MSI 990FXA-GD65 is proposed as high-end motherboard for AMD AM3+ CPU, so compatible with the upcoming AMD Bulldozer. Powered by the AMD 990FX chipset, it has nice features, that we will discuss during this review.

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Test System and Test Methodology

We show how the MSI 990FXA-GD65, being a motherboard designed primarily for the CPU soon to be introduced, such as the Zambezi 8-core architecture, supports and responds very well with the previous generation CPU processors provided that they are compatible with the AM3/AM3+ socket. Please remember to check the manufacturer's website for the support of the processors that you are going to choose.

In this review, we will test the motherboard with a well known CPU and on the market for the number of integrated cores, the Phenom II X6 1090T. This is a processor built with 45nm lithography, which operates at a frequency of 3200MHz, and with 6 different physical cores. Here are 2 screen of the known CPU-Z software

Notice the two states of the CPU, effect of power saving technologies built into the processor to dynamically manage both the multiplier, i.e. the clock frequency, and the voltage.

Codename Thuban, as shown in the photos above, has a total cache size of 2 nd and 3 rd level of well-9MB shared among all 6 cores. The first stage of cache amounts to 128Kb, divided in half between the instructions and data. The second stage is 3MB L2 cache, 512KB per core. The third stage is of 6MB L3.

Here we see the data of the motherboard, the subject of this review, reported by the excellent CPU-Z

And the total amount of memory installed, the timings set in the BIOS, the northbridge frequency

And the information in the SPD chip.

For some years until now, like other AMD processors, also the Phenom II brings the integrated memory controller and ultimately supports the DDR3 memory standard up to 1333MHz (frequency upgradeable via bios of course). The processor uses an High speed Hyper Transport bus, for a transfer rate of 4000 MT/s (MegaTransfers/second).The Phenom II processor has a TDP of 125W with a maximum temperature of 62°C. The expected voltage range is between 1.125 ~ 1.40. A new feature introduced in the Phenom II is the Turbo. Basically it is able to completely turn off the cores when not in use, raising the rate on the remaining, up to a maximum of 3600MHz. Below is a brief data sheet available also on the manufacturer site, AMD.

Below in table the list of hardware used for testing

While the cooling method used consists of the following components

The decision to use liquid cooling was motivated both by its efficiency, since the period (late August) gives us more leeway for overclocking tests, either because the pieces have already assembled and ready on the bench.

Obviously, this has allowed us to obtain excellent temperature in our system.

As operating system we have chosen the latest version now more stable of Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit Service Pack 1 updated with all high priority patches available. To replicate as closely as possible the system in a real environment, we chose not to make any optimization both in the operating system both in the bios, since that would impact positively on the tests. The only software, which is always installed on all machines connected to the internet is an antivirus software that we decided not to install because the versions that are on the market affect the resources unevenly. In order then to make it enjoyable and have a term of comparison, we conducted tests also on another motherboard, the ECS A990FXM-A and we compared the values ​​received on individual charts that we will comment.

As synthetic tests we have chosen for their completeness:

As to test Data Compression and Multimedia we performed:

As an USB test we carried out:

As a test to verify stability in overclocking, we performed the following 3 famous tests:

We used a clamp meter to measure the (total) power absorbed by our power supply/system on each test, of which we store the highest peak reached.