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MSI P35 Platinum Review
[Abstract]
IntroductionMSI is one of the top tier motherboard manufacturers in the consumer PC industry, but there is no mistaking 2006 as the year that ASUS and Gigabyte took most of the limelight. Gigab...
[Content] PCDigitalMobileGame
Introduction
MSI is one of the top tier motherboard manufacturers in the consumer PC industry, but there is no mistaking 2006 as the year that ASUS and Gigabyte took most of the limelight. Gigabyte's marketing machine pushed the whole solid capacitor design into high gear while ASUS flooded the market with specialized target focus motherboard models such as the TeleSky and Republic of Gamers. Both manufacturers also drew a lot of attention with an announced alliance (which didn't last), but most importantly, they made exciting motherboards that kept the market fresh. MSI on the other hand, was focusing more on their graphics card business.
The MSI P35 Platinum motherboard. |
With the launch of Intel's new Bearlake chipset family however, MSI has gone all serious about their next generation motherboards and as we've seen in our P35 preview, they do have some interesting designs on hand. Since we've already shown you all the juicy details of the MSI P35 Platinum in the said preview (which you can view here if you've not done so yet), we'll go right into what we think of the motherboard and of course, glorious benchmarks. First off, here's the full technical specifications of the MSI P35 Platinum:
MSI P35 Platinum
| CPU Support | - Supportsall 90nm/65nm Intel LGA775processors
- 45nm ready (Wolfdale & Yorkfield)
- Quad-CoreOptimized
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| Chipset | - Northbridge:Intel P35
- 533 / 800 /1066 / 1333MHz front side bus
- PCI Express x16 forgraphics
- Southbridge:IntelICH9R
- Intel HighDefinition Audio
- Supports six PCIExpress x1 lanes
- Supports up to twelve USB 2.0ports
- Supports six SATA 3.0Gbps ports (with Matrix StorageTechnology)
- Integrated 10/100/1000Mbps MAC
| | Memory | - Supports fourunbuffered DIMM of 1.8 Volt DDR2 SDRAM
- Supports1066/800/677/533dual channel DDR2 memoryarchitecture
| | Storage | - Intel ICH9RSouthbridge
- 6 x SATA 3.0Gbpsinterface
- Intel MatrixStorage Technology
- Supports RAID 0,RAID 1, RAID 0+1, RAID 5, RAID 10
- Marvell88SE6111
- 1 x UltraATA33/66/100/133 (data transfer rate up to133MB/sec.)
- 1 x SATA 3.0Gbps interface
| | Audio | - Intel High DefinitionAudio (Azalia)
- Realtek ALC888T HDAudio CODEC
- Optical S/PDIF
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| Networking | - Marvell88E8111B Gigabit Ethernet PHY
| | IEEE 1394 (FireWire) | - VIA VT6308P FireWire controller
- 2 x 1394aports @ 400Mbps speed
| | I/O Interface | - 1x Floppy connector
- 1 x Ultra ATAIDE connectors
- 7 x SATAconnectors (5 x internal, 2 x eSATA)
- 12 x USB 2.0ports (6 x rear, 6 x header)
- 2 x IEEE1394a ports (1 x rear, 1 x header)
- 1 xRJ45 LANport
- 1 x Optical S/PDIFOutput
- 8-Channel Audio I/Oports
- 1 x COM port (header)
- 1 xmini-DIN-6 PS/2mouse port
- 1 x mini-DIN-6 PS/2keyboard port
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| Expansion Slots | - 2 xPCIe x16slots,PCI Express Bus specification v2.0compliant
- 2 x PCIe x1slots, PCIExpress Bus specification v2.0compliant
- 2 x 32-bitPCI slots,PCI 2.3 compliant
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| Special Features | - MSICircu-Pipe
- All Solid Capacitors
- MSI D.O.T. Control
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| PCB | - ATX Form Factor, 12"x9.6"(30.5cm x 24.4cm)
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Mostly normal rear I/O panel other than the huge and chunky USB hub stuck on the top. Besides this, notice that the board also has two dedicated eSATA ports out back. |
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