MSI 790GX-G65 Motherboard

This is the only AMD based motherboard that we have reviewed in this issue
and is based on the AM3 socket. One good feature of this motherboard is the
integrated 128 MB DDR3 1333 MHz IGP memory that enhances on board VGA 3D
performance and at the same time reduces consumption of system memory. As an
energy saving feature, the 790GX-G65 comes with Active Phase Shifting that
controls power for CPU, Memory and the Chipset. Other noticeable features in
this motherboard include DDR3 1333 support and true Blue-ray audio support. For
users interested in gaming or other graphics intensive work, this mother board
is ATI CrossFire ready.

The test setup used for this motherboard included AMD Phenom2 X4 810 2.60
GHz, 3GB DDR3 RAM, 120 GB 7200 rpm HDD, and NVIDIA's GeForce 9600 GT graphics
card. 3D Mark 06 and POV-ray score for checking graphics capability were 11690
and 5907 respectively. To check memory latency and CPU performance, we used
SiSoftware Sandra and CineBench R10. 790GX-G65 was able to give a score of 4627
and latency of 84 ns. In the end we checked the over all performance of the
motherboard, where it scored 7493.

Bottom line: A good performer that comes at a competitive price.