Final Words and Verdict

Final Words & Conclusion

The MSI 785GM-E65 motherboard is a product series that oozes with value. The 785GM-E65 model tested today is actually the most expensive version in it's class, and we spotted it in e-tail for 80 EUR / 90 USD already. That's exactly this motherboard with the integrated Radeon HD 4200 IGP and all the features shown today -- that's just a really okay price man. I mean, it's a good looking motherboard, it has very advanced BIOS and tweak features, its made for overclocking (I mean we can overclock a Phenom II X4 at 4 GHz 100% stable on a 35 USD air cooler). That's golden. As our benchmarks have shown, next to the random occurrences the baseline performance compared to the AMD 790FX/GX chipset is pretty much identical -- so you don't loose performance on this chipset either for a better price and with a better embedded graphics core.

Though we have not checked it out, this motherboard also has an 'uncore' function. meaning that if you use a triple core processor, the motherboard can try and enable the 4th missing core (if not damaged of course). Again value.

Yes, the 785GM-E65 is a very complete motherboard for a wide range of end-users. I myself am a huge HTPC buff and the integrated R4200 graphics chipset offers full UVD 2.0 compatibility. As such you gain a lot of cool new features that make building an HTPC very simple and cheap. I mean, you do not need to purchase a graphics card whatsoever as the embedded GPU not only accelerates, but now also allows you to post-process the media file and thus enhance image quality at a much better scale. I love that.

I do hope that AMD will launch its next IGP chipset with a couple or more shader processors though. For post processing in software like Media Player Classic HT at 1080P this embedded GPU is borderline capable once you flick on some shaders like image sharpening.

Overall performance is roughly equal to the 780 and 790 chipset, but the product itself is a little cheaper and that's where the value is to be found. We have proper baseline performance straight out of the box, we can overclock pretty easily depending on the processor of course and we do get a very nice feature set.

We love the three display connectors, analog and digital TOSLINK output for audio, Gigabit Ethernet, lots of SATA connectors and of course the passive cooling design. What was good to see from MSI are the extended BIOS features, it makes it a really flexible motherboard to overclock with.

All in all AMD's 785 chipset is a much welcomed chipset in this arena, paired with the 785GM-E65 MSI certainly upped up the quality and feature set a notch. We feel the integration of the Radeon HD 4200 is a good choice. As such the motherboard comes very much recommended for HTPC owners, casual PC overclockers and gamers (buy a proper graphics card though) and of course it is a fine platform for generic desktop/business usage.

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Bottom line: At 80 EUR you just can't go wrong here, paired with a proper processor it's just a great deal for the money.