Crysis

Publisher: Electronic Arts



Crysis performance is not bad: minimum frame rates are competitive, but the average fps is decidedly low. The MSI 770X-C45 we previously reviewed is considerably faster here.

Stability

As usual we reset the BIOS to its default values and loaded up both the Prime 95 torture test and 3DMark 06 looping to see if the board could withstand the stress to CPU, memory and PCI-Express power draw for 24 hours. Apart from a fan to cool the CPU heatsink, there were no other fans used, meaning the heatsinks (or lack of them) have to withstand very little airflow and still keep the components cool.

We even ran the system with two Zotac GeForce GTX 260 AMP! in SLI, just to stress the motherboard traces, power and PCI-Express a little more. Even despite this, after a full 24 hours we came back to to find both 3DMark and Prime95 still running and the system completely responsive; an excellent result for the MSI NF750-G55.

Conclusion

While we don't necessary ever push multi-GPU solutions, it's nice to have multi-GPU competition in the AMD space since one chipset still doesn't fit all. The integrated graphics are a nice backup too, even if you don't use them. It's equivalent is the 785G from AMD which we also like - at a later date, the board can be retired to a HTPC for example.

While the stock performance fritters between highs and lows, the overclocking potential is very, very good for board of this price, although we did expect a more commanding lead by the NF750-G55 given the large difference in overclocks.

It looks great, it has a basic but competitive set of features and Nvidia/MSI includes the Advanced Clock Calibration now, and unlocking the extra cores is exceptionally simple to do. However, the £53 770-C45 can also keep up with it in our tests and with the latest BIOS it too can now unlock those extra cores.

We like it; it fits a niche, which is rare in this industry, but only its aesthetic design really lights a fire of desire for us. If you really want a budget SLI board and an AMD AM3 CPU, it's certainly worth the short list, but otherwise, don't go too far out of your way for it.

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• 7/10

• Features
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• 7/10

• Value
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• 7/10

Score Guide