MSI set to launch two new AM3+ motherboards by VR-Zone.com

Details have started to emerge of two upcoming AM3+ motherboards from MSI, namely the 990FXA-GD70 and the 990XA-GD55. VR-Zone has managed to dig up some pictures of the 990XA-GD55 and some pricing on the 990FXA-GD70 and both boards should be out in time for AMD's rumoured September 19th Bulldozer launch.



The 990XA-GD55 is quite similar to the 990FXA-GD65 in terms of overall design, although there are some subtle changes beyond moving to the mid-range 990X chipset from the high-end 990FX. If you look carefully you'll notice that MSI has change the PWM chokes on the board to a slimmer variant with SFC branding, although surprisingly MSI decided to keep the tantalum capacitors. The slot layout remains the same, but as the 990X chipset only offers 16-lanes of PCI Express bandwidth you'll notice four PCI Express lane switches on the board from some dual x8 action.



MSI has also the 6-pin power connector next to the top x1 PCI Express slot. In fact, the boards are so similar that MSI has kept the same internal model name and just upped the PCB revision. One small improvement over the 990FXA-GD65 is the inclusion of a second 4-pin fan header. We didn't manage to dig up any pricing for the 990XA-GD55, but it will end up being more affordable than the 990FX-GD65 for sure and we'd expect it to be priced at around S$170/US$140.

As for the 990FX-GD70, well, we haven't managed to find out any details as yet, but several companies have it listed as available in two to three weeks' time. In Europe the board is listed for sale at around €160 (S$275/US$230) including 20 percent VAT/GST which is actually a fair bit more than what you can buy the 990FXA-GD80 for.