Hey there all you good folks! :O)
I'm just wondering about this MSI mobo. I'm planning on a gaming system build later this year/early next year, and me being kind of low on funds, I often buy parts [CPU, motherboard, power supply etc.,] over a period of time and stash them away for the future build.
I have only used MSI once, back in 2000 and wasn't really that impressed?! So have become a 'fan' of Gigabyte. Anyway, I digress. I have seen the MSI 970 Gaming AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 ATX Motherboard on OCUK for £72.95 inc vat and was wondering if this board is any good?
Cheers for any help and have a great day!!! :O)
for a fx 6XXX cpu yes it is a good board for a fx8XXX cpu only the low power e parts are what i can recommend for that board. i just dont trust the 970 platform with the high power 8 core parts yes it will work but i worry about life span of the board. if you can get your hands on it i would say get a phenom II x6 1090T or 1100T for that board they have better IPC than a fx 6300 and almost matches a 8350 if you overclock.
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Cheers @looming_hawk
I was thinking of the 8370E Black Edition 3.30GHz {Thanks dear Logan fo setting my sights high!)
A Phenom II 1090T or 1100T you say? Hmm, I'll have a look out for that. :O)
I've still got to get the rest of my low end (A4 4000 based) system first. How I wish money grew on trees!!! :oD
Thanks again and have a great day!!! :O)
A 8 core cpu will be fine on the 970 gameing it is a newly released mobo for 8 core cpu's (ALL outher msi am3+ boards are junk) it has a 8+2 power phase.
Anuther cheap and capable 970 chipset mobo is the gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P again with a good 8+2 power phase.
970 chip set has nothing to do with quality or overclocking the difference between 970 and 990fx is the amount of pcie lanes.
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4717#ov
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The MSI 970 Gaming is a fairly solid board, and it "fixed" a lot of issues that MSI has had with AMD AM3+ boards. As long as you don't try to push your 8-core to 5.0 ghz, you should be fine.
Another alternative is the ASRock 970 Performance. It has a beefy VRM as well, and they advertise it as being able to handle the FX-9XXX series. It has has M.2 Sata.
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It's hit or miss from my understanding. My board is a definite miss. I've got it paired with an 8320E, and 8GB of ADATA 1600 RAM. Sometimes when booting, it will say have an error about overclocking failed. Sometimes it will reset settings.When something is plugged into rear USB 3.0 ports, one of the USB 2.0 ports becomes flaky (keyboard will no longer work, mouse is intermittent on wireless dongle, unplug device in USB 3.0 port, everything works). Settings in the UEFI got weird, changed names of various things to SATA Port 2 and had to clear CMOS. I have to use iommu=soft kernel flag on Linux to use USB 3.0 ports. Latest BIOS, using UEFI booting without Secure Boot. Have yet to try overclocking the CPU.
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Msi 970A Gaming is not a bad board, but dont expect it to be a great overclocker.
The vrm´s and mosfets realy run hot if you go passed 4.5Ghz with a FX8 core chip.
But honnestly, i personaly dont realy see much reasons to still botter with AMD FX in general, especialy if its for gaming purpose mainaly.
You can get a locked i5 with cheap H97 board, for just a littlebit more then a FX8 core + decent enough 970 board + cooler.
But the locked i5 will be way better then anything AMD has to offer for gaming.
The only con, is that you cannot overclock a locked i5, but still, the per core performance and ipc of a haswell i5 is way better then those old AMD FX chips.
I personaly dont realy see much reasons why you should look for an old AM3+ platform atm. unless your budget is very strickt.
AMD FX cpu´s are ofcourse not bad cpu´s for gaming, i you pair them with a midrange GPU like a 280X they still will play most games very well.
But as soon as you wanne pair them with a higherend gpu like GTX970 / 980 290 (X), they realy start to show their age.
Especialy if you are an MMO player.
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@MisteryAngel Many thanks for the info! :O) And thanks everyone else, too! :O)
I have to be 100% honest here and say that I have NEVER overclocked before! Perhaps in time I will? My low end build (A4 4000 paired with a Gigabyte F2A88XM-DS2) will still take front and centre at this time due to funds!
Regarding the gaming build? I'll look into getting an i5 for sure! :O) Regardless of whether I go for the FX or i5, what I'll do (and this will make perfect sense) is start saving!!! :O) Then when I've got the money, I can decide for sure!!! :O) Like I said.... How I wish money grew on trees!!! ;O) LOL!
Thank you again and have a great day!!! :O)
In terms of anything in the 4xxx or the 6xxx series it's great. But don't go for the 9xxx series of CPUs the 8370/e and under is highly advised. The FX8320 or fx 8320e is a great combo with that board.
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