Usb Skype
2006
Usb Skype
Infomercial Products Put To The Test
Infomercial products are a $100 billion a year business and if you've bought into a "as seen on TV" product only to be disappointed, Consumer Reports has looked behind the marketing of these products and put some of them to the test.
AMD's decision not to force consumers into the era of DDR3 was a stroke of genius, but for those that want to make the move to DDR3 now, the choices seem endless. MSI's latest offering, the 790FX-GD70, is a high-end gaming motherboard that not only provides almost limitless DDR3 options but also supports serious overclocking.
The majority of MSI's latest motherboards have adopted a styling more akin to Intel's cool and reserved approach from yesteryear. Rather than the rainbow of previous MSI boards like the DKA790GX, the board uses a black PCB and is adorned with black and blue connectors and gun-metal-grey heatsinks.
On the surface, the 790FX-GD70 has the usual array of I/O ports including a powered E-SATA port, seven USB ports, dual Gigabit LAN and eight channel audio with Coaxial/Optical SPDIF.
The board's layout is very functional with enough space around each of the four PCI-Exl6 slots to accommodate large GPUs like the HD4890 or HD4870X2. The MOSFET and chipset coolers, which are connected with a heatpipe, are large enough to dissipate the heat yet low enough as to not interfere with large CPU coolers like the Thermalright Ultra 120 extreme or the Asus Silent Square EVO.
Many boards advertise easy overclocking but the 790FX-GD70 takes it to a whole new level. MSI has recently brought out its OC Dial which allows overclocking on the fly without the use of software. The concept is simple - press a button to activate the overclocking mode then turn the dial until the desired FSB speed and auto voltages have been met. The increments of the dial can be changed in 1MHz intervals allowing for an accurate degree of control.
During testing this elegant solution worked exceptionally well. Using CPU-Z as a real time monitor of both FSB and CPU clockspeeds, we were able to get the 955 up to 3.9gGHz without touching the multiplier. The BIOS allows for changing of the intervals as well as resetting the OC Dial value if the overclock fails. Unfortunately there is no similar control for voltages which either have to be set manually or left at Auto. The OC Dial is only available on the Eclipse Plus, 790FX-GD70 and the 790FX-GD70 Winki Edition.
The AMD Phenom 11 X4 955 processor was used to test the overclocking ability of the 790FX-GD70. It managed to reach an impressive 4GHz on air cooling before blue screening. Unfortunately, the system was not stable enough to get any results at this clock speed but at 3.9GHz the 955 BE achieved a Super Pi 1.51M score of 17.940 seconds. Through the tests the passive heatsinks remained cool enough to touch, although even the addition of a 40 mm fan would have increased the heat dissipation properties of the NB heatsink.
The 790FX-GD70 supports up to DDR3-l600 but will accommodate memory speeds of up to 2133MHz, although these speeds will only be attainable through overclocking of the FSB. High-end DDR3 may not be affordable but the extra headroom means that memory will not be a limiting factor when overclocking.
The 790FX-GD70 is a Winki edition board. Winki is MSI's poorly chosen name for its bootable OS that comes in the guise of a USB device that plugs straight onto the onboard USB header. The Winki OS is based on a very basic Linux kernel to allow the user to boot in and access Internet and IMs (Pidgin and Skype) without having to boot into a full OS. Winki boots up in a few seconds, which means that a quick Google search can be done without the need to boot into Windows.
The MSI 790FX-GD70 is an excellent high-end motherboard that provides superb overclocking features for a reasonable price. The fact that this board comes in at just under $200 and that DDR3 prices have plummeted is enough to seriously warrant the consideration of adopting the new AM3 platform in all its DDR3 glory.
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