3-24-2011 review by hitechlegion

MSI has actually implemented some better design ideas on this board, when compared to the 890FXA-GD70, the DIMM slots are placed alternately, overclockers will like this feauture. Memory DIMMs that are side by side might hinder larger heatsinks, the operating temperature however of the OCed modules is not something the reviewer would trade for, especially if you want to OC your DDR3. Besides, there is usually enough room for 2 x 2 sticks and for CPU coolers on this board.

Compared To:

Biostar TA890FXE

Benchmarks:

3D Mark 2011, AIDA, Call of Duty Black Ops, Cinebench 10, Cinebench 11.5, Lost Planet 2, Mafia 2, PC Mark Vantage, Sisoft Sandra, Unigine Heaven, World Bench.

Overclocking:

An AMD Phenom II X4 970 was OCed @ 4.18 GHz.

Test Setup:

• CPU : AMD Phenom II X4 970
• CPU Cooler : Cooler Master V6GT, Noctua U9B-SE2
• Graphics Card : PowerColor Radeon HD6970 PCS+
• HDD : Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB
• Mainboard : MSI 890FXA-GD65
• Operating System : Windows 7 Ultimate x64
• PSU : InWin CoMemory : ander 750W , Antec HCG Pro 750W
• RAM : 4GB Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz DDR3, 4GB Patriot Viper 1600MH