Is there a difference between MSI 970 Gaming and MSI 990FX Gaming?

[Burning Sunset]

Is there a difference between MSI 970 Gaming and MSI 990FX Gaming motherboards? Won't be overclocking and will be using a AMD FX 8350 and an Nvidia GTX 750 ti 2 GB with it.

 

[joshua3313]

If you're not into overclocking or whatever go with 970 its cheaper and good enough to just do a good performance, i have it too and it works just great!

 

[madmatt30]

The 970 gaming is a good board.

I'll say now though if you don't have any components yet go with a 6300 or 8320 & get a gtx 950 into the budget - far far better than the 750ti.

 

[Victorion]

mostly the difference between 970 and 990 chipset is SLI/Crossfire. If you´re not going to use that, you should go for the cheaper board. MSI and Asrock has some issues with AM3+ chips, look here

I´d advice you too look for a motherboard from gigabyte or evga instead. Only buy what you need or plan to need, so you don´t pay $50 more, just because this board has overclocking abilities, SLI/CrossFire or something else you don´t need.

Many AMD boards have a number listed within the name, that refers to the chipset. Down below is a little description of the different chipsets that may cost as low as $30 and up to $450

990FX: with 42 PCI Express 2.0 lanes, this is the best match for multiple graphics cards. Unchanged from the 890FX, AMD renamed its core logic when revising its AM3 socket to AM3+. 990FX supports AMD’s CrossFire with up to four cards, and Nvidia unblocked this chipset to allow three-way SLI support as well.

990X: a lower-cost 26-lane version of the 990FX that supports a single graphics card with sixteen lanes or two cards with eight lanes per card. CrossFire is supported across two cards, and Nvidia allows for two-way SLI as well.

890GX: an integrated-graphics version of the 990X/890X that supports discrete graphics, integrated DirectX 10.1 graphics, and combinations of AMD discrete cards with integrated graphics. Because this chipset was launched before Socket AM3+, buyers must verify that the motherboard they’re considering is AM3+-compliant.

880G: a lower-cost version of the 890GX that supports a single AMD graphics card and integrated graphics simultaneously for enhanced multi-monitor support. It can also switch between discrete graphics and integrated engines to save energy.

970: a version of the 880G that has no integrated graphics and supports a single graphics card in true x16 mode. An additional graphics card can be hosted at reduced bandwidth by using four of the chipset’s x1 pathways.

 

[Alex Dorades]

The 990FX have some features more in BIOS and utilities but its near the same think, thinking the price low.