noise and faster response, meaning DrMOS increases the potential over-voltage and overclocking of the system.
The HD3300 is based upon ATI’s HD2600 series chips that were released as the low-end of last year’s ATI graphics card lineup. The differences between this chipset and the previous HD3200 on the 780G include a 700MHz graphics clock compared to the 500MHz on the HD 3200. MSI includes a 1Gigabit chip (128MB) of 1333MHz DDR3 memory that acts as a Framebuffer called SidePort memory. The Unified Video Decoder found on the HD series of cards is also present on the HD 3300 integrated graphics meaning that HD playback of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD content is fully supported in hardware.
Layout
The CPU area of the motherboard is clear of obstacles allowing the user to install virtually any regular CPU cooler for the AMD platform with the possible exception of some weird after market coolers that would require a new motherboard anyway in most cases. The DrMOS chips are aligned across the top of the CPU cooler along with the solid capacitors. The790GX chipset supports all current CPUs including the 9850 and 9950 that won’t work on the 780G chipset due to power requirements.
CPU area
Capacitors
DrMOS
Flat Circu-Pipe
MSI uses a circular heat sink design they call Flat Circu-Pipe. There is a circular heatsink on both the 790GX chip and on the SB 750 Southbridge allowing for the best thermal contact with the chips of the available designs. The heatsinks allow for the installation of after-market CPU coolers due to the low-profile nature.
One advantage that most chipsets based upon the 790GX chipset has is the ability to run Automated Clock Calibration, allowing for higher overclocks. The Phenom CPU has direct access to 6 pins on the SB750 chipset that allows the SB750 to communicate with the CPU allowing the SB750 to override some of the internal settings of the CPU. This only works on AMD Phenom processors, meaning that older ones won’t work.
Expansion
Memory
Rear of PCB
Memory modules 2
The 790GX has the ability to run two video cards in CrossfireX mode and the MSI board has two PCI Express x16 Generation 2 video card slots to facilitate this. In CrossfireX mode the two slots run at x8 mode each. As the 2nd generation PCI Express x16 slot provides the same bandwidth as a 1st generation PCI Express slot, there should be plenty of bandwidth to go around for two cards as there is little performance difference in current cards. The other expansion options on the DKA790GX include two PCI Express x1 slots and two PCI slots.
Memory expansion on the MSI board includes four DIMM (Dual In-line Memory Modules) with support for up to 16GB of DDR2-1066 1066MHz memory. The memory controller is on the CPU and not the chipset from the Athlon 64 launch, meaning that DDR2-1066MHz would need a CPU that supports it. The DIMM slots are located below the CPU socket and above the 24-pin power connection, making for excellent placing of the memory slots. Dual Channel is enabled when like memory modules is placed in like-colored slots.
SATA ports
IDE port
24-pin power
4-pin fan connector
ATI supports up to 6 SATA ports on the SB750 Southbridge. The DKA790GX sports sixe SATA ports aligned sideways to the motherboard, allowing for excellent cable management. One word of caution on the ATI motherboards, their SATA RAID support has been iffy for years. Every motherboard I’ve reviewed with an AMD chipset has failed to initialize the RAID 0 Array. Intel, NVIDIA, VIA, SIS motherboards has not had that issue but AMD motherboards seem to. A single IDE port rounds out the drive expansion on the board with MSI deciding against including the FDD port.
Realtek 880M
Realtek PHY
TPM and COM1
USB headers
Onboard audio on the board is the venerable Realtek ALC888 CODEC found on many motherboards today. This CODEC is compliant with the Azalia 1.0 specification and has the ability to do 7.1 Surround Sound+2 channel front panel audio. Modern onboard sound has caused companies like Creative Labs and ESS which used to market add-on cards to nearly go out of business or have very limited exposure due to the onboard audio being good enough for most people.
FDD
Audio headers
IO
Power, Reset, Clear CMOS
The IO on the board is interesting due to the onboard graphics on the motherboard. Modern video cards like the GTX 280 and HD 4870 are great and all but priced out of the ballpark for most people. There is a PS/2 keyboard and mouse port, for the legacy users out there. The use of a single port is understandable as the majority of users use USB keyboards and mice today. There are 6 USB 2.0 ports, a VGA port, a HDMI port, an Optical SPDIF port, an IEEE-1394 port, an Esata port, a Gigabit LAN port and 6 Audio ports for the onboard audio.
Bundle
- MSI Windows XP Driver CD
- MSI Windows Vista Driver CD
- 4 SATA DATA cables
- 2 SATA Power cables
- IDE Cable
- FDD cable
- Two CrossfireX bridges
- IO Shield
Box
Box rear
Board in box
Bundle
MSI really knows how to package their Platinum boards with all the accessories that that you need to fully utilize the motherboard’s features. They include two Crossfire bridges, meaning that if you have two cards without bridges nothing further needs to be bought to run two ATI cards in CrossfireX mode. The four SATA data cables and 2 SATA Power cables round out the hardware side of the bundle.
