Lets take a look at the MSI board features next. Full specs on MSI’s website.
-APS is Active Phase Switching is complete function to Control Power Demand with Switching Dynamically, it’s for CPU, Memory and Chipset PWM.
-Real Time FSB tuning- FSB value change in the BIOS instant!
• Unlimited Turning Segments
• Easy Use – Just Rotate the knob!!!
• Turn OC Beginner to OC Expert!!
• Save your time of trying
• Achieve OC goal in short time
• Faster and Flexible and instant
• If BIOS crash, it still can boot from USB Drive
• Update BIOS from USB Drive by M-Flash Fucntion
• Longer lifespan than electrolytic capacitors
• Endurable to operation under higher frequency & temperature
• Avoid exploding capacitors to cause mainboards failure
• A choke is an inductor responsible for storing power and regulates the current.
• All shielded choke could reduce core power loss, lower EMI interference.
• Store energy longer at higher frequency, achieving higher efficiency.
• Help end-users upgrade CPU FSB directly
• Buy an essential CPU but want to reach higher performance
• Skip the complicated BIOS OC setting and enjoy the higher level CPU performance
• equipped additional 1Gbit (128MB) DDR3 1333MHz IGP memory to accelerate onboard VGA 3D performance up to 15%.
• Independent IGP memory can reduce the consumption of system memory.
• Easy connect to front panel & chassis cable
• 2x USB, IEEE 1394, front panel (JFP1/2)& audio(JAUD1) M-connector in the package
• Easy to tell the definition of each pin
• Functions designed with button to be easy use.
• Help power-users tweaking process in-chasis enviornment
• Onboard SATA ports are stacked on the mainboard to avoid mechanical issue with giant graphic cards like 8800 Ultra.
Packaging
This is the first board we’ve received from MSI with their new logo and it can be seen on the 790GX-G65 box which comes in Orange / white theme- a big departure from their grey/dark or green boxes.
Package includes some manuals, drivers CD/DVD, 4x SATA cables, IDE cable, 1x 4-PIN HDD to SATA converter, Crossfire bridge, MSI M-Connecter and I/O back panel shield.
Layout:
The MSI 790DX-G65 motherboard is a full ATX sized board built on a brown PCB.
The CPU socket is AM3 which supports DDR3 Memory interference and around the socket are full solid state capacitors to provide the motherboard longer life operation. A heatsink covers the mosfet- the board can handle any 140w CPUs.
There are four DDR3 DIMM slots that supports dual channel use with 800/1066/1333 or 1600MHz in overclocked state.
5x SATA ports controlled by AMD SB750 are available in the right side corner of the motherboard along with the power , reset and Clear CMOS button.
On the lower side, we see 2x Blue PCI-E x16 slots that are V2.0 compliant, When two PCI Express x16 graphics cards are installed, the PCIE x 16 lanes will auto arrange form x16+ x0 to x8+x8. Additionally, two PCI Express x1 are present along with two 32-bit PCI slots. Notice that there is an EZ OC switch in a small red colored box located just between the two blue PCI-E x16 slots- this switch function to overclock the FSB without going thru the BIOS, it will automatically adjust the FSB Speeds in three steps, 10%, 15% and 20% increments.
The back panel holds up a PS/2 keyboard or mouse connector with an optical SPDIF-out port from the left, DVI-D and VGA ports, 6x USB’s , HDMI , Firewire, an e-SATA port that is controlled by AMD SB750 chipset, an RJ45 LAN Jack and finally a 6 in 1 audio connector.
MSI uses ELPIDA J116BASE – DJ-E memory chips for the dedicated memory of the integrated Graphic card. The memory is rated at 1333MHZ DDR3 1GB with 9-9-9 timings.
Audio Chipset is by RELTEK ALC889 chipset that supports 7.1 Audio Channel.
The RJ45 LAN JACK is controlled by REALTEK RTL8111DL chipset that support 10/100/1000 operations.
BIOS
The new MSI welcome screen is shown on the screen when the motherboard is powered up.
BIOS menu still looks the same.
H/W Monitor section shows temperature and voltage readings on screen.
CELL menu features the adjustments for CPU ,NB,HT and memory speeds.
Among the cell menu functions is the on board vga overclocking ,which allows you to adjust the VGA clock speeds from 500Mhz up to 800MHz.
At the end of the cell menu section is the voltage adjustments for almost every major chipset on board, we left everything to its max and took picture and post it above.
Between the cell menu function is the Advance Dram configuration- this section allows the user to adjust memory timing for single stick of memory or both of them.
What we have here are two separate products- the AMD Phenom II X4 810 and the MSI 790GX motherboard. The Phenom, as you saw from the benchmarks on the previous pages, isn’t targeted towards the higher-end. In fact, the X4 955 which we’re going to be looking at in a couple of days is much more suited for that purpose. We like the fact that the 810 uses 95W TDP. Its pricing of close of US$170 also puts it a good $50+ cheaper than higher-end CPUs and its overclocking potential of easily reaching 3.0GHz certainly makes it lucrative for the person who wants to spend the least but get a decent CPU. This is exactly what the 810 is- a decent CPU, however, bundling it with the additional costs of DDR3 gets its purpose thrown out of the window.
The MSI 790GX-G65 motherboard has a pretty decent set of features like reset, power and clear CMOS button and the overclocking FSB switch will help benchmarkers and overclockers reach their goal easier. Also things like M-Flash make BIOS updates much easier while the APS “ Active Phase switching “ adjusts power load management automatically throughout the system. Its a good motherboard at the end of the day that provides a fast and stable environment for AM3 based AMD CPUs.
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