Mgutierrez33
New member
Originally, this motherboard (the MSi 970A-G46 if you didn't catch that bit) was purchased as an afterthought to provide a secondary low buck gaming rig for guests that wanted to come over and game but didn't feel like carting around their own rig. My girlfriend had a spare FX-4100 lying around doing nothing, and the local TigerDirect store had a sale going on an MSi 7770 Ghz edition card, so I took the plunge.
The motherboard has a reasonably clean layout throughout with a nicely crafted dark brown PCB. The rest of the color scheme is black and blue, with two PCI-E x16 2.0 slots, two PCI-E x1 slots, and two legacy PCI slots. There are six sata ports in total, with two of them being SATA III, and the other four being SATA II
(stock photos courtesy of TigerDirect)
The main issue I have with the SATA III ports is their location: if you intended to run SLI or CrossFire on this board, the second card would effectively cut off access to the SATA ports unless you used cables with a 90 degree bend in them. Even then, the plug orientation is upside down, which would require you to plug the 90 degree end in upside down, which makes clean cable routing a bit of a pain, and the board looks kind of awkward at that point. It is important to note, however, that most people who would be considering purchasing this board are most likely on a very tight budget and don't need all of the extra niceities of a higher end AMD board. therefore they probably won't be running dual video cards, so this issue becomes moot.
The rear I/O on this board has six USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports an RJ-45 LAN port, legacy PS/2 connector, Optical S/PDIF, and your standard audio ports with a total of eight sound channels from the integrated sound on board (Realtek ALC892).
(Stock photos courtesy of TigerDirect)
Thus far I have not had any issues with a lack of connectivity on this board. Sound is reasonably clear and crisp with little interference from other components on the computer. My speakers and headset both play nicely with them as well, so for my needs the integrated sound on this board is quite good, and all but the most discerning audiophile should be pleased as well.
Other features on this board include support (reportedly) for memory of up to 2133 Mhz (OC), M-Flash for USB BIOS updating, AMD Cool N' Quiet, and LiveUpdate, an MSI program that allows you to automatically search for the latest board drivers and install them direct through the software with relative ease. The only thing I found irritating with LiveUpdate was the CONSTANT reminder of checking for updates (it does this by scrolling an image either from the top to the bottom, or from the bottom to the top of your screen). The text box that scrolls moves fast enough that it is difficult to click yes or no, or even to disable this function. I also question this boards capacity to support 2133 mhz memory, as the BIOS does not offer this memory speed as an achievable goal and caps at 1866 Mhz.
System Specs:
MSI 970A-G46
AMD FX-4100 @ 4.0 Ghz, 1.36V
Corsair H100i equipped with SP120 Quiet Edition fans
8GB Corsair venceance White LP Low Voltage 1600 Mhz memory O.C. to 1866 with 10-11-10-30 timings, 1.5V
EVGA GTX 560 SuperClocked 2GB GDDR5 (stock clocks)
Crucial M4 128 GB SSD
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200 RPM Storage Drive
Corsair Graphite 600T chassis with stock fans front and rear, all fans plugged into integrated fan speed controller running at half speed
OCZ 500W semi-modular PSU
Silverstone White braided cable extensions
(apologies for the poor photo quality, only have a camera. Also I have since added some upward curvature to the video card cables so it looks nicer)
One thing that became immediately apparent upon installation of this board was it's narrow width. There is at least a 1/2" gap between the edge of the board and the end of the CPU cutout on the motherboard tray. Suffice it to say I had to do some very carefully planned cable management inside the chassis to make sure nothing was exposed through this opening, as my OCD would have driven me to drink HEAVILY. The only cabling that is even slightly exposed is the 24 pin cable extender, and this covers itself when it reaches around to the motherboard, so you din't even see it.
The next thing I noticed was during overclocking. The voltages for the CPU are all preset values and tend to jump by rather large values once you hit a certain voltage threshold. Beyond 1.36V, you see a jump to damn near 1.39V, then it calms down. Below 1.36V, you see 1.34, 1.32, then you see ridiculously small intervals from there which don't really make a whole lot of sense. What they probably should have done here was allowed the user to manually enter exact voltage values.
