Board Impressions and Test Setup
The build of the board looks to be very good.  Solder points are clean, components are firmly attached, and I could not see any real issues in terms of component placement.  One interesting choice is where MSI puts the northbridge on the board.  Note that it is not located in the middle of the board like many other products, but is more to the side and right in line with the PWM circuitry for the CPU.  This does clear up some more space around the CPU and allows the placement of seven slots on the board.

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Note the flat Hi-C caps between the chokes and the CPU socket.  DrMOS seems to work pretty well, and certainly takes up a lot less board space than traditional 4+1 and 8+2 PWM setups.

Like essentially all AMD boards, it is not entirely generous about space around the CPU socket.  AMD has official specifications about minimum spacing placement around the CPU, and all motherboard manufacturers stick with this.  I honestly have not had a board through my hands that has more clearance than what we see here.

The back panel connections are in their standard places, though the inclusion of both an optical and coax digital output seems a bit redundant.  There is a clear CMOS button also installed into the back, which can be easily pushed if not careful when plugging in digital audio cables, PS-2 cables, etc.  The only major thing not present is the Firewire port on the back.  These are only available as headers on the motherboard.  The SATA 6G ports are all rotated 90 degrees, so they will not interfere with long cards being placed in CrossFire X.  The only SATA port that is traditionally mounted is the single unit from the JMicron controller.
The power connections are placed where most people like them, or at least tolerate them.  There is still a single IDE port for people holding onto old drives.  There is no floppy drive connection, so installing RAID drives on older operating systems can be problematic.

The bundle with this board is fairly mundane.  It features SATA cables, an IDE cable, USB 2.0 cable/header, a pair of 4 pin to SATA power connections, the front panel wiring blocks for easy installation, and a CrossFire bridge.  A fairly comprehensive manual is included, as well as the driver disk with the Winki installation.  There are also manuals on the HD backup program, the Control Center program (which is a pretty comprehensive overclocking utility), and a quick setup guide/poster for new builders.

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The back panel is pretty standard, and not terribly exciting.  Of note is the clear CMOS button by the PS-2 ports, the dual Gig-E ports, and the blue USB 3.0 ports.

MSI essentially gives the user/builder what they need to get up and running in terms of components included with the motherboard.  The box is not very flashy, but this is not particularly an issue for most users.  Certainly it could make a difference in a retail store where eyes could be drawn to flashier boxes from the competition, but shopping for a motherboard on the basis of a box design is problematic in the first place for a user.

Test Setup

I ran this board for several weeks under varying conditions (heat, cold, small children throwing objects at it…) and the board did not show a single sign of instability.  The BIOS was updated to the latest version on the MSI website (as of Sept. 1, 2010).  The flash procedure was very simple with a USB memory stick with the correct BIOS file on it.  It took under 3 minutes to flash the bios and reboot the machine.

A fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit was applied to the board, and all updates loaded.  I compared this board to a previous AM3 motherboard that I tested, the MSI 890GXM-G65.  This is a micro-ATX motherboard based on the latest AMD 890GX chipset, with the SB850 southbridge.  With the retreat of NVIDIA from the AMD chipset market, it is awfully hard to find comparable products to test against.  The last NVIDIA nForce 980A motherboard tested was the MSI version, and its overall performance was measurably lower than what we found on the AMD side.
USB 3.0 testing was done with a Sharkoon USB 3.0 SATA dock with the WD Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6G hard drive installed.

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Processor
2 x 2 GB OCZ Platinum DDR-3 1600 running @ 1333 with 7.7.7.20 timings
2 x WD Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6G attached to the AMD SATA 6G controller, non-RAID
AMD HD 5870 Reference Video Card
Corsair TX750W Power Supply
Silverstone Raven 002 ATX Case
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Catalyst 10.5 Drivers
AMD AHCI drivers


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