MSI 970 Gaming Motherboard Review: Undercutting AM3+ at $100
by Ian Cutress on January 22, 2015 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- MSI
- Vishera
- AM3+
Gaming Performance
F1 2013
First up is F1 2013 by Codemasters. I am a big Formula 1 fan in my spare time, and nothing makes me happier than carving up the field in a Caterham, waving to the Red Bulls as I drive by (because I play on easy and take shortcuts). F1 2013 uses the EGO Engine, and like other Codemasters games ends up being very playable on old hardware quite easily. In order to beef up the benchmark a bit, we devised the following scenario for the benchmark mode: one lap of Spa-Francorchamps in the heavy wet, the benchmark follows Jenson Button in the McLaren who starts on the grid in 22nd place, with the field made up of 11 Williams cars, 5 Marussia and 5 Caterham in that order. This puts emphasis on the CPU to handle the AI in the wet, and allows for a good amount of overtaking during the automated benchmark. We test at 1920x1080 on Ultra graphical settings.
Bioshock Infinite
Bioshock Infinite was Zero Punctuation’s Game of the Year for 2013, uses the Unreal Engine 3, and is designed to scale with both cores and graphical prowess. We test the benchmark using the Adrenaline benchmark tool and the Xtreme (1920x1080, Maximum) performance setting, noting down the average frame rates and the minimum frame rates.
Tomb Raider
The next benchmark in our test is Tomb Raider. Tomb Raider is an AMD optimized game, lauded for its use of TressFX creating dynamic hair to increase the immersion in game. Tomb Raider uses a modified version of the Crystal Engine, and enjoys raw horsepower. We test the benchmark using the Adrenaline benchmark tool and the Xtreme (1920x1080, Maximum) performance setting, noting down the average frame rates and the minimum frame rates.
Sleeping Dogs
Sleeping Dogs is a benchmarking wet dream – a highly complex benchmark that can bring the toughest setup and high resolutions down into single figures. Having an extreme SSAO setting can do that, but at the right settings Sleeping Dogs is highly playable and enjoyable. We run the basic benchmark program laid out in the Adrenaline benchmark tool, and the Xtreme (1920x1080, Maximum) performance setting, noting down the average frame rates and the minimum frame rates.
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Gigaplex - Thursday, January 22, 2015 - link
Instead of spending that money on a new CPU and motherboard, spend it on a GPU instead to get better BF4 performance.Phartindust - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
Exactly, use that money towards a R9 290x, 290.tekphnx - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
I generally agree, but I would say that the $99 FX-6300 and the $115 OEM FX-8310 would be the exceptions that actually stand out as good values from the red team right now - particularly when paired with a 970 board and boosted with a moderate overclock into the ~4.5 ghz range, these chips offer more value vs. the similarly-priced i3 series, albeit with higher power consumption and lacking an upgrade path.rafaelluik - Tuesday, February 24, 2015 - link
What more value? Haswell i3 beats even FX 8350 in 99% of games and beats the FX9590 in 90% of them!TeXWiller - Thursday, January 22, 2015 - link
I took the upgrade dive as due to a offering on 125W fx8370. As I run only at stock speeds, my experience might not be relevant to you. The single module max turbo takes little less power than the 95W thuban with turbo and is faster with modern software, marginally slower on very old test software. I sometimes still launch UT2k4 and the speed improvement is significant. A software 4k 60Hz video playback got 70% improvement. Reflecting this, I wouldn't go near anything slower than the models running at least 4GHz base speed as an upgrade.duploxxx - Thursday, January 22, 2015 - link
looking at figures and benchmarking you are right. but when you look a bit further on general platforms single gpu its not that big difference at all and some even none existing. with examples like 85-95 fps you won't even notice the difference if you would run on ore another.http://www.anandtech.com/show/8427/amd-fx-8370e-cp...
Penti - Thursday, January 22, 2015 - link
Does it matter? AMD has intentionally not released new BD-products or updated chipsets for non-APU and server products. They are not counting on selling broken Bulldozers. They have put their resources on the new architectures instead. You can continue to use an AMD-system if your demands aren't too high, new stuff will come there just isn't any sense buying one today. Buying AMD graphics might not be an easy sell these days either, but R9-290 is still decent and new stuff will come hopefully with HDMI 2.0 support and all that.piroroadkill - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
" the IPC improvements from Phenom II to current FX chips is marginal at best."I thought it was actually the reverse. I definitely recall seeing the old high end Phenom II X6 outpeform the new Bulldozer chips when they first hit.
Yep: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4955/the-bulldozer-r...
ShieTar - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Sure, but there is a difference in IPC between "When Bulldozer first hit" and "current FX":http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1280?vs=700
Phartindust - Thursday, January 29, 2015 - link
The difference is larger than you think:http://anandtech.com/bench/product/102?vs=697