MSI 890FXA-GD70 Motherboard Review

Performance Analysis

There wasn’t much difference in stock-speed performance between this 890FX board and the two 890GX boards we’ve seen previously. In fact, the Asus M4A89GTD Pro/USB was a touch faster if anything, with its overall Media Benchmark score of 1,057 rather than 1,037. The MSI was roughly the same speed as the Asus in Crysis too, with a minimum frame rate 1fps higher, but an average 1fps lower.

The MSI achieved fast transfer rates over its main SATA 6Gbps ports, with a healthy 218MB/sec, which is equal to the fastest we’ve seen (also an MSI board). The eSATA port was a bit slower at 165MB/sec. However, the MSI let itself down with its USB performance, with the USB 3 ports only capable of 82MB/sec rather than the 192MB/sec of the Asus Crosshair IV Formula or the 100+MB/sec of every other board we’ve tested. The poor USB 3 performance was a result of very high CPU use, so clearly MSI has some work to do here.

When we’d overclocked the board (read our overclocking efforts for details) things improved slightly for the MSI. We saw Media Benchmark scores that were up there with the best AMD boards we’ve seen. In the multi-tasking test, the MSI was faster than the £190 Crosshair IV, for example, while in other tests it only lagged by a trivial few tens of points. Crysis reacted well to the extra CPU frequency, with the minimum frame rate rising from a jittery 22fps to a smooth 25fps.

Conclusion

The MSI 890FXA-GD70 has a good layout with some great features – we’re always happy to see DrMOS because it works well, and the POST readout and clean layout are also boons. It’s also great to see core unlocking come to MSI motherboards, as you might be able to resurrect the disabled core of a Phenom X3 and get more performance for free.

However, we couldn’t push as much overclocking potential from this board as we’ve seen from the much cheaper Asus M4A89GTD Pro/USB. The relatively low maximum HTT of 300MHz may meant that those with non-Black Edition processors may be restricted by this board.

The five graphics slots will be attractive to a certain audience but at £170, the MSI 890FXA-GD70 doesn’t offer enough even for avid folders. For everyone else looking for an AMD upgrade, that Asus board is a much better buy, and looking better by the minute.

• Performance
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• -
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• 8/10

• Features
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• -
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• 8/10

• Value
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• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
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• 5/10

• Overall
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• -
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• 6/10

Score Guide