Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Review: MSI B75MA-E33 and MSI DVD-RW

I hadn't used an MSI motherboard before, so I thought I'd give one a go. They apparently have a relatively high fault rate compared to competitors, so I don't see them recommended as often.

The B75MA-E33 is a budget board, I guess targeted at low cost builds. It was the cheapest B75 chipset board at my local parts store.

The PCB wasn't too thin or flimsy, no more so than other B75 boards I've used anyway. I paired it with a G1610 CPU, and it booted up first time with no problems. All ports were functional, so no issues at all. Didn't spend long in the BIOS, seemed okay, but the case didn't have a fan that could be controlled by the motherboard, so didn't get to really test any of their fan control features. I had to pop open the manual to find the placement of the case power, reset and LED pins, since there was no indication printed on the board itself.

It only has D-Sub and HDMI ports for onboard graphics, but if you've got a HDMI monitor it seems like a fairly solid budget board.

MSI DVD-RW

In the same build I grabbed an MSI DVD drive as well, again the cheapest on offer at $16.

It came in a box (unusual these days) with a set of screws and a replaceable faceplate for people with white cases -- cute.

I was pleasantly surprised with the noise, no louder than any other drive. About the only limitation is the white text on the faceplate, unlike, say, the Pioneer DVD drives, which is in black so it's not as obvious.

But overall another decent budget option.

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