Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I am someone who looks for value and longevity when I buy a product. While today most people replace there computers/ipods/ipads/cell phones on a yearly basis, I guess I am more conservative in my approach to electronics. The last computer I built before I bought this motherboard was in 2002. It had an MSI motherboard with a Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz chip. It still runs great to this day even thought it has been 8 years. Needless to say I can't vouch for the 870-G54 just yet, but I am pretty confident that it should last just as long if not longer considering the advances in capacitors and other integrated chips since then.
Sorry for the digression, anyways I think that this board is the best value you can get at the moment if you want to build and AMD system. Some key features that drew me to this board instead of others were:
1) 2 USB 3 ports
2) 2 PCI Express ports that support CrossFireX (Either 1 card at 16X or 2 at 8X)
3) Gigabit Ethernet
4) 7.1 channel Bluray Audio (24-bit/192KHz sample rate) which includes a S/PDIF port
5) SATA 6.0 Gb/s support
6) DDR3 Memory support
I don't think that at the time of this review (September 2010) you will find another board that has these features for under $100.
I just thought I would comment on a few other features that I have played around with, but are not necissarily too important. The first is the ability to manually adjust the cores on your processor. If you buy a multi-core processor, you can actually control which processors you want to use. Two possible ways this could be useful: 1) You buy a 6 core processor and want to save energy so you disable 5 cores or 2) You buy a 2 core processor that can be unlocked and re-enable 1 or more disabled cores.
I would also like to comment on the overclock genie aspect of this board. I own a AMD Phenom II X4 955 which comes stock at 3.2 Ghz. Simply setting the overclock genie to auto instantly overclocked this processor to a very stable 3.8 Ghz with the stock heatsink and fan. CPU temperatures don't come close to exceeding recommended levels.
My friend owns a phenom II X2 555 and wanted to test the core-unlock feature with this board. Within seconds (it is that easy) he had unlocked all four cores, but unfortunately 1 become unstable after 10 minutes of use. After further testing, he disabled the bad core and had a phenom II X3. Obviously results will vary depending on chance, some people will unlock all 4 cores successfully and some will unlock none.
And lastly if you do happen to own a Phenom II and notice that your fan is extremely loud there is some way to alleviate (but not fix) this problem by changing the motherboard settings. By default, this motherboard sets the CPU fan to be constantly on its highest setting. You can change this in the bios by simply setting the CPU target temperature to a specific temp (lets say 40 degrees C) and then setting the minimum Fan speed (lets say 25%). This means that your fan will run at 25 percent its maximum value until the temperature rises above 40 degrees. Obviously there are different combinations to play with. I can say that this frustrated me very much at first because I thought that I had installed the heatsink/fan incorrectly only to find out that the motherboard defaults to be maximum at all times.
In summary, if you want modern features in a motherboard but don't want to buy $200-$300, I think that this board is your best option. Considering how cheap AMD sells processors for these days, you can build an amazing system for less than $500.
Click Here to see more reviews about: MSI AM3 USB 3.0 + SATA 6Gb/s 870 Chipset AMD Motherboard 870A-G54
With the newest AMD 870 chipset at its heart, the MSI 870A-G54 motherboard is the best place to start when building your multi-media PC system. Military Class Components such as APS, Icy Choke, and All Solid Cap enhance your system performance, while MSI-exclusive technology such as Unlock CPU Core and Auto OC Genie can boost up system performance by up to 148%. The 870S-G54 supports the newest 120W AMD CPUs, and CrossfireX technology lets users take advantage of multi-GPU scaling performance from ATI graphics cards. Lossless 7.1 surround sound HD audio provides the fullest experience for games, music and movies, while USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s ensures the fastest peripheral connectivity.
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