MSI X79A-GD65 (8D) Review

👤by Richard Weatherstone Comments 📅14-11-11
Specifications & Features

Despite numerous previews of this motherboard being touted around by the media, there was no official word on the exact specification. As the NDA has now passed we can now reveal the official spec sheet and put an end to the speculation:



One of the main attractions to the X79 chipset will be the huge bandwidth available courtesy of 8 DIMM slots capable of delivering up to 128GB. Couple this with PCIe Gen 3, 6Gb/s SATA and USB 3.0 along with the usual array of multimedia connectivity and X79 becomes a very complete proposition.


Intel X79 Express Chipset Block Diagram


PCI Express Gen 3
PCIe 3.0 affords twice the bandwidth of PCIe 2.0 (up to 32GB/s). MSI claim this to be the world’s 1st true PCIe Gen 3 mainboard.

Military III Class Components
The MSI X79A-GD65 (8D) features the third incarnation of the Military Class series which features Solid Capacitors throughout, Super Ferrite Core chokes, Hi-C CAP, DrMOS II all tested, as the name suggests, the military standards receiving MIL-STD-810G Certification.

DrMOS II Thermal Protection
A handy LED will light up on the motherboard when the MOSFETs are approaching a critical temperature. IF you don’t see the LED then a pop-up message will be displayed (via Control Center II). Should the temperature exceed the high temperature point, the system will automatically shutdown.

Click BIOS II
Another claim by MSI is the world’s first Unified UEFI GUI based interface. Rather than the old 8bit BIOS display we are all used to, the new UEFI setup allows the end user to adjust settings with the use of a mouse. The Click BIOS II module in windows works exactly the same way although a reboot is required for the settings to take effect.

THX TruStudio Pro
A Hollywood-grade high-fidelity sound reproduction standard which accurately reproduces the fullest audio experience of movie, music and game soundtracks for PC platforms

Multi-BIOS II
Multi-BIOS II provides the convenience to switch to the backup BIOS for system failure protection.

Control Center II
This utility allows realtime monitoring of system devices and also allows system performance tuning of the CPU Baseclock, ratios, voltages and memory frequencies.

Super Charger
Rather than using a standard USB port, the Super Charger allows users to make use of 3x faster charging courtesy of 1.5A being pumped through the on-board USB port.

U3/S6
USB 3.0 and SATA 6GB/s are built in as standard allowing upto 5GBps bandwidth for USB devices and 6Gb/s on the SATA III devices.

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