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Customer Reviews of MSI 970A-G46
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Product reviews on NCIX.com are screened for relevance and inappropriate
content. Reviews may contain inaccurate information about the product.
If there is a discrepancy, please use the Flag this Review link
located beside each review. Reviews are not an endorsement expressed by
NCIX.com, but opinions from customers based on their own experience with
a product. We do not recommend you make purchasing decisions based on facts or opinions expressed regarding
MSI 970A-G46 reviews.
Recommend By
96%
Out of 25 Review(s)
5 star: (4)
4 star: (16)
3 star: (4)
2 star: (0)
1 star: (1)
Average Rating
urf
08/08/15
Experience: 1 Years
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Pros
looks decent
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Cons
no internal usb 3 header
occasionally fails to turn on computer(have to disconnect and reconnect 8 and 24 pin)7410540[
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Summary
works, but has a lot of problems
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morriscey
11/24/14
Experience: 14 Days
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Pros
8 core and crossfire/sli! good price.
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Cons
not much room for OCing. no USB3.0 header. Not enough fan headers.
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Summary
Good board for the price with support for AMDs 8000 series chips, and crossfire support. missing usb 3.0 header and few fan headers keep it from being a fantastic board.
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Robert_M18
05/05/14
Experience: 1 Months
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Pros
Decent price, supports SLI and Crossfire instead of just Crossfire like similar priced boards.
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Cons
MOSFET/VRM overheats causing computer to shutdown completely without warning. There are known issues with FX8350 chips and this board's MOSFET/VRM despite oversized heatsinks.
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Summary
I purchased this motherboard and an AMDFX8350 for a new, sub $1,000 PC for a family member without doing sufficient research. After several random shutdowns I did some troubleshooting: checking for shorts, loose connections and faulty RAM and power supply. Windows Event viewer suggests it is a hardware issue as it has an event id of 6008 and then a 41 with no bug code suggesting something power-cycled the MB without notifying windows so probably not a driver issue. Running HWMon showed the MB heated up rapidly (TMPIN0) whenever I did anything (such as installing updated drivers). Some Internet research on "MSI 970a-G46" turned up numerous links that there is a problem with the MOSFET/VRM on these boards. If I can, I'll try to RMA it for another brand of motherboard.
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dubbreak
02/10/14
Experience: 3 Months
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Pros
Good value, decent overclocking control
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Cons
Horrible gui bios, updates reset settings, poor fan control, no esata
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Summary
I purchased this based on reviews. I'm running an FX-8320 e 4GHz on it and a single r9 280X. It works well enough but I wish I had purchased something a bit more expensive (like an Asus). Since I am running an MSI video card I decided to go with the MSI board as well since they have some tools that take advantage of having a matching setup. I haven't really benefitted from it though.
The good:
-plenty of usb ports
-onboard audio works well
-ok manual overclocking control
The bad:
-I hate the GUI bios. Mouse driven doesn't make any sense to me since I usually want to get in quick and change something. You can do most (all?) this with just a keyboard, but it isn't as efficient as keyboard biased BIOSes
-Firmware updates are easy, but remove your settings. My sata mode got changed and my OS wouldn't boot. Took waaay to long to figure it out and had to find it on a random forum.
-The in bios fan control is very limited and MSI's provided software requires admin access on launch (should really be a service with a low privilege gui). Minor nitpick for some, but being able to set a temperature target for my system fans seems like a pretty basic feature. Yes you can set the processor fan to a temp target, but not the system fans (just a static speed). Yes, lots of solutions to this "issue", but bios settings is the clean simple way that is OS agnostic.
-The board has all the inputs/outputs I'd want except it doesn't have a single esata. I have laptops and all-in-ones with esata. USB3 somewhat makes up for it, but I wish I had noticed there is no esata before purchasing.
-My ram didn't auto clock correctly at 800/1600. Easy enough to fix if you know your ram timings, but that's going to catch some people up. Might have just been the Corsair Vengeance Blue I bought. I've never had this happen with a motherboard before (and I've been building my own computers since the 90s).
Conclusion:
For a budget build this is fine. It is stable and I'm getting good performance out of it. In hindsight I wish I spent more, but I'll be sticking with this unless I have any stability issue (which I doubt I will as it has run fine for months now).
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Rod L R_H
12/09/13
Experience: 7 Days
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Pros
Value for money ..But, I would highly advise anyone who buys this board to call NCIX and have them confirm which version of this board you're buying.
I made the mistake of not asking as there are several versions and I got the oldest version 1.0 which doesn't have any USB 3.0 ports and its worth the trouble of finding out.
