MSI 990FXA-GD80 990FX Chipset Motherboard Review

Introduction

Many of you have been expecting Zambezi processors from AMD based on the new Bulldozer architecture and much internal documentation has shown us that was upcoming in Q211. We believe those parts have slipped to Q311 with AMD's focus being on Fusion products currently. The chipsets and mainboards that support socket AM3+ are still here will us today though...sans Zambezi. Still these products are backwards compatible with current Phenom II processors so that is what we have to show to you today.

MSI or Micro Star International is a well established brand name in the motherboard market. It offers a wide range of products from motherboards to laptops to consumer electronics. Though it has been doing so for awhile, its motherboards are generally what the company is known for in enthusiast circles. MSI has a diverse product portfolio of motherboard offerings with vastly different price ranges from the low end to the high end. MSI of course has established itself as an industry leader with features like its OC Genie which no other manufacturer has been able to match.

The MSI 990FXA-GD80 is based on AMD’s 990FX / SB950 chipset. I’d have called it "brand new" but that isn’t really the case. The 990FX chipset is simply a rebranded / rebadged 890FX chipset. Why did AMD choose to do this? Ultimately this represents a marketing decision I’d imagine. This allows it to match a new chipset with its upcoming Bulldozer parts. Essentially if you purchase a 990FX based board you know you’ll be able to use Bulldozer based CPUs and gain access to all their power saving features. Older socket AM3 boards will need a BIOS update in order to support Zambezi at the very least. So again, it’s all about marketing strategy here. There is no new technology to speak of in terms of the motherboard itself aside from a minor specifications change to the HyperTransport bus which is now on version 3.1.

On the bright side hell froze over a little while ago and NVIDIA is now allowing SLI functionality on the 990FX chipset. So motherboard manufacturers can now license SLI support. This is something that seemed relatively unlikely but given NVIDIA’s lack of focus on the chipset business it seems like a smart move despite it seeming like unnatural cooperation with the enemy. This is of course great for the enthusiast as some people may like AMD chipset based boards and processors, but loathe their video cards. Of course this is only relevant in the context of multi-GPU configurations. However rational or odd it may seem to some, such individuals would either have to tolerate AMD multi-GPU solutions on their AMD based setups or go with an Intel based setup with NVIDIA graphics hardware. No longer will you have to make such a choice. Now any mixture of multi-GPU hardware can be used with either platform which is how it should have been to begin with. On that topic the 990FXA-GD80 supports SLI, 3-Way SLI and Quad-SLI using dual GPU graphics cards. Crossfire is supported in 2, 3, and 4-Way configurations. Dual GPU cards are of course only supported in pairs just as is the case with SLI.

KB26468-BlackBerry smartphone USB connection disconnects and ...

When a BlackBerry smartphone is initially connected to a USB 3.0 port, there is a possibility that it will not be correctly detected (enumerated) unless it is first plugged into a USB 2.0 port on the same system. The driver update listed above fixes this issue, and allows BlackBerry smartphone detection to occur correctly the first time it is plugged into a USB 3.0 port.

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