MSI 990FXA-GD80 990FX Chipset Motherboard Review @ [H]

I skimmed the thread and I don't think anyone pointed this out. One the first page of the article the MSI 990FXA-GD80 is linked to an ASUS P8P67.
 
If MSI's setup is in any way similar to the Crosshair IV setup, then the x4 for the bottom PCI-E slot comes from the southbridge, and it shares that x4 bandwidth with all the other x1 PCI-E slots. If the x1 slots are populated, then the bottom x16 slot will drop from x4 to x1. At least, that's my understanding of how AMD and Intel boards worked when one of the x16 slots is an x4 slot.
 
I skimmed the thread and I don't think anyone pointed this out. One the first page of the article the MSI 990FXA-GD80 is linked to an ASUS P8P67.

That was a place holder. MSI hadn't had the board on their site when I wrote this article.
 
Yeah sometimes the manufacturers don't have the items listed on their web pages when we write the articles and even sometimes after they are published. Normally this isn't a problem save for the first board we do of a new chipset or when something special comes out we try to have a review for on it's release day.
 
Understandable. How are the other 990FX boards going for testing? Still showing bios issues? I was going to get one for Sata 3 and USB 3.0. Though I dont want to pay for one that's still beta testing.
 
Understandable. How are the other 990FX boards going for testing? Still showing bios issues? I was going to get one for Sata 3 and USB 3.0. Though I dont want to pay for one that's still beta testing.

Well I've only worked with one other board at this point. I don't want to give it away, but the one I'm working with now so far still has issues, but not nearly as bad as those I saw on the MSI board.
 
Thanks for the insight, Dan. I know these boards just came out and you guys are reviewing the flagship boards for the mobo makers, but have you heard anything about the lower end 990 boards? I was possibly looking into the Gigabyte 990XA-UD3. I think a more economical board makes more sense for me to buy at this point instead of putting in $200 or more on a highend 990FX when I really won't make use of the extra features and toys on it plus BD is still up in the air as performance goes.
 
Seeing that you guys suspect the MSI 990FXA-GD80 is suffering from a premature BIOS, should we expect review updates once a new BIOS is released?
 
Well lets hope that MSI is smart enough to post a bios update with the necessary documentation :) .
 
Zarathustra[H];1037343601 said:
Seeing that you guys suspect the MSI 990FXA-GD80 is suffering from a premature BIOS, should we expect review updates once a new BIOS is released?

That's really Kyle's decision and I'm not sure if we will be doing that or not.
 
I received mine from Newegg last week, and built up my right with a Phenom II X6 1090T (to hold me over until BD) yesterday.

Thus far no problems at all.

Worth noting, the current bios revision is 11.0 (as opposed to 11.0B18 beta in the review). The hardware revision appears the same as in the article.

I haven't had any issues what so ever with it yet, but thus far I've only taken it to the "stable at stock clocks" baseline level. Overclocking is next.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037407131 said:
I received mine from Newegg last week, and built up my right with a Phenom II X6 1090T (to hold me over until BD) yesterday.

Thus far no problems at all.

Worth noting, the current bios revision is 11.0 (as opposed to 11.0B18 beta in the review). The hardware revision appears the same as in the article.

I haven't had any issues what so ever with it yet, but thus far I've only taken it to the "stable at stock clocks" baseline level. Overclocking is next.

Have you tried BIOS 11.1? The MSI website just mentions that it "update CPU module" and "update USB module" and it was released on June 9, 2011.

I became interested in this board when I noticed that it had the exact PCIe slot spacing that I want (and can't seem to find elsewhere on any of the Sandy Bridge or 990FX boards), which is this:

GD80.jpg


But after reading the [H] review I'm not so enthusiastic...but it's still the only mobo that has what I want PCIe-wise. :(
 
You guys should revisit this motherboard with the 11.2 BIOS release (or later). I was having all sorts of problems with this board, out of the box - specifically disappointing performance - and was very disappointed in my first 24-48 hours of owning it (purchased about 2 weeks ago from this writing, at Newegg). My benchmark scores were all low, and gaming was noticeably sluggish. Was unable to achieve even a small overclock, with any sort of stability. But alas, the new BIOS has fixed everything!

Thanks for a good review, though! Kinda glad I didn't see it before I purchased mine, or I would have missed out, in the end ;)

My full specs, for reference:
CPU: AMD Phenom II x6 1100t @ 4.0ghz OC
CPU Cooler: Zalman 9700
GPU: MSI R6970 Lightning 2gb
RAM: 2x4GB ADATA DDR3 1600mhz 9-9-9-24
Motherboard: MSI 990fxa-gd80
PSU: Rosewill Xtreme Series 850W

3DMark Vantage: http://3dmark.com/3dmv/3422275;jses...mv/3422275?key=DQvJ9L4tN8k3yDXsJCRkpABwZVWAkz

3DMark 11: http://3dmark.com/3dm11/1719654;jse...11/1719654?key=vQuH2CWxtyV36HsbAcNcmUeFTpFh6b (I do not know yet why my Physics scores are low, but they are not by much...I'm sure I've just derped something)

Sorry, I stupidly didn't save my scores from before the BIOS update....Didn't expect to really ever need them :)
 
We won't be revisiting this board until Bulldozer launches. Plain and simple. As for the benchmarks, well board benchmarks don't really mean a whole hell of a lot and truly, I have rarely if ever seen a BIOS update correct performance issues. Typically such issues were created in the old BIOS by user error. I'm not saying that was the case here, but I tend to take benchmarks with a grain of salt.

