News MSI details its 790FX Phenom/Quad CF board

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/10/10/msi_releases_details_of_k9a2_790fx_phenom_board/1

Phenom may not be here quite yet, but MSI is already lining up its 790FX board: the K9A2 Platinum. It supports QuadFire and AM2+.

 

Wow. I like the heatpipe array. Looks nice on layout too.

 

I still think 4 PCIE slots is a waste still. It taunts us of 4-card SLi.

I'd like to see AMD get back in the game with Phenom. Competition drives innovation.

 

You mean 4-Card Crossfire - Thats what I want! But yes - I am really awaiting Phenom so I can maybe build a new system then.

 

Screw this, I can't wait for a mATX 790 board.

 

It's called futureproofing.....as long as performance scales when adding more cards, then you're set for longer than single- or even double-slot solutions offered currently....also, if I remember right, CF allows you to use your older card w/o bottlenecking newer cards you would decide to upgarde to later in the future....(I hope I'm right on that because I don't like SLI's offerings of only being able to use the same card configuration)

Futureproofing is my main concern when buying a mobo, so features like DDR3 support will need to be offered before I will decide to upgrade.....Phenom should be good, so we'll have to see what AMD has up their sleeves....

 

Yeah, because futureproofing by giving us useless slots is that much more important than futureproofing by giving MORE SATA.

There's one other problem - that board has 32 lanes, and that's it.

Which means, try using that x1 slot with all 4 x16s in use. Nothing should happen. It's also why there's a promise PCI contoller...

 

how many sata ports do you need?
anyway, looks like a nice board. and thats coming from an intel fanboy.

 

Where can i fit an alternative Sound Card if i have 4 x2xxx series cards? Other than that, looks a nice board, and as chrisb2e9 said, thats comming from an intel guy.

Sam

 

Probably the best board ever to come from AMD/ATI.

 

i kno what will be awesome but highly there going to do it 4 8800 gtx 768MB graphic card quad sli
that would be awesome

i have two imangine 4

 

I don't know if anyone noticed but MSI has finally gotten on the bandwagon with the coloring of their RAM slots. No longer will you need to remember to put sticks in opposite colors! Kudos to the people at MSI who finally got that small but important (at least for beginners) detail done.

 

yay

 

Who knows what ATI/Nvidia are releasing next year, supposedly they are both releasing new versions of the current high end graphics cards at 65nm which will make them much smaller, They could also be pushing for phsyics cards aswell later on next year, and even sound cards will be pushed onto PCI-E soon, and lanes are more capable now there 2.0.

It's got 32 lanes spread over PCI-E 2.0, the other two are x4 PCI and the other one is 1x PCI, if i am correct in thinking.

Also who needs more sata ports nowaday anyway, you've got 1TB drives and 6 is enough for that matter.

EDIT:

After do some researching i found some articles to back me up, The PCI-E is using the RD790 chipset, while normal PCI is using the old SB600 chipset, so to conclude there would not be no disadvantage using four PCI-E lanes and using a x1 or x4 PCI.

I also think your abit of an AMD hater to be honest, lol.

 

Phenom!!!!!!!!!

*cant wait*

i wanna wait for Nvidia's Nforce780/790 tho... coz im still an SLI sucker and nvidia fanboi... but Phenom is definitely the way to go. or, well, the way to wait gotta wait for some performance comparison!

and DFI's offering Cheesecake!!

 

Yeah! imagine 4x 8800GTX in your system, and then imagine you montly electric bill...

It must be a shocking imagination!

 

Me, for a start.

It's not all about sata hard drives y'know. I have four of them atm, together with 3 optical (dvd) sata drives. I have embraced sata connectors, mainly because they are a lot tidier than ide cables. Other reasons are they allow more airflow, they can be tucked away easily and they are easier to plug in, etc.

I can't understand why there's an ide port on that board and why there aren't eight sata ports, myself. And as for the floppy port - sure, it probably costs a tenth of a penny to put it on, but with boards being able to boot from a usb drive or be able to access a usb device in bios, why insist on including it?

 

No, you still need to put sticks in opposite colours - AMD dual channel memory is next to each other, Intel is stagnated.

I moaned at the motherboard product managers when I was in ShangHai and we had another motherboard PM from Taiwan come down to the offices a few weeks ago and I moaned again at this exact point but they still seem to have ignored me

The promise controller is there because SB600 has only 4 native SATA ports, not 6 like has been standard for ages elsewhere.

 

I'm also a little disappointed to see only six SATA ports... I'm also kinda ambivalent about seeing them vertically mounted. Other than that, the board looks pretty good.

 

Is this on am2 aswell? because im using a 5000+ brisbane, and my memory is [empty][stick][empty][stick] and thats dual channel for me