Software wise MSI includes two versions of the Driver DVD one for Vista and the other one for XP. As more users move to Vista, it’s likely they will have both drivers integrated on one DVD. MSI generally includes MSI Dual Core Center for system monitoring, MSI Live Update for updating the drivers and BIOS automatically, HDD Backup for backing up the HDD, AMD Overdrive for overclocking the system AMD CPU Tool and ATI RAID Tool.
BIOS
MSI uses a modified version of the American Megatrends AMIBIOS with their DKA790GX motherboard. The BIOS is split into Standard CMOS Features, Advanced BIOS Features, Integrated Peripherals, Power Management Setup, H/W Monitor, BIOS Setting Password, Cell Menu, User Settings, Load Fail-Safe Defaults, Load Optimized Defaults, Save and Exit Setup, and Exit without saving submenus.
The Advanced Menu is where you enable or disable the full screen LOGO; enable Quick Boot, Boot Up Num-Lock LED, IOAPIC Function, MPS Table Version, set the Primary Graphics Adapter, PCI Latency Timer and CPU Feature. CPU Feature is where you enable High Precision Event Timers, the onboard VGA and the amount of memory used for the framebuffers of the onboard video up to 512MB. The DKA790GX has 128MB of Sideport memory which allows the 790GX to use the 128MB in addition to standard onboard memory.
BIOS chip
Integrated Peripherals is where you enable the USB Controller, USB Legacy Device Support, Onboard LAN, LAN Option ROM, Onboard IEEE-1394 controller, Onboard Audio controller, On-chip ATA devices, and I/O Devices. The On-chip ATA devices is where you enable the PCI IDE Busmaster and On-chip SATA Controller. Here is also where you enable RAID. The HW Monitor is where the current system temperatures, voltages and fan speeds are displayed.
Overclockers and tweakers will want to use the Cell Menu due to the fact that that is where the overclocking and tweaking of the system is done. I was able to overclock the board using the ACC to +10% of the actual clock. This is pretty mundane by most overclocking standards but excellent for the CPU and motherboard chipset that I used as the 9850 has limited overclocking potential normally. The board overclocks well with the CPU and that’s what is important.
Integrated Graphics & Performance
As a integrated graphics motherboard I decided to look at the board from both the integrated point of view and with a discrete video card. The integrated graphics will be compared with the GeForce 8200 and 8300 motherboard graphics, NVIDIA’s current best. Note that I enabled Sideport and 512MB dedicated to graphics to provide the highest performance from the integrated graphics possible.
Test System
- AMD Phenom 9850
- 2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-1066MHz PC8500 memory
- 2 74GB WD Raptor SATA HDDs in single HDD mode
- Integrated HD 3300 with 128MB Sideport and 512MB Dedicated to graphics
- Rosewill 950W PSU
- Windows Vista 32-bit Business with SP1
Tests
- 3dmark05/06
- COD4 Modern Warfare 1024x768 no AA no AF, Custom FRAPS walkthrough
- Crysis 1024x768 no AA no AF, Custom FRAPS walkthrough
- QuakeWars 1024x768 no AA no AF, Custom FRAPS walkthrough
- UT3 1024x768 no AA no AF, Custom FRAPS walkthrough
Test Setup & Performance
The regular battery of tests was also run on the DKA790GX motherboard. Note that I continue to have issues with RAID 0 and AHCI modes on two WD Raptor SATA drives on AMD chipset motherboards, and had to run the single drive in IDE mode due to the RAID controller freezing every time I would set RAID to enable in the BIOS. Otherwise the setup is identical.
Test System
- AMD Phenom 9850
- 2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-1066MHz PC8500 memory
- 2 74GB WD Raptor SATA HDDs in single HDD mode
- EVGA 8800GTS 320MB video card running 175.19 Forcewar drivers
- Rosewill 950W PSU
- Windows Vista 32-bit Business with SP1
Tests
- Sysmark 2007 Patch 3
- 3DMark05/06/Vantage
- SpecViewPerf 10
- Aquamark 3
- PCMark05/Vantage
- CPUBench 2003
- Crystalmark 2004
- wPrime 95
- Sisoft Sandra XI Processor benchmark
- PiFast
SiSoft Sandra
CPU Bench
PiFast
SysMark2007
PCMark 2005
3DMark
CrystalMark
Spechview
PCMark Vantage
AquaMark 3
Conclusion
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MSI has built a stellar motherboard with the DKA790GX Platinum board. The board has all of the features that you would want from a 790GX motherboard including HD 3300 graphics with CrossfireX capability, ACC overclocking and more. From a performance point of view, the DKA790GX has nearly the same performance as the other 790GX board that I tested, meaning that it is pretty high on the totem pole. It did work better in Hybrid CrossFire than our previous 790GX boards and that is a very good thing.
The 790GX integrated graphics are the best on the market in terms of performance and features and this is a great example of the total package MSI has put together in this motherboard. The Advanced Calibration Control that the 790GX supports allows for higher overclocking than the 790FX chipset, meaning that this board is a good choice for those wanting the best out of their system. Integrated graphics are a bit of a joke for most enthusiasts but those that want to build a HTPC or save money now to buy a discrete card later will love the HD 3300 on this board. As far as the 790GX series of motherboards goes, the MSI board is a Hot Product for this category of motherboards as it excels above its peers in a few small but relevant areas.
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