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MSI P35 Diamond Review
[Abstract]
IntroductionThe past few months have certainly been some of the most interesting in the motherboard market (if like us, you happen to think motherboards are an interesting affair that is). Inte...
[Content] PCDigitalMobileGame
Overclocking
- FSB Settings: 200MHz to 800MHz
- DDR3 Settings: Auto, 1:1.2, 1:1.5, 1:1.6, 1:2.0 ratio selection
- PCIe Settings: 100MHz to 200MHz
- PCI Settings: 33.3MHz / 33.6MHz / 37.3MHz / 42MHz
- CPU Voltage Settings: CPU Min to +0.7875V (in 0.0125V steps)
- Memory Voltage Settings: 1.50V to 2.75V (in 0.05V steps)
- NB Voltage Settings: 1.250V to 1.650V (in 0.025V steps)
- SB I/O Voltage Settings: 1.5V to 1.8V (in 0.1V steps)
- SB Core Voltage Settings: 1.05V, 1.15V
- VTT FSB Settings: 1.175V to 1.575V (in 0.025V steps)
- Multiplier Selection: Yes (unlocked CPUs only)
The P35 Diamond has a similar BIOS to the P35 Platinum and other than the difference between DDR2 and DDR3 voltage options, you'll basically see the same selection from MSI. While the overclocking options aren't as detailed as some of the more overclocking oriented competition, the P35 Diamond has sufficient tweaking capabilities. In our actual overclocking tests, the P35 Diamond performed very similarly to the P35 Platinum before. We were able to hit a maximum FSB of 465MHz (470MHz for the P35 Platinum) before the board would become unstable.
During overclocking, we also noticed that the BIOS will automatically increase the minimum chipset voltage to 1.45V up from its default of 1.25V once you hit above 400MHz FSB. After this point, manually setting it lower will result it in resetting to 1.45V, but you can further increase it. Presumably, this is to increase motherboard stability at extreme FSB situations, but too bad it didn't help the board overclock more.
CPU-Z overclocking screenshot. Click for larger image. |
Test Setup
To benchmark the MSI P35 Diamond, we will be using our new 1333MHz platform test bed with an expanded set of test results. To compare its performance, we mixed and matched some of the motherboards we've reviewed before to see how well the Diamond holds up against the competition. The boards included in this review will be the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe (DDR3 only) in the enthusiast segment and the Gigabyte P35C-DS3R for a mainstream hybrid. Although we do not have the MSI P35D3 Platinum to directly compare the two boards at the time of this review, we do have the DDR2 based P35 Platinum on hand. The results from the P35 Platinum should give you a clear distinction between the DDR2 and DDR3 based P35 boards from MSI if you're still on the line on which one to get.
The following test bed configuration will be used for benchmarking throughout this review:-
- Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 processor (3.0GHz, 8MB L2, quad core)
- 2 x 1GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1333 @ 9-9-25 CAS 9.0
- 2 x 1GB Kingston HyperX DDR2-800 @ 4-4-12 CAS 4.0 (MSI P35 Platinum only)
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 200GB SATA hard disk drive (one single NTFS partition)
- MSI GeForce 8600 GT 256MB - with ForceWare 162.18 drivers
- Intel INF 8.3.1.1013 and AHCI 7.5.0.1017 driver set
- Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 (and DirectX 9.0c)
Benchmarks
The following benchmarks will be used when benchmarking the MSI P35 Diamond:-
- BAPco SYSmark 2004
- Futuremark PCMark05
- SPECviewperf 9.0
- Futuremark 3DMark06
- AquaMark3
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