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Cons
You will lose one PCI-1 socket if two graphic boards are installed
and this is a common problem with many makes and models. Since this board only provides 2 of these very small sockets, MSI needs to consider socket location better than they do/
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Summary
Many reviews complain about the two sata ports being unusable when the second video card is installed. Not true, you simply have to use the "angled" ends of the sata cables and let the cables run under the graphic card to your sata drives so they are usable.
You will lose one of the PCI-E1 sockets when the second graphic card is installed.
I'm using an AMD FX-6350 CPU with G.Skill 2133 mhz memory and you do have to go into the bios as this board comes with the bios set at default values which allow for memory up to 1866 mhz.
Anyone considering buying this board should update the bios and drivers and you will have to install the software on the disk that comes with this motherboard. Live downloads and update s require connection to MSI website. I'd give this 3 stars due to no 20 pin USB 3.0 on board extension and other board limitations
Knowing the price differences, I'd recommend a better board.
This review was modfied by poster @ 02-18-14 08:56 AM
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Mark_V
08/13/13
Experience: 7 Days
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Pros
Cheap
MSI 3 year warranty
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Cons
none so far
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Summary
Bought to power a litecoin mining rig, works great
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Spence_G
08/08/13
Experience: 2 Weeks
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Pros
PCI-e 1x slot placed above the 16x slot
able to have my ram at the stock clock
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Cons
on my board found out smart fan wasn't enabled
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Summary
Great board though I'm new to the whole "tech" world am very happy with it. My only suggestion ( to save you a headache) is that you go into the bios and turn smart fan on if you want the mobo to do the cpu fan control on its own because without smart fan enabled the cpu fan will spin at 100% all the time resulting in a lot of noise (for the stock a least though am going to upgrade soon)
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curriegrad2004
06/12/13
Experience: 15 Days
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Pros
UEFI Firmware Capable
Has legacy PCI slots
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Cons
No hard option to select boot from an UEFI image or a MBR sector
No Secure Boot Option
System RAM only recognizes 31GB+ of RAM
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Summary
Great board for a Hyper-V host at the price that I got it for, but there were a few issues I ran into. The main one is no support for secure boot and there wasn't an option to have the board to only recognize UEFI boot images.
The other problem I've ran into is the motherboard will only recognize up to 31/32 GB of RAM installed due to the limitation of the 970 chipset. Learned that the hard way.
Given the issues above and the price, I would have given it 5/5, but I'd give this one a 4/5.
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Tom_Z
05/16/13
Experience: 3 Weeks
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Pros
Works just fine, have had no problems
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Cons
My cpu heatsink didnt install very well, details below.
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Summary
My cpu heatsink brackets were too short, or the cpu brackets on mobo were too short, one of the two. Since Im not sure which component is the problematic one, Im giving this a 4 out of 5, but the product is just fine. You just may have to loosen off the cpu brackets for the heatsink a little bit so as to raise the brackets. The installation still went just fine but is somewhat suboptimal because of the bracket issue.
Used an AMD 8350 processor in it and Geforce 560 se, works fine.
All of my parts work just fine with this, and the BIOS is very simple and easy. I like it, was a big upgrade from my old mobo and I think it was worth it.
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Vettexl
04/26/13
Experience: 22 Days
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Pros
- nice black pcb colour
- good temps
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Cons
- not going to get all the bells and whistles (look at the price)
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Summary
Not a bad board for the price, though I've heard some suggesting things about MSI. Seems okay so far though.
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| Quick Specs: |
| Maximum Memory |
32 GB
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| S/PDIF |
Yes
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| Limited Warranty |
3 Year
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| Form Factor |
ATX
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| Processor Supported |
FX
Phenom II X3
Phenom II X4
Phenom II X2
Phenom II X6
Phenom II
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| RAID Levels |
0
1
5
1+0
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| Total Processor Supported |
1
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| Controller Type |
Serial ATA/600
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| Processor Socket |
Socket AM3+
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| Memory Technology |
DDR3 SDRAM
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| Width |
12"
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| Depth |
8.9"
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| Environmental Certification |
RoHS
WEEE
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| Chipset Manufacturer |
AMD
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| Number of Memory Slots |
4
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| Audio Channels |
7.1
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| Gigabit Ethernet |
Yes
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| Number of SATA Interfaces |
6
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| Number of PCI Express x1 Slots |
2
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| RAID Supported |
Yes
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| Number of Total Expansion Slots |
6
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| Number of PCI Express x16 Slots |
2
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| Total Number of USB Ports |
8
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| Number of USB 3.0 Ports |
2
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| Total Number of Onboard USB Ports |
3
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| Onboard S/PDIF Header |
Yes
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| Total Number of PCI Express Slots |