Another odd quirk with this board is how it rounds off your base clock on the processor. As I'm sure everyone has noticed (especially with lower end boards and AMD boards in general), the base clock speeds are not quite what the actual advertised base clock should be once in the OS environment. In the case of this board, my base clock of 200 Mhz is registering at 199.44 Mhz. With my x20 multiplier, this brings me to 3.98 Ghz clock speed... slightly disconcerting, but again bear in mind I am incredibly OCD with this sort of thing, and for the math to be that horrifically off hurts my heart in ways you can't imagine. I tend to brush it off anymore, remembering that this rig (for the time being) only has an FX-4100 in the socket, so overclocking is only going to do so much for me here.
I have also recently run into an odd issue with the way the motherboard registers hard drives: for some strange reason, after I had to reformat my SSD (was getting bad boot files keeping me from even repairing it. Checked, not the drive's fault), the motherboard switched to IDE compatibility for the SATS ports... for the life of me I can't even begin to fathom why in the world it randomly did this, but it did. Naturally I corrected the problem, switched it to AHCI... and had to reformat AGAIN because somehow Windows did not like this change
.
Of note for some of you out there: the north bridge on this motherboard gets scalding hot. Compared to the north bridge heatsink, the MOSFET heatsink feels like the inside of my freezer. During even idle operation I can barely touch the heatsink without the fear that I may receive a second degree burn on my finger (duh, I know). I have not taken actual temperature readings as I have yet to purchase a laser heat gun, however it hasn't impacted my system stability to this point so I am leaving it as "not a problem."
Ever since working out the few issues I had with this board it has actually been a rather pleasant experience. Everything is aesthetically pleasing, the processor runs strong (as AMD processors go x-P), and I have managed a successful overclock of my Corsair memory with little to no fuss. The BIOS, though clunky at times, is easy to navigate and relatively easy to understand. It also has a ClickBIOS program that you can use to access the BIOS from within the OS environment, allowing you to make changes to your system while it is running (a system restart is required for the changes to take effect). I actually prefer to use ClickBIOS, as it is far less clinky, and there is a sidebar with explanation of any feature that the user may not understand (I'm still learning myself).
When all is said and done, for a price of $80 US dollars, the capacity to competently overclock and undervolt, support for dual video cards, memory overclocking, an easy to use BIOS, plenty of USB ports and only the lack of an internal USB 3.0 header, you really can't go wrong with this board. Apart from the oddities I encountered (which have not resurfaced since), it provides a solid, stable platform for your AMD machine and should serve you well for as long as the socket is usable. I would give this 4/5 stars (for my rating system).
For those of you who are possibly in the market to get a budget friendly yet potent AMD system for your needs, I hope you found this review informative and helpful. If you have any more questions on this product or the others that were used in this system please feel free to ask!
The motherboard has a reasonably clean layout throughout with a nicely crafted dark brown PCB. The rest of the color scheme is black and blue, with two PCI-E x16 2.0 slots, two PCI-E x1 slots, and two legacy PCI slots. There are six sata ports in total, with two of them being SATA III, and the other four being SATA II
The main issue I have with the SATA III ports is their location: if you intended to run SLI or CrossFire on this board, the second card would effectively cut off access to the SATA ports unless you used cables with a 90 degree bend in them. Even then, the plug orientation is upside down, which would require you to plug the 90 degree end in upside down, which makes clean cable routing a bit of a pain, and the board looks kind of awkward at that point. It is important to note, however, that most people who would be considering purchasing this board are most likely on a very tight budget and don't need all of the extra niceities of a higher end AMD board. therefore they probably won't be running dual video cards, so this issue becomes moot.
The rear I/O on this board has six USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports an RJ-45 LAN port, legacy PS/2 connector, Optical S/PDIF, and your standard audio ports with a total of eight sound channels from the integrated sound on board (Realtek ALC892).
Thus far I have not had any issues with a lack of connectivity on this board. Sound is reasonably clear and crisp with little interference from other components on the computer. My speakers and headset both play nicely with them as well, so for my needs the integrated sound on this board is quite good, and all but the most discerning audiophile should be pleased as well.
Other features on this board include support (reportedly) for memory of up to 2133 Mhz (OC), M-Flash for USB BIOS updating, AMD Cool N' Quiet, and LiveUpdate, an MSI program that allows you to automatically search for the latest board drivers and install them direct through the software with relative ease. The only thing I found irritating with LiveUpdate was the CONSTANT reminder of checking for updates (it does this by scrolling an image either from the top to the bottom, or from the bottom to the top of your screen). The text box that scrolls moves fast enough that it is difficult to click yes or no, or even to disable this function. I also question this boards capacity to support 2133 mhz memory, as the BIOS does not offer this memory speed as an achievable goal and caps at 1866 Mhz.
