MSI 970 GAMING Motherboard Review
Conclusion
Gaming on a budget can be tough, especially when tough economic times or living in a developing country dictates that every penny must be saved. I have been there and let me tell you its not fun. Even now that things are better, I am still being cautious on what to get. Everyone wants performance for a relatively low price when it comes to gaming hardware but why compromise on some features when you can have them all? OK, not all, but most of them; at least the essentials. I have taken a look at MSI 970 GAMING motherboard which was paired with AMD FX-8320E CPU and it felt like it is a good match for the price. The MSI 970 GAMING has an MSRP of $99 USD and is currently available for even less at only $84.99 with $0.99 shipping from NewEgg.com. An AMD FX-8320E on the other hand is currently priced at $131 at Amazon. Paired together for a little over $215, it is a good 8-core foundation for a gaming build. Paired with an six-core FX-6300 ($104) instead, the combo drops it down even further under $200.
Gaming performance wise, most of the frame rendering load is going to be handled by the GPU. CPU horsepower is not as crucial as it once was in the DirectX9/10 era and even games that are poorly optimized will still find the FX-8320E paired with the MSI 970 plenty powerful for gaming. The biggest gaming advantage of the MSI 970 GAMING is in its flexible PCI-E expandability, able to run 8x/8x dual GPU compared to other 970-chipset based mainboards that are limited to 16x/4x. This PCI-E distribution also makes the MSI 970 GAMING the only 970-chipset based motherboard that supports NVIDA SLI as at least 8x PCI-E Gen.2 is required to run that. The Realtek ALC1150-based audio subsystem and Killer E2205 network controller bundled with the MSI 970 GAMING is also superior and a far cry from the audio and network solutions on other 970 mainboards which typically used an older Realtek audio codec and network controller.
It may be lacking in onboard buttons or debug LEDs but those are only useful for those running the mainboard on a test bench anyway. MSI opted to include more useful features such as LN2 mode for benchers instead of spending the money on superficial extras. This motherboard is not merely a gaming motherboard by name but all of its features are designed to live up to its namesake. From the layout conveniently allocating space for triple slot video cards, to the performance geared for multi-GPU gaming and to the audio and network conveniences designed for better gaming experience, the MSI 970 GAMING is an all-around winner that easily outclasses other 970 and even other 990FX-based motherboards at a much affordable price.
[sc:editors_choice_award ]
Review Sample Provided by: MSI
Product Name: MSI 970 GAMING
Price at time of review: $99 USD MSRP
Product was given in exchange for work done to produce this review.
