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The MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard measures in at 12″ x 9.6″, conforming to the standard ATX form factor.
MSI opts for a good-looking black and grey colour scheme with its entry-level motherboard. In person, the GD45 Plus' PCB appears far darker than the ugly shade of brown that bright lighting portrays.
A pair of 4-DIMM banks sits either side of the LGA 2011 CPU's sizeable socket. MSI eliminates clearance issues when a graphics card is installed in the uppermost slot by using the increasingly-popular single-latch DIMM solution.
Users can populate the X79A-GD45 Plus with up to 64GB of memory by using 8GB DIMMs. MSI's website and promotional material state memory frequency support for up to 2400MHz, although a BIOS selection for a 2933MHz profile is present. We will explore the board's memory frequency support later in this review with some high-speed RAM.
Beneath a black and grey heatsink sporting the MSI logo sit nine driver MOSFETs that MSI calls DrMOS II. Along with the nine Solid Ferrite Core (SFC) chokes that sit in front of the heatsink, the two remaining classes of power delivery components that make up MSI's Military Class III implementation are solid and high-conductivity (Hi-C) capacitors.
Users with wide CPU coolers, such as the Phanteks PH-TC14PE or Noctua NH-D14, may find that the tall MOSFET heatsink could cause interference issues. In a sense, there is little that MSI can do to combat this issue; the board's CPU and socket area are already cramped and MOSFETs require sufficient cooling. Perhaps shaving a few centimetres off the heatsink's height and increasing its width would help to reduce clearance issues, while also having little effect on the sink's thermal capacity.
Along the board's top edge is where the 8-pin CPU power connector is located. This is its ideal position as hiding the cable behind a case's motherboard tray is a simple cable management measure.
The PWM-controlled CPU fan header sits adjacent to the 8-pin power socket, while an additional 4-pin connection is placed closer to the 24-pin's edge. Ideally, we would have liked to see a pair of CPU fan headers, rather than just one. The two header approach is better for users with dual-fan CPU coolers as it allows the speed of both units to be controlled via the same PWM channel.
Making effective use of the LGA 2011 CPUs' 40 PCI-Express lanes, the MSI X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard features five full-length PCI-E connections and one x1 port. Fed directly by the CPU's lanes, the grey slots are given graphics duties.
When an IVB-E CPU is used, the grey slots feature PCI-E Gen 3 link speeds of at least 8x, allowing them to offer three-way CrossFire and SLI support. Spacing between the two upper x16 graphics slots is also very good; a one-slot cooling gap is provided to ensure that the top card isn't starved of air.
All of the black slots operate at PCI-E 2.0 bandwidth and receive their lanes from the X79 chipset. Despite two of the slots being full-length, all three of the connections are limited to PCI-E 2.0 x1 speeds. That isn't too much of an issue for an entry-level (as far as X79 goes) motherboard; those wanting to use two-way SLI and then add an x4 device can use the lower PCI-E 3.0 slot which would be spare.
The standard affair of headers is located along the X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard's bottom-edge. Front panel headers are edged to a more centralised location than usual, due to the fact that two USB 2.0 connections and the internal USB 3.0 header occupy the board's bottom-right segment.
Onboard buttons, in the form of an OC Genie II toggle and power switch, are positioned directly in the centre of the GD45-Plus' bottom-edge. If a graphics card is installed in the lower PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot, all of the bottom-edge inputs and connections will be impossible to access.
With interference in mind, MSI would have been wise to place both the USB 3.0 header and onboard buttons in locations where they will not be fouled and rendered completely unusable. Other headers can retain function by having their connecting cables compressed against the graphics card, but the same cannot be said for the aforementioned components.
A low-profile black and grey heatsink cools the X79 chipset. Its design coincides with the rest of the colour scheme for MSI's X79A-GD45 Plus.
SATA connections are provided by the X79 chipset which means that users are allocated four SATA 3Gb/s ports and two capable of 6Gb/s transfers. MSI differentiates the 6Gb/s connections by giving them a squared structure. While two SATA 6Gb/s connections may be cutting it fine in today's storage age, MSI had to cut corners somewhere and rejecting add-on storage controllers was one of the most effective ways to keep costs down.
A 4-pin molex connector is used to provide additional power to high-end multi-GPU configurations. Single card systems will not require the connector to be used. Users who demand effective cable management will be pleased to see that MSI gives the connector a right-angled orientation, allowing power leads to be hidden with ease.
Given the X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard's entry-level pricing for the X79 platform, a basic set of rear IO connections is a by-product of cost-minimisations. A pair of USB 3.0 ports is provided by a Renesas D720202 controller while Intel's 82579V is used for Gigabit Ethernet.
Multi-channel audio is provided by Realtek's ALC892 codec to which MSI also adds Sound Blaster Cinema support. Overclockers will be pleased to see MSI including a rear panel clear CMOS button – it adds very little cost to the board's design, but can save users from being inconvenienced.
Motherboard rear ports:
- 1 x PS/2 Keyboard port
- 1 x PS/2 Mouse port
- 1x Clear CMOS button
- 1 x Coaxial SPDIF-out port
- 1 x Optical SPDIF-out port
- 1 x RJ45 LAN Jack
- 6 x USB 2.0 ports
- 2 x USB 3.0 ports
- 1 x 6 in 1 audio jack
As circled above, five 4-pin fan headers are distributed around the X79A-GD45 Plus motherboard. Placing a header along the motherboard's bottom edge would have been useful to users with side-panel fans. As previously mentioned, an additional CPU fan header would have also proved useful.
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