System Specs:
MSI 970A-G46
AMD FX-4100 @ 4.0 Ghz, 1.36V
Corsair H100i equipped with SP120 Quiet Edition fans
8GB Corsair venceance White LP Low Voltage 1600 Mhz memory O.C. to 1866 with 10-11-10-30 timings, 1.5V
EVGA GTX 560 SuperClocked 2GB GDDR5 (stock clocks)
Crucial M4 128 GB SSD
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200 RPM Storage Drive
Corsair Graphite 600T chassis with stock fans front and rear, all fans plugged into integrated fan speed controller running at half speed
OCZ 500W semi-modular PSU
Silverstone White braided cable extensions
One thing that became immediately apparent upon installation of this board was it's narrow width. There is at least a 1/2" gap between the edge of the board and the end of the CPU cutout on the motherboard tray. Suffice it to say I had to do some very carefully planned cable management inside the chassis to make sure nothing was exposed through this opening, as my OCD would have driven me to drink HEAVILY. The only cabling that is even slightly exposed is the 24 pin cable extender, and this covers itself when it reaches around to the motherboard, so you din't even see it.
The next thing I noticed was during overclocking. The voltages for the CPU are all preset values and tend to jump by rather large values once you hit a certain voltage threshold. Beyond 1.36V, you see a jump to damn near 1.39V, then it calms down. Below 1.36V, you see 1.34, 1.32, then you see ridiculously small intervals from there which don't really make a whole lot of sense. What they probably should have done here was allowed the user to manually enter exact voltage values.
Another odd quirk with this board is how it rounds off your base clock on the processor. As I'm sure everyone has noticed (especially with lower end boards and AMD boards in general), the base clock speeds are not quite what the actual advertised base clock should be once in the OS environment. In the case of this board, my base clock of 200 Mhz is registering at 199.44 Mhz. With my x20 multiplier, this brings me to 3.98 Ghz clock speed... slightly disconcerting, but again bear in mind I am incredibly OCD with this sort of thing, and for the math to be that horrifically off hurts my heart in ways you can't imagine. I tend to brush it off anymore, remembering that this rig (for the time being) only has an FX-4100 in the socket, so overclocking is only going to do so much for me here.
I have also recently run into an odd issue with the way the motherboard registers hard drives: for some strange reason, after I had to reformat my SSD (was getting bad boot files keeping me from even repairing it. Checked, not the drive's fault), the motherboard switched to IDE compatibility for the SATS ports... for the life of me I can't even begin to fathom why in the world it randomly did this, but it did. Naturally I corrected the problem, switched it to AHCI... and had to reformat AGAIN because somehow Windows did not like this change
.Of note for some of you out there: the north bridge on this motherboard gets scalding hot. Compared to the north bridge heatsink, the MOSFET heatsink feels like the inside of my freezer. During even idle operation I can barely touch the heatsink without the fear that I may receive a second degree burn on my finger (duh, I know). I have not taken actual temperature readings as I have yet to purchase a laser heat gun, however it hasn't impacted my system stability to this point so I am leaving it as "not a problem."
Ever since working out the few issues I had with this board it has actually been a rather pleasant experience. Everything is aesthetically pleasing, the processor runs strong (as AMD processors go x-P), and I have managed a successful overclock of my Corsair memory with little to no fuss. The BIOS, though clunky at times, is easy to navigate and relatively easy to understand. It also has a ClickBIOS program that you can use to access the BIOS from within the OS environment, allowing you to make changes to your system while it is running (a system restart is required for the changes to take effect). I actually prefer to use ClickBIOS, as it is far less clinky, and there is a sidebar with explanation of any feature that the user may not understand (I'm still learning myself).
When all is said and done, for a price of $80 US dollars, the capacity to competently overclock and undervolt, support for dual video cards, memory overclocking, an easy to use BIOS, plenty of USB ports and only the lack of an internal USB 3.0 header, you really can't go wrong with this board. Apart from the oddities I encountered (which have not resurfaced since), it provides a solid, stable platform for your AMD machine and should serve you well for as long as the socket is usable. I would give this 4/5 stars (for my rating system).
For those of you who are possibly in the market to get a budget friendly yet potent AMD system for your needs, I hope you found this review informative and helpful. If you have any more questions on this product or the others that were used in this system please feel free to ask!
