MSI 790FX-GD70 AM3 Motherboard
Layout & Features
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The MSI 790FX-GD70 is a good looking board with its uniform blue on black theme and understated dull-silver cooling arrangement. Unlike a lot of other gamer oriented boards on the market these days, the GD70 isn't flashy, its components aren't randomly colored in a hundred hues and it doesn't sport an over-sized ornamental northbridge heatsink. What the GD70 does have is a clean, stealthy look that could easily pass as a serious workstation board.
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The ATX 24-pin connector is on the edge of the board near the middle, and the 8-pin ATX12V connector is at the top corner near the rear I/O; both typical positions that will work well in most chassis. The USB, IEEE1394, front I/O and floppy connectors are arranged smartly along the bottom edge of the board while the single IDE channel connector is placed just under the ATX 24-pin connector.
MSI has rightly chosen to arrange the IDE connector at a 90 degree angle which will prevent the IDE cable from interfering with extra long expansion cards such as many modern PCI-E video cards. The 6 SATA ports offered by the SB750 southbridge are located right next to the IDE connector and they are also oriented at a 90 degree angle for the same reason. Two additional internal SATA ports offered by the onboard JMicron JMB322 chip are located further in on the board, next to the southbridge. They are oriented in the traditional upright position.
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The CPU socket is relatively clear of obstructions and the DIMM slots, as well as the northbridge heatsink, are offset enough to allow all but the most massive of CPU heatsinks. Located around the edges of the board are four chassis fan connectors; two connectors for the rear exhaust fan and/or power supply near the rear I/O panel and two more connectors for intake fans located on the opposite edge, near the bottom of the board.
Overall the 790FX-GD70 is well laid out and all the connectors seem to be logically placed except for one glaring issue. The front panel audio connector on the GD70 is placed at the bottom left corner of the board, or in other words, just about the furthest possible distance from the front/top of the chassis where the front audio panel would be. The front audio connector cable in many chassis configurations may not be long enough to even reach the connector, especially with multiple expansion cards in place. Take this into consideration if you plan on loading the GD70 with expansion cards and also require front panel audio. We wish MSI had included a front panel audio extension cable for those chassis configurations where the supplied cable wouldn't reach.
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The 790FX-GD70 also features a large number of ultra-bright blue LEDs placed all over the board to indicate a variety of things. There are LEDs to indicate each of the board's CPU power phase modes, there are LEDs for memory phase, system phase, HDD status and a LED to let you know if OC Dial is enabled. The LED clusters are mostly located near the top of the board around the DIMM slots with the exception of the OC Dial indicator LED and the HDD status LED which are positioned next to the onboard buttons. Each one of these LEDs are fairly bright individually and together they can almost illuminate the interior of a chassis all on their own. However, if you'd rather not have your motherboard glow blue, you can disable the power phase indicator LEDs in the BIOS. Overall, the MSI 790FX-GD70 is a well designed board with several neat features and a good layout. With the possible exception of the front panel audio connector placement, everything on the board just makes sense. The onboard buttons and OC Dial feature definitely make the 790FX-GD70 an attractive choice if you have plans to overclock, or are running a system in an open-air chassis like the Antec Skeleton. However, with the exception of the clear CMOS button, which is always welcome, these features probably won't see much use if you plan on using a traditional enclosed chassis.
