MSI 790FX-GD70 AM3 Review - PAGE 1

We have seen recently the great performance coming from revamped Phenoms from AMD – the Phenom IIs. During CES, the world record frequency on a quad-core was achieved. A Phenom II x4 940 has been clocked up to 6.5GHz by Team Finland. At the same time, another world record was reached: 45,474 for 3DMark 05, at a clock of 6.3GHz. However, all of that was done using DDR2 memory, as the Phenom II x4 940 is an AM2+ processor only. Unfortunately, the best AM3 overclocker at this time is the 2.8GHz x3 720 Black Edition, so it seems the world records mentioned earlier will stay for a little while. When new AM3 Phenom IIs will be launched however, they might as well be able to break new records now that the move to DDR3 memory has been made.

Today we have the opportunity to look at one of the many AM3 boards that popped out on the market: the MSI 790FX-GD70. We will see if it makes a good candidate for breaking new world records. As you probably know by its name, it is based on the 790FX chipset. It sports 4 PCI-E x16 2.0 to allow quad CrossfireX.