MSI 870A Fuzion Power Edition EXCLUSIVE Review
Packaging & Initial Impressions
Published: 23rd September 2010 | Source: MSI | Price: £120 Est |
Packaging & Initial Impressions
The MSI 870A Fuzion Power Edition arrives in a rather enthusiastic designed box. The front of the box is left fairly plain in terms of text, aside its product name and its status as a "Military Class Mainboard"...whatever that means.
The back of the box is a little more busy, detailing all the key features of the board.
In terms of accessories, MSI are pretty generous. Aside an I/O shield and a number of comprehensive manuals pertaining its features, you also receive four SATA cables, two molex to SATA adapters, a rear USB bracket and a front 3.25" USB 3.0 bracket. Annoyingly the MSI bracket is coloured in deep blue; this is likely to be an eye sore on many cases.
Then we get to the motherboard itself. The Power Edition version of the 870A Fuzion greatly resembles its inferior brother with the exception of its heatsinks. Now obviously the key difference between the two is the implementation of a 10 + 1 phase VRM power design but of course, chunkier heatsinks are required as well. Also note that the Lucid Hydra has been moved away from the Northbridge and closer to the Southbridge.
At the rear you will find a reasonably comprehensive I/O configuration, including six USB 2.0, one USB 3.0, SPDIF + 7.1 Audio, PS/2, Firewire and a CMOS clear button
We're a little unsure of the internally mounted "external" USB 3.0 port. You may either use an extender to mount the port at the rear with a PCI backplate or at the front with the blue 3.25" adapter. While it is great to have been offered the option to place a high speed USB port at the front of a computer, it just seems a little bit inconvenient (and a waste of a PCI position) should you wish to have a second USB 3.0 at the rear.
The motherboard layout itself seems to have been well thought out, particularly in terms of the PCI-Express spacings. Thus far we remain impressed by the 870A Fuzion Power Edition.
Most Recent Comments
great looking board....
Cheers for the heads up tom, board looks mental.
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Originally Posted by El Gappo
When he pressed the OC genie button it automatically opened up an msn chat with me |
I have the MSI P55-GD65 and the OC genie button works like Poo
Fantastic as ever guys, and a special thanks to Mul for absolutely kicking the s**t out of it.
Fabulous stuff.
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Originally Posted by El Gappo
When he pressed the OC genie button it automatically opened up an msn chat with me Cheers for the heads up tom, board looks mental. |
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Originally Posted by SiN
Dude, I didn't know you were on here! It's D3FiN3 SiN/firestormcomputers from OCN . |
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Originally Posted by SiN
Dude, I didn't know you were on here! It's D3FiN3 SiN/firestormcomputers from OCN . |
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Originally Posted by tinytomlogan
All the cool kids are here |
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Originally Posted by tinytomlogan
All the cool kids are here |
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Originally Posted by tinytomlogan
All the cool kids are here |
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Originally Posted by tinytomlogan
All the cool kids are here |
And yes, I am now a cool kid
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Originally Posted by Delusion77
I guess this board really surprised you guys |
TTl your cpu-z sig is looking much healthier now
Also can I run 2x460 SLI on this motherboard?
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Originally Posted by Zeals
What's the best heat sink for this if i want to fill all memory slots, the RAM is 35mm tall. Also can I run 2x460 SLI on this motherboard? |
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Originally Posted by Mul
2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (16x/16x Dual CrossfireX, SLI, ATi + nVidia)
2 x PCIe 1x 1 x PCI |
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Originally Posted by AlienALX
The Noctua NH14 will clear regular ram. It only has issues with Dominator ram. |
I wasn't aware that loads of companies made oversized tbh. I know Gskill do that Ripjaw stuff.
You do need to run a Physx mod/hack (mod is a nicer word) but yes, you can.
You might need to run that mod for this board, I don't know. Usually Nvidia disables Physx when it sees an ATI card present. And the way it does this is the driver looks at the Device manager and then at the DEV_ID for the graphics cards. If it sees the ATI DEV number (1002 as the vendor code) then it simply disables the Physx function. However, this is easy to get around using GenL Physx Mod 1.04ff.
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