Price R1 900
The Asus Crosshair 4 Formula is an amazing motherboard, but one that comes with a price that beggars belief. It may not be as expensive as a Core i7 motherboard, but in AMD country R2 700 is a king’s ransom. Enter the MSI 890FXA-GD70, a motherboard that aims to deliver all the bells and whistles for under R2 000.
The MSI 890FXA-GD70 is based on the AMD 890FX/SB850 chipset, which means that it has 42 PCI-E lanes, four of which are dedicated to A-Link Express III (which is the interface that the Northbridge and Southbridge use to communicate). The 890FX chipset is the only 8-series chipset to possess an IOMMU, a memory management unit (MMU) that is dedicated to addressing memory for everything except the CPU( since the CPU has its own MMU). This protects the system from errant devices that try to access memory that they should not.
The rest of the board is packed full of delicious goodies. SATA 6Gbps, USB 3, dual gigabit LAN and five PCI-E x16 slots are just some of the treats on this board. Of the five PCI-E x16 slots, only one is limited to x4 lanes. The other four slots are intended to be used for multi-GPU setups, with each of the slots receiving a maximum of x8 lanes when they are all populated. That said, through some technological jiggery-pokery a dual card CrossFire setup will make full x16 lanes available. The arrangement of these slots means that they can be filled with dual slot GPUs without any space concerns. As a subtle indication of the overclocking prowess of this motherboard, MSI has included a clear CMOS switch on the back panel and an OC dial on the PCB itself. This little knob allows direct manipulation of the FSB speed without using software - a simple and elegant solution that works well.
The 890FXA-GD70 was able to overclock the AMD Phenom II X6 1090T with minimal effort. The automatic overclocking system was able to push the processor to a cool 3.8GHz and, with a slight multiplier bump, the system hit the 4GHz mark with ease. The MSI 890FXA-GD70 is able to unlock hidden cores on AMD processors (should you have or find one) via BIOS option. This makes it ideal for those who want to stick with their dual or triple core processors for a while.
The real deal clincher is the asking price. R1 900 is a bargain for a high-end performance board and this makes the MSI 890FXA-GD70 the best bang-for-buck motherboard available today.
Michael Reed
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