MSI 970 Gaming AM3+ Motherboard Review

By David Ramsey

Manufacturer: Micro Star International
Product Name: AM3+ AMD Desktop Motherboard
Model Number: 970 Gaming
UPC: 824142025536 EAN: 4719072353988
Price As Tested: $99.89 (Newegg | B&H | Amazon)

Full Disclosure: Micro Star International provided the product sample used in this article.

Want to build a gaming system on a budget? Then you have to know where to spend your money to get the best bang for the buck. It’s always tempting to go for the flashy, high end motherboards with tons of extra features, but you may find that those extra features don’t buy you much in the way of extra performance. Micro Star International has sent Benchmark Reviews their MSI 970 Gaming motherboard, claiming they’ve gone beyond the specifications of the AMD 970 chipset. What kind of basis does this make for a gaming rig? Let’s find out.

AMD has apparently ceded the high end desktop market to Intel with the cancellation of the Steamroller architecture for their FX-series CPUs. However, they’ve been fighting back aggressively on the performance-for-the-dollar front. Still, the 970 chipset represents the bottom end of AMD’s desktop chipset lineup: it’s not even certified for dual GPU setups. How serious could MSI be about this?