AMD's FX 970 chipset hasn't gotten much attention lately, but with the recent price drop on the AMD FX-9590, plenty of system builders will be interested in the new MSI 970 Gaming motherboard ($99.99), which offers support for the chipset with an attractive sub-$100 price. Plus, the 970 Gaming($125.00 at Amazon) doesn't look cheap, and neither does the feature set.

The black and red motherboard is outfitted with an AM3+ socket, four DDR3-2133 DIMM Slots for up to 32GB of RAM, and six SATA3 ports. You get two PCI slots, two PCI Express (PCIe) x1 slots, and two PCIe x16 slots. Unlike most inexpensive motherboard designs, the layout of the PCI slots is such that you can use at least five of the six at a time, even running two GPUs. However, the AMD 970 chipset has only 22 PCIe lanes to work with, so a dual GPU setup will be limited, both cards will run only at x8 speeds.

The board's port selection is a mixed bag as well. On the rear I/O board, you'll find eight USB 2.0 ports, a PS/2 port, two USB 3.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet jack, and the usual analog and optical audio jacks. The Ethernet port is red, indicating that it uses a supporting Qualcomm Killer E2200 chip. Killer Networking is optimized for the higher demands of online gaming, optimizing to reduce lag and prioritize gaming traffic for better performance. Two of the USB 2.0 ports are also colored red, highlighting them as dedicated gaming ports; Asus claims these ports offer better performance and are better equipped to deal with wear and tear, but those sorts of claims are hard to verify.

If you're looking for a motherboard to use a base for building a project from scratch, the MSI 970 Gaming might not be the best choice as there are other affordable boards available that support more current chipsets, like the AMD 990FX. That said, if you need a board that supports the newly-affordable AMD FX 9590, and have some RAM and cooling hardware already, the MSI 970 Gaming keeps everything very affordable, while offering all the support you need.

For more details, check out the MSI 970 Gaming review on our sister site, Computer Shopper.

Best Processor Picks

• The Best CPUs for 2020
• How to Build a Maxed-Out Intel Coffee Lake Gaming Rig
• More Processor Reviews
• More from MSI

Further Reading

• Intel's 'Comet Lake-S' Desktop CPUs Offer Up to 10 Cores of Computing Muscle
• 5 Ways AMD Is Beating Intel in Desktop CPUs
• AMD Launches Its 'Fastest Ever' Ryzen 3 Desktop Processors
• Intel's 10th Generation H-Series Core CPUs, 'Comet Lake-H,' Arrive in Laptops This Month
• Testing 'Renoir': AMD's Mobile Ryzen 9 CPU Shows Major Muscle for Laptops