4
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| Memory Form Factor |
UDIMM
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| Memory Speed Supported |
2.13 GHz (O.C.)
1.87 GHz
1.60 GHz
1.33 GHz
1.07 GHz
800 MHz
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| ProductId | 1021623486 |
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| Audio |
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| Audio Channels: |
7.1
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| Sound Controller Manufacturer: |
Realtek
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| Sound Controller Model: |
ALC892
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| Controls/Indicators |
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| Buttons & Keys: |
OC Genie
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| General Information |
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| Brand Name: |
MSI
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| Manufacturer: |
MSI
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| Manufacturer Part Number: |
970A-G46
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| Manufacturer Website Address: |
https://www.msi.com
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| Product Model: |
970A-G46
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| Product Name: |
970A-G46 Desktop Motherboard
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| Product Type: |
Desktop Motherboard
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| I/O Controller |
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| Controller Type: |
Serial ATA/600
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| RAID Levels: |
0
1
5
1+0
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| RAID Supported: |
Yes
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| I/O Expansions |
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| Number of PCI Express x1 Slots: |
2
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| Number of PCI Express x16 Slots: |
2
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| Number of PCI Slots: |
2
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| Number of Total Expansion Slots: |
6
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| PCI Express Standard: |
PCI Express 2.0
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| Total Number of PCI Express Slots: |
4
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| Interfaces/Ports |
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| Audio Line In: |
Yes
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| Audio Line Out: |
Yes
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| Microphone Port: |
Yes
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| Network (RJ-45): |
Yes
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| Number of Network (RJ-45) Ports: |
1
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| Number of PS/2 Ports: |
1
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| Number of S/PDIF Out Ports: |
1
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| Number of USB 2.0 Ports: |
6
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| Number of USB 3.0 Ports: |
2
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| PS/2 Port: |
Yes
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| S/PDIF: |
Yes
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| Serial Port: |
Yes
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| Total Number of USB Ports: |
8
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| Memory |
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| Maximum Memory: |
32 GB
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| Memory Form Factor: |
UDIMM
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| Memory Speed Supported: |
2.13 GHz (O.C.)
1.87 GHz
1.60 GHz
1.33 GHz
1.07 GHz
800 MHz
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| Memory Standard: |
DDR3-2133/PC3-17000 (O.C.)
DDR3-1866/PC3-15000
DDR3-1600/PC3-12800
DDR3-1333/PC3-10600
DDR3-1066/PC3-8500
DDR3-800/PC3-6400
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| Memory Technology: |
DDR3 SDRAM
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| Number of Memory Slots: |
4
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| Miscellaneous |
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| Environmental Certification: |
RoHS
WEEE
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| Network & Communication |
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| Gigabit Ethernet: |
Yes
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| Onboard Interfaces |
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| Number of Onboard USB 2.0 Ports: |
3
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| Number of SATA Interfaces: |
6
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| Onboard Audio Header: |
Yes
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| Onboard S/PDIF Header: |
Yes
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| Total Number of Onboard USB Ports: |
3
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| Physical Characteristics |
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| Depth: |
8.86" (225 mm)
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| Form Factor: |
ATX
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| Width: |
12.01" (305 mm)
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| Power Description |
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| Power Supply Supported: |
EPS12V
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| Processor & Chipset |
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| 64-bit Processing: |
Yes
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| Chipset Manufacturer: |
AMD
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| HyperTransport Speed: |
4.80 GT/s
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| Processor Socket: |
Socket AM3+
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| Processor Supported: |
FX
Phenom II X3
Phenom II X4
Phenom II X2
Phenom II X6
Phenom II
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| Processor Technology: |
Cool'n'Quiet Technology
HyperTransport 3.0 Technology
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| Total Processor Supported: |
1
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| Warranty |
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| Limited Warranty: |
3 Year
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Forum messages are not reviewed and may not contain accurate information about a product.
Message contents are opinions from customers based on their own experience with a product.
We do not recommend you make puchasing decisions based on Forum messages.
|
Product Warranty
|
First 30 days limited warranty through NCIX.com. The remainder of the 3 year warranty is provided directly by the manufacturer.
As an authorized MSI Canada Dealer, products purchased through NCIX are eligible for Canadian RMA service at MSI`s Canadian service depot in Canada.
To set up an RMA for an MSI product, please visit https://service.msicomputer.com/msi_user/support/rma_form.aspx
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