It’s been a year since Bloomfield (aka Nehalem) and Core i7 rocked the professional world with its unrivaled processing power. And, while it’s the best choice for data intensive tasks, it’s not the most affordable solution around for those who don’t need it. Fortunately, Core i5/i7 Lynnfield remedies this in more ways than one.
As you know, the Lynnfield LGA 1156 processor is supported by the P55 Chipset which may be second fiddle to the X58, but has clearly shown in our testing that it is no slacker. It’s also substantially cheaper than its older brother which means that you’ll have more cash to spend on a processors as well as something like the MSI P55-GD65 Motherboard on the test bench today. Does the dark and mysterious MSI work for this platform? Let’s find out!
Features and Specifications
The launch of the P55 Chipset and the new motherboard designs have opened up possibilities for more useful features. Aside from the basics like SATAII, full x16 PCIE SLI/CrossfireX support, 8 Channel HD audio, eSATA, GIGABIT LAN,and DDR3 compatibility up to 2000 MHz, MSI’s number two P55 solution offers some improvements to existing and new features.
You’ll find that the board is supported by MSI’s Xtreme Speed overclocking technology. It is supported by a trio of different features called OC Genie (world’s first auto overclocking processor button), SuperPipe (8mm heat pipe for better cooling), and DrMOS which is essentially the name given to the 1000 kHz MOSFETs that provide 400% faster power management and Active Phase Switching. This should theoretically help prevent voltage drooping which benefits the processor most when pushed to the limit.
For more specifications and other good reading, you can check out the MSI P55-GD65 product page. All other hands, report to the rest of this article for some real world observations.
Lots to See in the Box
Well, we can say that this is probably the flashiest MSI motherboard bundle that we’ve seen to date. MSI included plenty of product documentation that explains every feature and spec right down to the programs on the CDs. Typically, most manufacturers just stick you with a disk and let you figure it out. By explaining what the software does, people might actually use it and get some benefit from it.
The CDs contain a few other things like all the software drivers needed to get the system up and running, which includes any Windows 7 drivers. This is important since P55 has been specially tuned for Windows 7. Sure it’s a little early since Windows 7 doesn’t officially launch till October 22nd, 2009, but it’s nice to see motherboard vendors on the ball so soon. This will prevent any repeat “VISTA” nonsense when non one was ready.
A couple of other useful software items on the discs are Norton Anti-Virus Security, HDDBackup handy for recovering from bugs, and Winki 2.0. While the first two are self explanatory, Winki 2.0 is a free Linux based OS included to make using your system simpler. It includes programs called Web Browser, Free Phone Call, Instant Messaging, and Photo View.
That pretty much sums up what you’d use the PC for other than games which you’ll have to include yourself. Since this board does tout overclocking, it would be more appropriate to see bundled benchmarks like 3DMark Vantage or SiSoft Sandra.
The Dark and Mysterious P55-GD65
Let me just say that at first glance, I found the P55-GD65 to be one sexy looking ATX board.The color scheme sticks with matched blues, black sockets, and a really dark brown PCB that appears more black to the naked eye. Even the heat pipes and heat sinks follow suit fabricated with gun metal gray aluminum. Overall, it’s a really nice theme and it’s always nice to see vendors get rid of “old n busted” for the “new hotness”.
MSI labels the 8mm heat pipe sinks with DrMOS that cover the MOSFETs responsible for powering the processor. In reality, it isn’t the heatsink that is called DrMos, but rather the “Driver MOSFETS” below them.
MSI has invested a ton of money into these little components that combine three PWM components into one (two MOSFETs and an IC). By combining these components into one part, there are fewer parts used which produces less heat than competing designs. Normally, these components would heat up quite a bit, especially when overclocking. However, with DrMOS in the house, the heatsink is really more for show than anything else.
Since, the Lynnfield and P55 Chipsets return to using Dual Channel DDR3 memory, you’ll only need 4 DIMM slots. These slots can handle memory modules rated from 1333 MHz up to 2000 MHz. Don’t be surprised if you find that the system can reach upwards of 2400 MHz assuming that the memory in use can handle it.
Overall, the general motherboard layout is pretty simple. Any expansion ports like USB 2.0, Firewire, SATAII, ATA/IDE, FDD, and Audio, are located on the edges of the motherboard. Both the ATA and SATA drive ports are horizontal, pointing cables away from the board and will aid in tidying. This should also help keep things nice and manageable. Speaking of Input/Output devices, there are plenty of expansion possibilities.
