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MSI 970 Gaming motherboard review
Posted by: on: 11/25/2014 10:26 AM [
13 comment(s) ]
There have been a lot of Intel reviews lately, but if you are on a budget and want an 8-core processor for under 200 USD to combine with a smexy motherboard, then we think we may have found the answer. Join us as we review the MSI 970 Gaming, an affordable but high-end motherboard that has incredible good looks and a decent feature-set. We will pop an AMD FX 8370E processor onto it today. And hey, gaming at FullHD will be good even with the latest graphics cards. You can read a full review right here at Guru3D of course.
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EKRboi
Member
Posts: 74
Member
Posts: 74
Posted on: 11/25/2014 07:43 PM
Nice review and a really nice looking board, with damn good features for the price.. kudos to MSI.
AMD really needs something new and quick though.. the general bulldozer/piledriver architecture has mostly been a failure in the performance market. Sure there is little difference between PCIe2/3 when talking about a single card.. once you move to multiples.. Performance drops off fast compared even to a Sandy Bridge processor and I can only assume it is because of the PCIe3.
2 970s are scoring higher in benchmarks on an old sandy bridge with HALF the pci-e lanes (16 vs 32 for 990fx chipset) than 3 970s with an fx8350 clocked at/near 5ghz.. unacceptable. Ive been a LONG time AMD user.. but I'm jumping ship as soon as my tax return arrives next year or sooner if my wallet allows, which I doubt due to Christmas.
EDIT* Jumped ship last night when the on board sound went out AGAIN on my Sabertooth 990fx.
Nice review and a really nice looking board, with damn good features for the price.. kudos to MSI.
AMD really needs something new and quick though.. the general bulldozer/piledriver architecture has mostly been a failure in the performance market. Sure there is little difference between PCIe2/3 when talking about a single card.. once you move to multiples.. Performance drops off fast compared even to a Sandy Bridge processor and I can only assume it is because of the PCIe3.
2 970s are scoring higher in benchmarks on an old sandy bridge with HALF the pci-e lanes (16 vs 32 for 990fx chipset) than 3 970s with an fx8350 clocked at/near 5ghz.. unacceptable. Ive been a LONG time AMD user.. but I'm jumping ship as soon as my tax return arrives next year or sooner if my wallet allows, which I doubt due to Christmas.
EDIT* Jumped ship last night when the on board sound went out AGAIN on my Sabertooth 990fx.
AC_Avatar100400
Senior Member
Posts: 340
Senior Member
Posts: 340
Posted on: 11/26/2014 06:23 AM
This is the best Looking AM3+ Board i have seen so far and hasn't AM3+ FX boards been around for 3 years + now?.
MSI did a great job definitely going to use this in some future AMD builds.
This is the best Looking AM3+ Board i have seen so far and hasn't AM3+ FX boards been around for 3 years + now?.
MSI did a great job definitely going to use this in some future AMD builds.
waltc3
Senior Member
Posts: 1401
Senior Member
Posts: 1401
Posted on: 11/27/2014 06:32 PM
Nice review and a really nice looking board, with damn good features for the price.. kudos to MSI.
AMD really needs something new and quick though.. the general bulldozer/piledriver architecture has mostly been a failure in the performance market. Sure there is little difference between PCIe2/3 when talking about a single card.. once you move to multiples.. Performance drops off fast compared even to a Sandy Bridge processor and I can only assume it is because of the PCIe3.
Actually has almost nothing to do with PCIe3. It has to do with how much a particular game is cpu-limited versus a game that is more gpu-limited. The only time PCIex3 really makes a material difference over PCIex2 is in situations where the video ram is shared with the system ram and there is no discrete 3d card in the system with it's own pool of dedicated ram. That's the entire reason that discrete 3d cards have so much dedicated videoram today--2-4GBs per gpu: the 3d-card's own bus is 20x-30x *faster* than PCIex3, so these cards texture out of their own ram when you're gaming, and only use the PCIe bus to load in textures *before* the gpu needs to display them. The cards are so much faster than either PCIex2 or PCIex3 that it simply doesn't make any difference whether you are running on a x2 or x3 PCIe bus.
Too, nVidia's drivers themselves have always leveraged the cpu in the system more than AMD's, even in single-gpu situations (that's been my observation.) Also, nVidia's cards still use physical bridges for SLI (AFAIK) whereas the R9x's from AMD actually use the PCIe bus instead of physical Crossfire bridges, as did earlier Crossfire products.
2 970s are scoring higher in benchmarks on an old sandy bridge with HALF the pci-e lanes (16 vs 32 for 990fx chipset) than 3 970s with an fx8350 clocked at/near 5ghz.. unacceptable. Ive been a LONG time AMD user.. but I'm jumping ship as soon as my tax return arrives next year or sooner if my wallet allows, which I doubt due to Christmas.
