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AMD 790FX Mobo Shootout
[Abstract]
The Spider AM3 Makeover Launched initially along with the original AMD Phenom as part of the Spider platform, AMD's enthusiast chipset, the 790FX remains the only one capable of supporting quad...
[Content] PCDigitalMobileGame
Conclusion
Scoring Breakdown
| Performance | Features | Layout | Overclocking | Stability | Value | Street Price (US$) | | ASUS M4A79T Deluxe | 4.0 | 4.0 | 3.5 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.0 | 200 | | GigabyteGA-MA790FXT-UD5P | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 180 | | MSI 790FX-GD70 | 4.0 | 5.0 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 212 |
Finally, we come to the concluding reckoning, where we sum up our opinions of these three motherboards. If you want to skip the wordy (but informative) version below, the table above lists how we feel about the boards based on selected criteria along with its street or online price. The performance from these boards have been very similar and one will do fine with any of them if that's your only criteria. If not, read on:-
ASUS M4A79T Deluxe - With this board, ASUS has maintained its usual high standards. This is a board that gave us no problems during testing. It also had the slightest of advantages when it came to overclocking. Along with the usual ASUS extras that we are so familiar with, it's a decent choice for an AMD 790FX motherboard.
However, when one looks at the other two competitors in this roundup, some of its minor faults became more prominent, from the less than ideal layout to the chipset heatsink that got in the way of our CPU heatsink. It suffers slightly when compared to its rivals in terms of the features available, like only having a single Gigabit LAN controller. Finally, its price is at a premium for what it has, albeit more reasonable than some ASUS products that we have seen. It's a good choice nonetheless especially if you don't need the extras offered by other brands.
Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P - Gigabyte's contender is a strange beast. Due to some unconventional design decisions, the board is heavily oriented towards storage as a main highlight. We have seen Gigabyte doing this for some of its other boards but here, the decision to go for that many SATA is probably not ideal for consumers. Add to that the removal of quad CrossFireX for more PCIe x1 slots and it's just not our cup of tea.
On the flip side, it's a board that runs cool and mostly without a hitch. Consumers may feel reassured by the solid feel of its Ultra Durable 3 enhanced PCB. Gigabyte's proprietary features are also a familiar comfort, from its Q-Flash BIOS flash utility to its energy saving technologies. Besides, let's not discount its highly competitive price, which could just suit the budgets of some consumers.
MSI 790FX-GD70 - Frankly, we had our doubts about MSI's motherboards in the past, from the way it was playing catch-up with some of its rivals in certain aspects of its board designs. With the 790FX-GD70, we have to say that this has been one of the more impressive designs from the company for a while. In our view, this MSI board has the right balance of features and technologies. You'll get quad CrossFireX like the ASUS but the layout of the slots is better. Minor things like the alignment of the SATA ports, to the presence of a eSATA/USB port, to the single chipset heatpipe based heatsink. In terms of features and layout, we prefer this board to the other two.
The only issue we had was that the testing was not as smooth as the other two. We ran into some problems during benchmarking, which were eventually solved with updated BIOS. If MSI has ironed out the bugs in its BIOS, it should be a pretty stable board and hopefully that's what we'll see in retail too. The asking price too is significantly higher than the other two boards but the addition of new features like the O.C Dial and Max FSB auto overclocking are interesting and something that the other boards lack. Although these features may not be that unique to the industry, they do add value over its direct competitors. For that, we believe that the MSI 790FX-GD70 is the best of the bunch.
Our Final Ratings
The MSI 790FX-GD70. |
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The ASUS M4A79T Deluxe. |
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The Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P. |
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