Along with the standardized Realtek 889 7.1 Channel ports, there’s probably more than enough connectivity for any PC enthusiast. If you haven’t dropped your USB storage drives, you’ll find the External SATA to be a much faster solution. And if that’s not enough, you can use one of the Dual GIGABIT Ethernet ports to squeeze every last bit of performance from your favourite NAS or server.
It’s nice to see some quality made buttons as well as capacitors and sockets in use near the bottom of the motherboard. The buttons are much nicer than those cheap tiny things that were used back on the old school 680-SLI motherboards. Somehow they made it onto some X58 boards too. There is also a lot more real estate that can be used for other things, like Oygen CMedia or Creative X-Fi Codecs thanks to the lack of chips needed for a P55 solution.
MSI’s OC GENIE (bottom) is the newest innovation that puts DrMOS to work. The concept is super simple.
First, you press the OC button which activates the GENIE (rubbing the motherboard not recommended). Then you use the Plus and Minus buttons to slowly increase the CPU’s Bus Clock by 1 MHz increments. That may seem like the slowest way to reach your goal overclock, but it can help by incrementally tuning the system for that insane maximum overclock you’re wanting. Patience is a virtue when it comes to seeking the ultimate overclock and we’ll go into this more in the coming paragraphs. But first, let’s setup a system and do some benchmarks.
Installation and Test System Notes
When I tell you that installation was uneventful, it’s a good thing!
With a little patience and occasional browsing of the user’s manual, anyone can install the MSI P55-GD65 Motherboard. Even though we’re working with Windows 7 RC builds around here, the system was up and running quickly thanks to the usable drivers on the included discs.
Here’s what we came up for a test system today:
Since Windows 7 is still fairly new, there aren’t a lot of driver options to choose from out there. However, we did seek out the latest BIOS, motherboard .INF, and video card drivers as available at the time of this writing. The default video card driver settings were used throughout testing.
Over our previous Lynnfield review, we are using some more comprehensive benchmarks to suss out any weaknesses in our test platform. Test suite selections included SiSOFT SANDRA, Cinebench R10, PCMark Vantage, 3DMark Vantage, Crysis, and RightMark Audio. These benchmarks should cover overall system performance from the smallest to the large component. This should help point out the strongest and weakest links in any system.
Synthetic Benchmarks
SANDRA provides a large array of benchmarks especially in regards to the CPU and Memory Bandwith since all the Core i5 and i7 Processors have integrated memory controllers. The MSI P55-GD65 will be pitted against the reference Intel platform.
SANDRA CPU Benchmark
It’s not uncommon to see Intel’s motherboards lead this benchmark. Sometimes, they really leave the competition in the dust. Here, we can see that both systems prove very capable at processing numbers.
SANDRA Memory Bandwidth
Think of your system’s memory bandwidth as a river carrying your processor. The faster it goes, the more data that can be processed by the CPU. These P55 systems can haul butt in this respect churning out 19 GB/s a second. With the CPU pushing 4 GHz and memory at 2 GHz, memory bandwidth tops 26 GB/s (graph not shown).
Cinebench R10
Here, you get another look at the system’s rendering capabilities. If the system were weak in any respect, you’d see much lower numbers as rendering taxes both CPU and Memory alike.
PCMark Vantage
PCMark Vantage more fully measures your system’s overall capabilities. 3DMark Vantage just happens to be useful for measuring overall graphic and processor performance. You can download either if you’d like to see how your own system’s performance stacks up to ours.
The scores are pretty close overall with a couple varying in favor of the competitor. Intel boards always seem well tuned for productivity when it comes to the Futuremark benchmark software.
Graphics Benchmarks
We already know that the Core i5/i7 series systems can run pretty much every game on the planet with a decent video card. So, rather than throw multiple 3D based benchmarks at you which would show little to know variance, we’re summing it up with a run of Crysis and 3DMark Vantage which anyone can download for their own comparison.
3DMark Vantage
The overall Vantage score was just over 21,000 points using the Performance settings. That’s a pretty sweet score none the less. As you can see, the differences between the two platforms are statistically insignificant.
Crysis
Sure, there’s plenty of frames here thanks to the Zotac GTX295 on both platforms. However, the game is still super intensive which makes the card’s fans spin up right away. Again, we get scores that are nearly identical which isn’t surprising considering that they both use the same chipsets.
