MSI 970 Gaming

Overview

TechSpot Metascore

Based on 9 expert reviews

Excellent:

3
Good:

4
Average:

2
Bad:

0

7.8

User Score

Based on 81 reviews
as rated by users

Pros:

Good overclockability
Excellent bang for the buck
Surprisingly low price

Cons:

Minimalist feature set
Lacks native support for new interfaces

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Last revision on July 10, 2016

Reviewers Liked

Good overclockability
Excellent bang for the buck
Surprisingly low price
Highend audio and Ethernet features
Robust software suite includes RAMDisk app

Reviewers Didn't Like

Minimalist feature set
Lacks native support for new interfaces
No hardware buttons
Only two USB 3.0 ports on I/O plate
Limited PCIe lanes

Expert reviews and ratings

Although MSI offers a variety of Gaming motherboards, the MSI 970 Gaming is the only AMD gaming motherboard in their lineup. If you want to step up to the top-end 990FX chipset, your only MSI choice is the MSI 990FXA-GD80 , a “mainstream” motherboard,...

By Benchmark Reviews on January 10, 2015

Those looking to build an affordable, attractive AMD-based gaming PC will like the MSI 970 Gaming, with its Killer Ethernet chip, audio-grade capacitors, and sleek black PCB. The chipset's circa 2011, but considering the board's features, looks, and...

By Computer Shopper on November 26, 2014

Intel might still have the edge on single threaded applications, but an AMD system can give very solid multi-threaded performance without blowing the budget. Built on the ATX form factor, the board has an AM3+ socket and will support Athlon II, Phenom II...

By APC Magazine on November 24, 2014

The MSI 970 Gaming motherboard looks very smart in appearance with a colour scheme that is mainly black with a hint of red. This has a downside as the board is slightly more complicated to set up than we would like, thanks to the absence of colour coding...

By Kitguru.net on September 29, 2014

The 970 Gaming put in some solid benchmark results and despite a few hiccups, namely the very average on-board audio and poor SATA 6Gbps write speed, did manage to overclock out test CPU to 4.6GHz, which isn't bad at all for a £70 motherboard. What's...

By Bit-tech.net on August 21, 2014

Comparing AMD versus Intel platforms is an endless debate and this review could really spark the decade old rivalry between the two chip makers. Hence, I can clearly draw certain lines that are obvious coming from the test and benchmark results of the...

By proclockers.com on April 03, 2015

At this point in time, unless you are truly brand loyal, we can't in good conscience recommend spending top dollar on any AMD-based motherboard since the available processors just aren't comparable to Intel's offerings. MSI probably agrees with us, which...

By Hardware Canucks on March 31, 2015

Trying to play catch up with the latest and greatest will cost you a pretty penny. The average enthusiast tries to acquire the best technologies for cheap; the same goes for gamers since most everyone wants to save money. If your budget is a little over...

By Modders-Inc on March 21, 2015

The MSI 970 Gaming motherboard sports an aggressive price tag of £80 ($100). Whether it needs to be that aggressively-priced is questionable. MSI, we feel, could have considered the 990FX chipset for enhanced PCIe lane availability while only marginally...

By HEXUS.net on January 30, 2015

The 970 Gaming is aiming at that cheaper market, by providing a motherboard suitable for single GPU gaming and an FX-8000 series processor. Very few motherboard manufacturers are actively pursuing this demographic, perhaps because margins are low or the...

By AnandTech on January 28, 2015

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