MSI 890GXM-G65 Motherboard Review

CrustStation · February 26, 2016

Before I begin this review, yes, I know. The 890GXM-G65 is about 6 years old at this point. I get it. Moving on...

I don't have a job yet (It's because I wasn't old enough in my state until last year and no, I'm not a Bernie supporter). So, my income of money is very limited. Last May, I received a rebuilt HP Pavilion a6000 series from a family friend that was missing its atrocious ASUS M2N78-LA (Kin to the infamous M2N68-LA). In its place was an almost equally bad MSI motherboard, the said 890GXM-G65. I was excited to see that I had my very first non-OEM motherboard and was ready to put it to use. So, I shoved the mess that was my old Rev A iMac G5 off of my desk, grabbed a Dell Ultrasharp from the closet and set up my new PC and installed Windows 8.1 (We're talking about May 2015). I thought everything was fine and dandy with its Phenom x4 B55 Socket AM3 processor and its 8 GB of Patriot RAM and I could finally play TF2 at above 30 FPS, grant it was at all low settings. Then.... I tried to edit ONE BIOS setting.

GOD. That was my reaction when I tried to so much as change a simple BOOT option and it failed to POST. I wanted to change it to where it wasn't on its "2 TB Infinity" (Yes 2 TB was a lot in 2009-2010) and rather on its integrated controller connected directly with the drives. Nope, nada. No POST, not even any beep codes or anything. It would sit there with a blank screen. Even worse, it had the fourth core on the processor turned off, which was the only setting that worked (sometimes). It would randomly at times after shutdowns turn the core back off and I would have to manually turn it back on and cross fingers for a POST. Several hours were wasted letting the machine sit, powered off with the battery removed because it doesn't have a BIOS reset jumper or button (If it does, it must not be labeled or something).

We even haven't gotten to the worst part. Trying to UPDATE the BIOS. I'm sure at this point, your argument against mine is the update the BIOS, right? Can't do it. Nope. You can download the update from MSI's broken website, but in order to install it, you have to write it to a floppy disk. Problem... There's no floppy controller. You can't use a USB floppy drive, it HAS to be an onboard controller. You can't even use a PCI controller! What use is the update stuff then if you can't even UPDATE it. It's really sad. Speaking of lack of connectors, MSI advertised this abomination as a "Gaming" motherboard, but get this: It has TWO fan headers. TWO. What good is a gaming motherboard without more than two fan headers!?! That's enough for a wimpy cooler and rear case fan. You want front case fans for your shiny new Corsair case? Too bad. You have to use external controllers.

Now for some good points (Believe me there are few):

Looks. This board is downright sexy in my opinion. It's got that sleek black with that blue on the VRM cooler and its what ALL motherboards made these days should look like, not with all the fancy plastic plating, but with the bare essentials made to look absolutely stunning.

Cooling. It's got ACTUAL coolers on the north bridge, south bridge, and the VRM section. The only thing it lacks in cooling is the lack of fan headers, but its integrated onboard chip coolers are on point and have excellent dynamics.

USB 3.0. I know USB 3 is a standard these days, but back in 2009-2010, people crapped their pants if they could get their hands on a gadget with USB 3. Even boards quadruple the price of this one back in the day still only had USB 2. The ports do work and work quite well.

That's it. That's all that's even half-decent about it.

In the end, if you are looking for an older AM3 board, I don't recommend this one. Get an ASUS or an ASRock. MSI has gotten better at this whole MOBO manufacturing thing, but this board is definitely the butt of their long-lasting joke.

Written by Logan C.S. on 2/26/16