Again, it has nothing to do with PCIe lanes because the 970s texture directly from their own on-board ram, and their own local ram bus is, as I've said, many multiples of times faster than PCIex2 *or* 3x.
EDIT* Jumped ship last night when the on board sound went out AGAIN on my Sabertooth 990fx.
Sounds like you just had a defective motherboard, maybe. Anyway...good luck with your next board!...
Nice review and a really nice looking board, with damn good features for the price.. kudos to MSI.
AMD really needs something new and quick though.. the general bulldozer/piledriver architecture has mostly been a failure in the performance market. Sure there is little difference between PCIe2/3 when talking about a single card.. once you move to multiples.. Performance drops off fast compared even to a Sandy Bridge processor and I can only assume it is because of the PCIe3.
Actually has almost nothing to do with PCIe3. It has to do with how much a particular game is cpu-limited versus a game that is more gpu-limited. The only time PCIex3 really makes a material difference over PCIex2 is in situations where the video ram is shared with the system ram and there is no discrete 3d card in the system with it's own pool of dedicated ram. That's the entire reason that discrete 3d cards have so much dedicated videoram today--2-4GBs per gpu: the 3d-card's own bus is 20x-30x *faster* than PCIex3, so these cards texture out of their own ram when you're gaming, and only use the PCIe bus to load in textures *before* the gpu needs to display them. The cards are so much faster than either PCIex2 or PCIex3 that it simply doesn't make any difference whether you are running on a x2 or x3 PCIe bus.
Too, nVidia's drivers themselves have always leveraged the cpu in the system more than AMD's, even in single-gpu situations (that's been my observation.) Also, nVidia's cards still use physical bridges for SLI (AFAIK) whereas the R9x's from AMD actually use the PCIe bus instead of physical Crossfire bridges, as did earlier Crossfire products.
2 970s are scoring higher in benchmarks on an old sandy bridge with HALF the pci-e lanes (16 vs 32 for 990fx chipset) than 3 970s with an fx8350 clocked at/near 5ghz.. unacceptable. Ive been a LONG time AMD user.. but I'm jumping ship as soon as my tax return arrives next year or sooner if my wallet allows, which I doubt due to Christmas.
Again, it has nothing to do with PCIe lanes because the 970s texture directly from their own on-board ram, and their own local ram bus is, as I've said, many multiples of times faster than PCIex2 *or* 3x.
EDIT* Jumped ship last night when the on board sound went out AGAIN on my Sabertooth 990fx.
Sounds like you just had a defective motherboard, maybe. Anyway...good luck with your next board!...
EKRboi
Member
Posts: 74
Member
Posts: 74
Posted on: 11/28/2014 09:27 AM
That makes sense.. I'm talking about benchmarking too. it was doing mostly fine even with the newer titles but I was still having to turn down some settings to keep the frame rate smoother when I don't think I should have needed to. So will be fun to see how the new system handles those same games.
As for the board the sound went out on my Sabertooth 990fx V1 within 20 months. RMAd & received a new Sabertooth 990fx V2 and it has been 19 months since getting that board and the sound going out. I was playing FarCry 4 before going to have some beers with friends and shutting down the PC. When I came home and booted it up there was no more onboard sound. WTH. Not a great experience and it sucks because I've always used Asus boards and this sabertooth series is the only one I've ever had an issue with, but I still couldn't bring myself to buy from them this time and decided to give MSI a go. The new stuff arrives tomorrow, can't wait.
That makes sense.. I'm talking about benchmarking too. it was doing mostly fine even with the newer titles but I was still having to turn down some settings to keep the frame rate smoother when I don't think I should have needed to. So will be fun to see how the new system handles those same games.
As for the board the sound went out on my Sabertooth 990fx V1 within 20 months. RMAd & received a new Sabertooth 990fx V2 and it has been 19 months since getting that board and the sound going out. I was playing FarCry 4 before going to have some beers with friends and shutting down the PC. When I came home and booted it up there was no more onboard sound. WTH. Not a great experience and it sucks because I've always used Asus boards and this sabertooth series is the only one I've ever had an issue with, but I still couldn't bring myself to buy from them this time and decided to give MSI a go. The new stuff arrives tomorrow, can't wait.
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Senior Member
Posts: 1401
Great review HH...! One of the more practical, informative reviews of this motherboard/cpu combination it's been my pleasure to read...!
I have at home an MSI 970a-G46, and I can find precious little to separate it from the 970 Gaming--save for the NIC and the on-board sound, of course. I've been using this combo for > 2 years with an FX-6300 clocked to ~4.4/5GHz on air, stock voltage--solid as the proverbial rock, actually.
I'm really, really hoping that AMD can shoehorn Steamroller into AM3+ and that they'll deliver a new core-logic chipset to boot--although, as you say, the performance difference between PCIe2.x & 3.x is practically non-existent. I'd go ahead and pick up a 970 Gaming if I had some concrete compatibility info from AMD on Steamroller & AM3+.