MSI 880GMA-E45

MSI 880GMA-E45 review

Are you ever likely to run two AMD video cards in multi- GPU CrossFire mode or use a second graphics card as a physics or GPGPU accelerator? The honest answer is: it's unlikely. What you probably don't need, in other words, is a full sized ATX mobo with a silly number of PCI-e slots. A micro-ATX board with a single graphics slot and some enthusiast-friendly features will get the job done just fine. Enter, MSI's 880GMA-E45. Powered by AMD's middling 880G chipset, it's bang up to date and offers enough power features to keep most enthusiasts happy. And all in an extremely compact and reasonably cost effective package. Bandwidth wise, there's bags thanks to MSI's decision to go with the more powerful SB850 southbridge and its six port's worth of SATA 6Gbps. Next up is Gigabit Ethernet, a couple of USB 3.0 sockets and official support for DDR3 memory up to 1,333MHz. This board may be a bit puny. But when it comes to lugging data around, it's well equipped for heavy lifting. Like most current AM3 boards, it's ready to roll with AMD's latest six-core chips, too. Overclockers will also appreciate MSI's so-called "Military Class" components, including solid core aluminium capacitors.