MSI A88X-G45 Gaming Review
by Ian Cutress on August 11, 2014 8:00 AM ESTMSI A88X-G45 Gaming Conclusion
Any motherboard labelled as a gaming product has to do one thing well: gaming. If we go on benchmark numbers alone, our setup with the A88X-G45 Gaming puts this motherboard at the top or almost at the top of any of the A88X motherboards we have tested. Almost every gaming benchmark puts the MSI either on par with the top frame rates, or above by a few FPS.
The downside to this seems to be a relatively poor showing in our real-world CPU benchmarks. The MSI motherboard scores bottom or near bottom in most of them, often paired with our other MSI A88X review showing that while gaming efficiency seems to be high, CPU efficiency is not.
The overclocking performance is good out of the box, especially with OC Genie providing a nice 4.25 GHz of our A10-7850K CPU with a touch of a button. The manual overclocking also went well, showing 4.6 GHz before the system declocked due to temperatures. It should be noted that going for that high of an overclock will double the power draw for the CPU.
Another potential flaw with the gaming motherboard is the audio, which falls below other ALC1150 implementations in our tests. In my previous experience, this can change with as much as a driver update, so ensure that the drivers are the latest. Luckily MSI’s Live Update 6 software included with the driver DVD is some of the best around for making sure that the motherboard drivers and software is up to date. MSI needs to update the A88X BIOS to include some of the features it introduced in Z97, such as easy XMP support, ordered overclocking options and better fan controls.
MSI has positioned the A88X-G45 Gaming at $119/£89 (currently discounted to $105), which puts it around the high end for an FM2+ gaming motherboard. There are cheaper options available, though few are listed as specifically designed for the gaming community. There are some flaws with the overall performance, but for gaming where it matters MSI offer a good option for anyone investing in an AMD gaming platform.
MSI’s main competition comes from GIGABYTE’s A88X G1.Sniper gaming motherboard, ASRock’s A88X Killer and the recently announced ASUS ROG Crossblade Ranger. The MSI matches the ASRock for price, while the other two are either side ($105 for the GIGABYTE, $160 for the ASUS).
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purplestater - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
This really makes me want to build another computer that I don't need and can't afford.PHlipMoD3 - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
So, the A10 7850K beats an i7 4960X in 2 gaming benchmarks, and not a word is said about that in the article apart from "The MSI motehrboard takes the lead in CoH2 comfortably."Seems fishy to me, same card, more CPU bottleneck on the A10, and yet it beats a 4960X in gaming? Shenanigans.
tim851 - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
The games in which the A10 comes out on top are not CPU bottlenecked, but clearly limited by GPU performance. A victory there is likely a statistical fluke.PHlipMoD3 - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
I still find it quite a weird victory, even taking into account the GPU-limited state of BF4. CoH is also a CPU heavy title, and AMD seems to do well in it more often. I would like to have seen a comparison between the 9590 and the A10 in this case, instead of the more limited benches and comparisons in this article / review.I know its a motherboard review specifically, but more comparison points can't hurt.
Ian Cutress - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
I just removed my CoH2 results: with it being on steam and requiring an online connection to initialise first on a new system, it of course downloads updates. It would seem CoH2 had a large update that I didn't see download which has affected the frame rates quite considerably: up to 15% with an A10. I am seeing this with the motherboards I have on the test bed, and is essentially nullifying all my previous results compared to the latest.DrMrLordX - Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - link
Is the latest CoH2 update showing any speed improvements on the 4960x or other Intel processors? I understand if the new software version skews current results to the point that they are no longer comparable to older benchmark runs, but at the same time, this sort of stinks for the 7850k. AMD won a benchmark? Pull it, it has to be a fluke!If the 4960x gained nothing from the update, then, guess what: the 7850k is actually the faster chip for CoH2.
Anonymous Blowhard - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
> why would a user purchase such an APU and then disable access by adding a discrete GPU?Because they're a complete pillock.
Now, if someone were to purchase a cheap-as-chips FM2 Athlon X4 750K, OC the living daylights out of it, and pair that with a dGPU ... well, then they'd be a savvy budget gamer, now wouldn't they?
iTzSnypah - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
Well if AMD releases a Kaveri based Athlon X4 then maybe. Currently a G3458+H81 board is cheaper and blows a 750K/760K out of the water gaming, especially once you overclock the Pentium.StrangerGuy - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
Exactly, who in the right mind would buy this $120 mobo given the Pentium AE and a H81 board is the same price? By the time you put a FM2 CPU/APU into that thing you could have well easily got a discrete card for budget gaming purposes. Of course they will be AMD tryhards deriding the AE being "loldualcore" while conveniently ignoring being massively GPU limited with AMD CPU is a universally FAR worse experience.Phartindust - Thursday, August 14, 2014 - link
Wrong question. The right question is why would anybody purchase an APU and NOT crossfire it with an appropriate AMD GPU? Putting a Nvidia gpu with an AMD APU makes no sense at all