MSI 760GMA-P34 (FX) motherboard review

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The MSI 760GMA-P34 (FX) is one of MSI’s best value for money offerings in the gaming Motherboard market. It is a desktop motherboard that is offered in the Micro ATX form factor. This makes it quite a lot smaller than a full-sized ATX motherboard but still larger than the even smaller mini ATX form factor. On the downside, this means there are lesser PCIe supported ports to connect peripherals to as well as hard drives and other components.

This motherboard has an AM3+ CPU socket port which means it exclusively supports 64-bit FX, Phenom II, Athlon II and Sempron CPU series offered by AMD. All previous AMD AM3 socket CPUs and chipsets built on AMD’s Bulldozer architecture can be installed easily without any inconvenience. There is no compatibility with Intel chipsets. It is also the last AMD motherboard to offer support for Windows XP installations. It has a minimum power requirement of 300 Watts. The P34 FX supports a CPU with a maximum TDP of 95 Watts.

The MSI 760GMA-P34 (FX) has something that sets it apart from other motherboards in its league. It is built using solid capacitors. This basically means that no liquid element is used in the construction of this motherboard and it will not leak at malfunction. It also offers much better performance than a comparable motherboard built using electronic capacitors. It can easily take more intensive loads and provide constant power even under extreme temperatures.

Ports and connectivity

On the connectivity side of things, the P34 FX supports up to 16 GB of Dual Channel DDR3 memory using its 2 DIMM slots. The RAM can be clocked up to 1866 MHz and it also supports overclocking up to that speed. It offers 1 PCIe x1 interface alongside another PCIe 2.0 x16 interface. There is one standard PCI slot as well for PCI bus interface peripherals. The MSI 760GMA-P34 (FX) houses 6 SATA 2.0 3 Gbps ports as well as 2 SATA 3.0 6 Gbps ports. The SATA 2.0 slots support RAID in RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10 and JBOD configurations.

The motherboard offers the following connectivity options on its internals:

1 ATX 24-pin power connector
1 ATX 4-pin 12 V CPU power connector
1 CPU fan connector 2 x system fan connectors
1 Front panel audio connector
1 Front panel connector
1 Chassis intrusion switch connector
2 USB 2.0 connectors
1 USB 3.0 connectors
6 Serial ATA II connectors
2 Serial ATA III connectors
1 Serial port connector
1 Clear CMOS jumper
1 TPM module connector

MSI 760GMA P34 FX ports and connectivity

Furthermore it also houses two PS/2 ports – one for a keyboard and another for a mouse respectively. There are 4 USB 2.0 ports and 2 USB 3.0 ports to connect USB flash drives and other USB cable accessories. For video connectivity and to connect monitors, the P34 (FX) offers one DVI-D and one D-sub port. Realtek’s RTL8111E PCIe GbLAN controller powers the network connectivity sphere accompanied by a RJ-45 LAN jack commonly used to connect Ethernet cables. A 3-in-1 audio jack – aided with help from Realtek’s integrated ALC887 that offers 7.1 Channel audio and is compatible with Azalia 1.0 spec.

Energy efficiency

When it comes to special features, the MSI 760GMA-P34 (FX) has many a feather in its cap. It features APS (Active Phase Switching) which allows the motherboard to automatically adjust power levels by monitoring the load on the CPU in real-time. When the energy requirement is nil, APS will automatically shutoff all componentry and will turn it back on whenever it is needed again. This helps to lower energy consumption and saves the user money on their power bill.

Moreover, MSI has also offered a Super Charger functionality in this motherboard. This is a Windows software that is capable of controlling the USB ports power output and allows sending more power to it. When a phone or tablet is connected to the PC for charging, the Super Charger’s circuit is initiated allowing the electronic devices to charge quicker.

Processor

The MSI 760GMA-P34 (FX) also has a special Unlock CPU Core technology that really shines with AMD’s Phenom II chipsets. This technology allows you to unlock hidden cores in your processor that are otherwise reserved for multi-threading or system tasks and can help you achieve up to two times better CPU performance. In most cases, these changes can only be made using the BIOS settings on a PC.

However, MSI purposely built a software tool that would allow a user to make these changes right from their Windows home screen.

Another great feature provided by MSI in the P34 FX is the Auto OC (Overclock) Genie. Normally, the settings to overclock or toggle the clock speed of both your CPU and RAM are located in the BIOS settings. MSI does things a bit differently by offering you Auto OC Genie, a software that you can access from your Windows Home Screen and use it to overclock your CPU with 1 click. Auto OC Genie also automatically detects the turbo speed of your CPU and RAM to offer the best balance between performance and reliability.

BIOS

The BIOS on the MSI 760GMA-P34 (FX) has a feature called M-Flash. This is proprietary software offered by MSI that allows you to save your entire BIOS data on a USB flash drive. You can also update your BIOS using M-Flash and can use the USB flash drive to remotely boot up your BIOS in the event of a failure. There is also the option of flashing your own BIOS. M-Flash’s best feature is arguably being very less prone to error since it does not put any load on the BIOS.

Gaming specs

On the gaming side of things – something MSI is very well known for and almost has a cult following – the P34 FX is compatible with many recent GPUs as well. It supports Nvidia’s SLI (Scalable Link Interface) and AMD’s CrossFire technologies both of which allow a user to use multiple graphics card chips on a single desktop. This allows users to be able to achieve much better graphics performance and higher frame rates. Considering all the older GPUs that this board is compatible with, a dual GPU setup might be the best bet for high-end gaming. The P34 FX also offers support for DirectX going up to version 10.0 of DirectX.

Closing remarks

The MSI 760GMA-P34 (FX) has since been outdated due to AMD’s discontinuation of the AM3+ CPU socket in favor of the newer AM4 architecture. MSI still continues selling it however, at a retail price of around $135 and it can be had for under $100 on the second-hand market as well. Considering the price-to-performance ratio of this motherboard, it is a relatively good deal for low to mid-range gaming desktops.