MSI K9A2 CF review

MSI's new K9A2 CF is a low-cost motherboard based around AMD's new 790X chipset.

Its main feature is the AM2+ processor socket, which supports AMD's new Phenom quad-core processors. The Phenom has better power management than older Athlons, but this works only when installed in an AM2+ socket.

The K9A2's dual graphics card slots support the faster PCI-E 2.0 , so although both will operate at x8 if you install two graphics cards, the faster speed gives each card the 8GB/s bandwidth of a x16 PCI-E 1.1 slot. The 790X chipset also supports the HyperTransport 3 link between the processor and the South-bridge and runs at 2.6GHz, which is faster than the 1.4GHz HyperTransport 2 of AM2 boards.

The K9A2 CF is a cut-down version of the Platinum Edition and lacks FireWire, eSATA and a TPM encryption module. It has a modest range of connectors, including a legacy serial port. The four SATA ports support RAID 0, 1 or 0+1, so storage is well catered for. It has 8-channel audio built in, but no S/PDIF output.

This corner-cutting has reduced the price and also the width of the board. It doesn't have a third column of mounting holes, and overhangs the second column by 50mm. This may sound trivial, but the circuit board flexes alarmingly when you plug in the ATX power connector and apply pressure to install RAM.

A highlight of the K9A2 is the Cell menu in the BIOS. This lets you overclock the FSB, HyperTransport, PCI-E and memory, and increase the voltages. The voltage options were greyed out in our test BIOS so we couldn't test to see how overclockable the board is.

The K9A2 isn't a bad choice of motherboard for an AMD processor, but until MSI provides a finished BIOS and we see better performance from AMD's Phenom processors we can't recommend it as the basis for a new PC.

Author: Jim Martin