As long as the numbers are roughly where they should be (and ours were) I'm not typically concerned.
 
Have you tried BIOS 11.1? The MSI website just mentions that it "update CPU module" and "update USB module" and it was released on June 9, 2011.

I became interested in this board when I noticed that it had the exact PCIe slot spacing that I want (and can't seem to find elsewhere on any of the Sandy Bridge or 990FX boards), which is this:

GD80.jpg


But after reading the [H] review I'm not so enthusiastic...but it's still the only mobo that has what I want PCIe-wise. :(

I'm running on the latest BIOS right now.

The only issue I have been able to reproduce with the board that the [H] saw was the inability to pump the base clock speed up particularly high. In every other regard it has been perfect.

Since I was overclocking using the multiplier on my BE chip that didn't bother me at all.

Note that this was with the BIOS it shipped with, 11.0.

I am currently - since last week - running on the latest bios 11.2, but I haven't tried any overclocking since updating to it, so I don't know if this resolves the base clock issue or not.

I already arrived at a stable 4.0Ghz and haven't had the time to see if this new BIOS update allows me to go any further. At 4.0Ghz its plenty fast though.
 
We won't be revisiting this board until Bulldozer launches. Plain and simple. As for the benchmarks, well board benchmarks don't really mean a whole hell of a lot and truly, I have rarely if ever seen a BIOS update correct performance issues. Typically such issues were created in the old BIOS by user error. I'm not saying that was the case here, but I tend to take benchmarks with a grain of salt.

As long as the numbers are roughly where they should be (and ours were) I'm not typically concerned.

Understood about waiting for the new CPUs to release...

The BIOS update was a last resort, as always, since I did not want to brick a brand new, $200 motherboard, without first trying everything myself and Google could think of. And as it turned out, gains were significant and noticeable, both in benchmarks and real-world applications/games. With the amount of time I spent troubleshooting the issues, the likelihood of a wrong setting is low, but still not impossible. The gains in overclocking and the fact that I've read reports of at least 3-5 other people with the same experience, further leads me to believe that MSI had something screwy in their first couple of BIOS releases.

Either way, I wont beat the topic to death, as I am unable to provide any physical data to prove/disprove my experience in this case. However, everything points to the BIOS as the culprit to this board's initial sub-par performance.

Anyway, thanks for the reply...I'll be looking forward to your results with the new Bulldozers, when they come out! Hope they impress, both with this board and in general, as i really want to get one!
 
I'm not sure the RAM/CPU spacing is any worse on this than my Biostar TA790GXBE

http://www.msi.com/pic/product/five_pictures1_2400_20110531112742.jpg

http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=419#

but even if it's not, on the Biostar the fan on my TRUE Rev. C overhangs the nearest RAM slot, meaning I can't fit my RAM in there (it might be possible to fit a low-profile stick in there). This doesn't matter though, as I can use the two furthest away slots for my two 4GB sticks. I don't see how I'm supposed to use this MSI board at all if I have to put a stick in slot 1.

I notice in your review you said the TRUE can't be rotated on AMD boards, which isn't the case with the TRUE rev. C which comes with a bracket to allow that. I wouldn't want to rotate it though, because (a) I want it blowing towards the back and my exhaust fan and (b) it would block even more RAM slots the other way round.

The only board I've seen which has more room between RAM and CPU than the rest is the Asrock 890GX Pro3, which begs the question if it works on that board, why aren't all boards like this? I haven't seen this board in real-life, so it would be great if you could check that it does actually have enough room to use the nearest RAM slot with something like the TRUE rev.C and fan fitted.
 
That's pretty much how it is with all AMD boards. They all have their RAM slots too close to the CPU socket. I've been bitching about that for years.
 
I don't think you really read my post properly.

I didn't say the spacing on the MSI was unusual (just the opposite actually), but that by requiring the user to use the nearest slot they make it impossible to use most decent heatsinks.

You also ignored what I said about the better spacing on the 890GX Pro3.
 
Bought this board a few months ago to replace a board that got fried by an idiot that hit a power pole, which sent a back surge into the PSU... got lucky the processor survived.. and so did the ram... video card however did not for long and had to replace...
This board has been rock solid and does NOT have the old bios style posted in the reviews and is inaccurate... the bios used on the beta stuff was to keep the real interface secret... They also now have a V2 of this board out that's selling on newegg. my biggest problem was coming home one night after my paper route and finding the desktop OFF and after a few hours and days struggling I got it working again by replacing the paste, re-seating the processor etc. It's working fine but this was due to the tower pulling in an insane amount of dust within a month for some bizarre reason.Been running this machine fine with overheat problems for a while... this board truely is nearly bullet proof. the only thing that completely fried was the graphics card from the overheat! I have to give Kudos to best buy for their instore warrenty replacement policy where if they have the same product you can still exchange it and if you don't want the same one you can pick an exact or near exact and they'll give that to you instead and if it costs less than your purchase price you get $$ back! these have been MY problems... I don't see why so many were or are having problems... The scaling works fine for the turbo on the 1090T I have in here.. waiting on money to buy a Bulldozer aka Zambezi 8 core. oh also the CM V10 fits this board no problem clearance is fine with the ram I test fit it before I discovered the screws were stripped. sure you gotta load ram into the board before but you can also access the ram if you're careful and put it back with the HSF attached still.
 
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