Motherboard Operations
Far too often, benchmarks miss the only things that differ between different motherboards: the connectivity options. Boards can use a different array of chipsets for any of these functions so we’ve decided to benchmark them including USB, SATA, and Audio. If there is anything different in terms of performance it would be because of the difference in these areas.
Connectivity
Obviously, there isn’t a whole lot to comment on other than to say that the MSI P55-GD65 is operating well within specs. It’s nice to see more SSDs around now to help boost system performance. As you can see, both boards pass muster and we can pretty much call it a tie.
Audio Testing
Using RightMark Audio (RMAA) we discovered some audio performance issues within the MSI motherboard which uses the ALC889 Codec versus the Intel’s ALC889A Codec. The first symptom revealed itself in the form of low quality audio playback requiring much lower audio settings to complete the tests.
Here, the screen shot tells the differences between the ALC889 and ALC889A Codecs. Note the Frequency Response and Intermodulation Distortion + Noise results. Sometimes, these issues reveal themselves in the form of faulty drivers. We did our due diligence and tried a couple different drivers were tried in both Windows 7 and Vista 64-Bit settings. There is clearly something weak about the audio.
Having been a DJ and serious gamer once upon a time, my ears were employed for a final test. Gaming and BluRay movies seemed to be just fine in its most basic form but don’t expect deep rich audio during those earth shattering explosions. After literally listening to 10 different genres of music, I found the audio to be a little flat and as the volume increased, the MSI just wasn’t as clean or loud as the Intel’s ALC889A Codec.
Overclocking the GENIE
Rather than rubbing the motherboard like Alladin, a simple press of the button activates the GENIE. You’ll find the GENIE pretty helpful and super accurate while in Windows. The GENIE was a bit more successful up to the 200 MHz Bus Clock level, while the Intel software wasn’t quite as aggressive. That’s most likely due to OS limitations and wasn’t a surprise given that you’re overclocking while in Windows. The GENIE works!
Going through the BIOS, the system maxed out at 205 MHz Bus Clock. The system ran perfectly stable at 4.2 GHz using OCCT test over a few hours using their Linnpack test. I’d say that’s a very respectable motherboard overclock and great news for those of you thinking about buying a Core i5 750 and pushing it. Obviously, the MSI’s P55-GD80 flagship motherboard will offer a higher overclock if 4.2 GHz isn’t enough. Nonetheless, its number one cousin here does a pretty great job.
Final Thoughts
As you can see in the benchmarks, the MSI P55-GD55 compares favourable to our reference INTEL P55 platform. Both overclock well with the MSI P55-GD65 clocking in at about 5 MHz Bus Clock more than the Intel DP55KG reference board. If it were a solid 10 MHz, it would be something worth throwing confetti in to the air, but free performance is free performance.
The OC GENIE proves to quite handy and innovative. A simple press of the button and it’s engaged, so to speak. It comes close to matching the manual route through the BIOS. If you’re going for some maximum overclocking, you’ll still find the BIOS easier especially since you can manipulate power options more readily.
Audio is this board’s major downfall and you will find it lacking if you’re an intense gamer that enjoys those massive action scenes with brilliant audio. This is especially true for users with better than average audio perception. Rich audio playback and a high level of clarity are not on the table for the MSI P55-GD65. The integrated ALC889 CODEC isn’t going to give you anything close to discrete audio and fails against our Intel reference board’s Realtek ALC889A solution. There is an opportunity for MSI to close the gap here.
If you’re been saving for an X58 motherboard, then stop. The MSI P55-GD65 will run you $159.99 at your local Fry’s Electronics and Newegg leaving you extra money to play with. You may want to spend that on a shiny new sound card if you go with this board.
Overall, I still think the MSI P55-GD65 is a proven and enticing option. I have no reservations recommending this platform for the gamer or budget overclocker.
Pros
- Full color, informative bundle
- Overclocks any Lynnfield to 4.0+ GHz
- 200 MHz Bus Clock support
- Onboard OC GENIE works well for OC noobs
- Sexy dark and mysterious theme
- Bundle includes front panel header connectors
Cons
- Weak integrated audio performance
- Appreciate the bundle, but we’d rather have a game (or benchmarks).
Overall Rating: 8.5 / 10.0
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