MSI 790FX-GD70 Socket AM3 Motherboard Review

There were no surprises or anything that made us go “WOW!” as we looked at the results that we got from the MSI 790FX-GD70 motherboard. It really did not out-perform the other boards that we have in our results. Not that we expected it to, mind you. Most boards with similar chipsets will perform the same. So let’s look a little closer…

In our Sandra results, the MSI board scores right at average with the pack, not outscoring any of the other boards. In Everest the MSI scores well, and even ties for the best score in the read, though the scores are so close that it really would show no performance difference.

In our POV testing, the board once again scores right in the middle of the pack. In Cinebench 10 the MSI board scores horribly compared to our other boards in our testing results. The score was repeated several times to ensure its accuracy.

In HDTach, the burst score is lower than we expected, but the average score speed is very good compared to the other boards.

3dMark06 results for the MSI 790FX-GD70 board were quite disappointing. It score around 175-250 points less overall than the other boards in the testing. The MSI also scored the lowest of any of our boards in the lineup in our Lightsmark 2008 test, and was near the bottom as well in our F.E.A.R. testing.

The one bright spot that the board has after all of the average performance in our testing is in our Vantage testing. It performed fantastically, and outscored the other boards in half of the Vantage tests.

So, that is the performance of the MSI 790FX-GD70 board; let’s see how overclocking went!