Its actually not a budget motherboard but a great bang for the buck motherboard less than 10k considering the solid caps and MSIs Platinum series.
quad xfire capable
can go for
2 - x16 PCIE crossfire setup or a
4 - x8 Crossfire X glory.
790FX chipset
complete K9A2 Spec:
K9A2 Platinum spec.
• AMD 790FX chipset based
• Supports AMD Socket AM2+/AM2 Phenom, Athlon and Sempron processors
• 2 PCI-E x16 slots for full x16 speed CrossFire support
• 2 extra PCI-E x16 slot design for Quad VGA with x8 x8 x8 x8 speed
• 4 dual channel DIMMs DDRII 533/667/800/1066 up to 8GB
• 10/100/1000 LAN port
• 7.1 channel surround Audio
• Supports 6 SATAII, SATA 1~6 supports RAID 0/1/0+1,5
• Extra SATA hardware RAID with SAS ready port
• 2 PCI-E x16, 2PCI-E x8, 1 PCI-E x1, 2 PCI slots
• 10x USB 2.0, 2x IEEE1394
• Dual CoreCell technology with D.O.T. Express
• Copper Pipeline Heatsink design
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?f...sc&news_no=553
Manila price for this mobo is 8.2k
Phenom 9500 quadcore - 12k
One of the best setups In my opinion.