MSI X79A-GD65 (8D) Review

👤by Richard Weatherstone Comments 📅14-11-11
Packaging & Contents

Box Front

The box is presented in a very swish dark brown and gold box. Rather than opt for an outer sleeve like most manufacturers, MSI instead have printed their product directly to the sturdy packaging making a big point of their Military Class III feature, PCIe Gen3 and Click-BIOS II.


Box Rear

Flipping the box over we get a detailed rundown of the products features with each Military Class III component detailed. Further product features include OC Genie II, Instant OC, Super Charger and THX TruStudio PRO.


Box Open

Opening the lid of the box we are presented with a huge array of accessories. Unfortunately these are not compartmentalised and held in place, rather they are simply bundled on top of a cardboard tray, itself protecting the mainboard hidden beneath.


Accessories

Here we see the included accessories. Aside from the various manuals, guides and Military Class III certificate, we get a Super Charger bracket, E-SATA cable, E-SATA bracket, printed I/O shield, 2x MOLEX-SATA power adapters, M-Connectors, SLI and Crossfire bridges along with 4x SATA data cables.


Mainboard

Finally we arrive at the star of the show, the MSI X79A-GD65(8D) which is protected by a thick anti-static bag. At first glance it’s hard not to be impressed by the aesthetics. The black and blue now synonymous with MSI mainboards is both striking and very smart. I do have some reservations regarding the silk screening process but I’ll come to that later.

Overall the product packaging is very good. I would perhaps like to have seen a better method of holding the accessories in place rather than just bunged in a tray on top of the motherboard. Other manufacturers take a little more care in this area, often having a separate box for them so in this area MSI are slowly being left behind by the competition. I appreciate cost is an issue but it is a shame MSI have gone to great lengths providing a plethora of reading material and accessories only for them to be presented so carelessly.

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