August 1986 marked the birth of an international company that goes by the name of Micro Star International (or as most know it, MSI). Its policy is based on reliable high performance devices and exquisite customer service. Their motto “Quality Products Create Faithful Customers" is pretty much true and in the world of IT “faithful customers” are difficult to come by.





Its rich motherboard line offers customers the option to choose a product that best suits their needs. Among the top candidates we find the DKA790GX Platinum. By the “platinum” naming scheme you can already tell that this puppy has something “special” (no, it won't levitate by it's own) .



What's “special” about it is that it uses the AMD 790GX chipset. This means it provides an integrated graphics GPU going by the name of Radeon HD 3300. This comes as a 2 in 1 solution for those that only want to use their PCs for office oriented tasks. Although not the best for gaming, the integrated GPU comes with additional DDR3 RAM memory in order to accelerate graphic processing.



Hardcore overclockers will appreciate the onboard FSB raising switch as well as the Dr.Mos feature. The Dr.Mos feature is MSI's response to competing companies's energy saving solutions. It's meant to regulate and adjust power consumption relative to the PC usage.



Since most overclocking maniacs out there are never satisfied with onboard graphics solutions, this board also supports ATI Crossfire X (should be named AMD Crossfire X) which allows two AMD graphic card to be paired on the same motherboard for more performance.



On the quality side, users don't have to worry about exploding capacitors or high power loss, since MSI only uses solid capacitors and shielded chokes on their motherboards. This will not only keep your system from eating up unnecessary electricity, but will also keep your system safe from crashing.



As far as connectivity goes, you know the drill: 5 SATA II connectors, half a dozen USB 2.0 ports, one IDE connector, audio connectors and everything I forgot to mention but is still there :D.



If you are wondering if this boards is for Intel or AMD processors you should get yourself checked out! Why would AMD (which manufactures the Phenom AM2+ cpu) make a chipset that can be used for an Intel (Core 2) cpu? So in the end it makes sense for the board to only have socket AM2/AM2+ support.



The price tag for the board is about $154.99.