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Review on πŸ”§ MSI B450-A Pro Max ATX Motherboard for AMD Ryzen 2nd and 3rd Gen with M.2, USB 3.0, DDR4, D-Sub, DVI, HDMI, and Crossfire support by Michael Tegan

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Much nicer than I expected.

WIN 7 EDIT: I've seen a lot of misinformation about Win7 support on this board, so let me get that straight. At the time of editing (2/14/21) yes, you can run Win7 on this board. The problem is that the built-in USB chipset is USB3, which Win7 doesn't support natively. HOWEVER, you can inject the drivers into any Win7 installation media using a process called slithering and the DISM tools in Windows. Is it involved? Yes. Does it have to be read? Yes. However, once you finish reading, you can complete the whole process and have your flash drive ready to install in 20-30 minutes. However, MSI added another hurdle to this board: starting with BIOS version 7B86vA8, a curtain to artificially block or block Win7 install attempts if your install either doesn't boot properly or repeats indefinitely. If you have an older or earlier BIOS version, you can install and run Win7 with USB3 support in GPT mode. I've done this a few times myself, I've worked with all three major versions of Windows on this board and they all work. On sale for $75, I'm surprised to see that it's actually legal. It supports a large amount of RAM in terms of size and voltage, supports full CPU and RAM overclocking, and is incredibly durable. The main power connectors on the board are exceptionally rigid, as evidenced by the fact that my standard cables that came with the power supply didn't bend the damn thing or almost broke it before I realized it. The connection is intact, the board still works properly, and I have yet to test the EVGA power supply in question. It supports many formats and extension types including NVMe. I liked this deal because it proves something I had previously argued with a friend about: if you don't care about the cutting edge of fashion and don't want a modernist horsehead spewing out RGB rays in your case, then who dares , take a look You can get good devices at a really good price. Now to the Gigabyte board I bought.

Pros
  • Absolutely amazing!
Cons
  • Not bad, but...