MSI X79A-GD65 X79 Motherboard Review

This is the first MSI board that we’ve tested, and hopefully shouldn’t be the last. We explained about the market share that MSI have in the UK, and how this has had a negative effect with review sites but we will hopefully change that, starting with what we’ve seen today.

The X79 chipset is still very much alive and well, as some may consider the upcoming Z77 as the new kid on the block, though it’s not quite arrived yet. Some will argue due to this, that X79 will die, but we can assure you that is not true. X79 will be around until the next big launch that will supersede it. Until then, we will continue to look at X79 based motherboards.

The X79A-GD65 from a first glance, is a very nice looking board, with plenty of features and a great looking colour scheme. It seems to give off a professional feel, but also tells you that it means business in terms of performance and of course overclocking.

Talking about the features, it’s nice to see a board like this incorporating some high-end features, including the overclocking buttons, V-Check voltage points and native USB 3.0. There is also plenty of flexibility when it comes to the expansion slots, and utilising the full capabilities of AMD CrossFireX or Nvidia SLI.

The performance of the board was pleasing to say the least, with strong results at stock that we’re able to compare with other boards from the X79 lineup. When taking a look at other reviews from socket X79 based boards, we find this to be part of the “upper crust” of the high-end boards.

Overclocking has had mixed results by myself, as the start really did end up with me wanting to throw it out of the window, but this was more my fault than MSI’s. Simply because this is a new type of board, with a slightly different BIOS, it seemed that 4.6GHz was the limit for me, but after speaking to the nice guys and MSI, I ended up missing one vital setting which allowed for us to reach a stonking 5GHz. The overclocking settings were relativiely simple, once I had got my head around things, and can only praise MSI for the assistance they gave, as this overclock really does rival the likes of the Asus Rampage IV Extreme, which is a fantastic acomplishment to say the least.

The BIOS is strong, albeit a bit strange for someone who may be used to the likes of Asus and their GUI offering. Once you’ve spent some time with it however, you will find that it becomes easier over time and is a very effective BIOS to say the least.

Since the time of writing this article, it has become clear that MSI have developed a similar GD65 based board, but using 8 DIMM slots, opposed to 4 like we had. This can open up more walkways for extra memory bandwidth and can lead to even faster performance. With the 8D version coming in at £215.75 it certainly is a great deal to be had.

For our first major dealing with MSI and by taking a look at their products first-hand, we can honestly say that we are utterly impressed, as we have a great looking board with oodles of features, fantastic performance and some extreme overclocking; all for just over £200.

It just goes to show that MSI haven’t cut any corners, and have managed to keep pricing to a minimum to pass back onto the customer, while still implementing their famous military class components to give that extra reliability and stability, especially when overclocking to 5GHz based speeds.

A good combination with the 3960X, but while the board is affordable, the processor is not, so we’d simply advise as to pairing this with a 3930K instead, or waiting to see what’s on offer in terms of Z77 boards from MSI, which I’m sure we will have available very soon.