Several weeks ago MSI officially announced the 990FXA-Gaming motherboard for the AM3+ market. The board is based on the tried and true 990FX and SB950 combo, but it adds a new wrinkle to the game: USB 3.1 support. MSI has released the other AMD based USB 3.1 board on the market, the 970 Krait.
Quite a few people were excited about this part, as the AM3+ market has been pretty stagnant as of late. This is not necessarily surprising considering that AMD has not launched a new AM3+ chip since Fall of 2014 with a couple of "efficiency" chips as well as the slightly faster FX-8370.
There was some speculation based on early photographs that the board could have a more robust power delivery system than previous AM3+ boards, but alas, that is not the case. Upon closer inspection it appears as though MSI has gone the 6+2 phase route. If there are good quality components in there, you can potentially run the 220 watt TDP FX-9000 series parts, but these puppies are not officially supported. In fact, I received an email saying that I might want to be really careful in my choice of CPUs as well as being extremely careful when overclocking.
The board still has some real potential at being a really nice home for the 125 watt TDP and below parts. The audio portion looks very well designed and features the SoundBlaster Cinema 2. It supports both SLI and CrossFire in native 2 x 16x (highly doubtful with 3 cards with the way the slots are configured). It has the Killer NIC ethernet suite which may or may not be a selling point, depending on who you ask.
Overall the board is an interesting addition to the club, but I really wouldn't trust it with the FX-9000 series chips. I have a 970 Gaming that came with the FX-9590 that had a similar power delivery system, and it ran like a champ; there is a possibility that the board will run this combination. This is going to be installed this weekend and I will start the benchmarking! Keep tuned!
Looking forward to it. I have
Looking forward to it. I have a GA-FXA990-UD3, and wondering what else is out there for options.
So, WTF is wrong with them,
So, WTF is wrong with them, 6+2 phase vrms, are they high or something, it means you can barely get to 4,6-4.7ghz mark with this without throttling, or from their comments before board blows up, how could they make a high end board with such shitty vrm’s, when that is the most important part for these high end boards, guess this Asus CVF is still the best option for any amd user who wants to get even close to acceptable performance which is 5.0ghz and up
Benchmark the hell out of
Benchmark the hell out of that thing!
Put a 9590 in it anyway and
Put a 9590 in it anyway and see if it blows up. >:3
If hell takes this board with fire and magic smoke then we know msi failed.
It weird to see them Drop
It weird to see them Drop something new for this platform when i spending this year saving up for AM4/FM4.
Still yeah i am with DerekR. I got my GB GA-FXA990-UD3 ver1.1 and that dam 3rd party USB3 chip has been dieing for the last year (Only able to read, drops all USB Devices during writing). If we were not so close to the next Generation coming out soon it sounds like one of those nice side step parts for me. Cant wait for the full review.
Who in their right mind would
Who in their right mind would want an AMD rig for “GAMING”?
They should call it the MSI 990FXA-WastingEnergy or something. 😛
Been waiting for this board
Been waiting for this board to release, hopefully could see the full review soon. Hopefully it’ll be good. *fingers crossed*
Getting really excited about
Getting really excited about this review. Hope this board works well since Asus has let me down in this chipset and Asrock didn’t have very good fan control as well as the heatsinks being a tad on the small side.
So I have to ask if a review
So I have to ask if a review is coming up soon on this board. I just saw it pop up on newegg and amazon for sale, but really wanted to see some performance before I invest. Any chance of an ETA?
Same here. I’ve been waiting
Same here. I’ve been waiting for this review for a month now. Is it still happening?
I have a dead RAM slot on my
I have a dead RAM slot on my Gigabyte board (GA-FXA990-UD3 Rev. 1.1) and was considering this as a replacement….review????
Is there going to be a review
Is there going to be a review ? It has been more than a month already.
I was curious if there will
I was curious if there will be a review as well. I wonder if the NVMe support has any problems we should be aware of.
For the review a yes or no
For the review a yes or no will do. Does anyone read the comments?
The slaves have been whipped
The slaves have been whipped and will be assembling a system in the near future to grant your wish!