Sunday, September 22, 2013

MSI 990XA-GD55 AM3+ DDR3 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

MSI 990XA-GD55 AM3+ DDR3 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
  • CPU: Socket AM3+/AM3 Support 64bit AMD FX/ Phenom II X6/X4/X3/X2/ Athlon II X4/X3/X2/ Sempron Processors; Support HyperTransport 3.0; FSB upto 5200MT/s
  • Chipset: AMD 990X & SB950 Chipset
  • Memory: 4x 240pin DDR3-2133(OC)/1866/1600/1333/1066/800 DIMMs, Dual Channel, Unbuffered, Max Capacity up to 32GB
  • Slots: 2x PCI-Express 2.0 x16 Slots(Support CrossFireX & SLI); 4x PCI-Express 2.0 x1 Slots; 1x 3.3V/5V PCI Slot
  • SATA: 6x SATA3 Ports, Support RAID 0/ 1/ 5/ 10
  • Audio: Realtek ALC892 Flexible 8-Channel Audio CODEC, w/ jack sensing, Support True Blu-ray Audio
  • LAN: Realtek 8111E PCI-Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
  • MSI; 990XA-GD55; Motherboard

Bought this for Price and MSI quality! Amazon Cheaper then the rest but still carries the best! 16x-8x pci-e slots, Lots of pci-e 1x slot for other expansion. Only thing is I wish it had 2 more sata ports and one more on-board usb header. Overall great board to price ratio for 990 chipset. Thanx again Amazon!!!!!

Buy MSI 990XA-GD55 AM3+ DDR3 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard Now

This does exactly what I want it to do and more. This does exactly what I want it to do and more.

Read Best Reviews of MSI 990XA-GD55 AM3+ DDR3 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard Here

I have had this board for about 2 weeks now and my PC runs almost 24/7. I don't have issues with the MB but the manual needs work. The manual you get has the old style BIOS in it and the BIOS that comes with the board you can use the mouse and all the items in the setup are not where the manual says they are. They need to update the booklet. Also if you put your fans on auto control you have to have the minimum CPU fan speed at 12.5% or it will never turn the CPU fan on at all, something they neglected to put in the manual also. Besides the manual issues this is what I expected from MSI, a solidly build MB.

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My first impression of this board is the build quality is good, it has 8+2 VRM for core voltage regulation, and components are good quality. The bad part is the BIOS is really bad, the GUI interface looks like something comes out of the early 90s, if you ever try to enable CPU Core Unlock function within the OC BIOS menu, you will get into a boot infinity loop, you reboot the system and it will come to the BIOS set up screen without you even ask for it, the only way out is to disable the CPU Core Unlock function, but the purpose of it is for you to select your own CPU multiplier, go figure this one out, I can't.

My feeling of this board is hardware people (MSI) is trying to do software (BIOS), does not work very well. Board performance is OK, I run Prim 95 for 3 hours without any problem.

7-6-2012

After I contacted MSI tech support, they are very responsive and even provide me a beta BIOS to try out, it fixed my problem, I will add back one star for responsiveness, but I still think their BIOS is not up to par compare with the other offerings, MSI board is good though, I have no complaint of its quality. If you are not going to put it to heavy pace and overclock using BIOS, this is a good product for you.

September 1, 2012 3 month update

Motherboard is running fine, no problem encountered.

March 27, 2013

Board is still running great, I think MSI's logo of military grade components are not just for marketing show purpose, upgrade CPU to AMD 8350 8 cores, BIOS upgraded to support the CPU, upgrade utility is really nice, you can upgrade from within the Windows 8, do not have to boot to external media.

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I bought this board and installed a Phenom II x4 965 and Kingston HyperX 16GB 1600MHz RAM. I had to hard set the RAM settings to get it to work at 1600MHz. The 965 was overclocked to 4GHz pretty easily and running full load at around 50C with a Hyper 212+ cooler.

Pros:

1. Price

2. Can OC easily

Cons:

1. CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ sits horizontally so air flow is from bottom to top not forward to back. I couldn't figure out orientation setup out so I left it.

2. I do not like the GUI of the BIOS. Call me old school but I had a DFI LanParty and it looked more "command-line ish" which is simpler for me. It's personal preference really!!!

3. Only 1 PCI slot....again personal preference.

4. Boots up with Hex on the bottom right corner...it's annoying.

For a budget build, I cannot complain. All the parts work and do what they are supposed to.

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