The launch of the newv Intel Sandy Bridge platform has redefined what mainstream and performance computing is all about. Going forward, it is likely that all Intel CPUs will be on this platform for the next year or two and if you want to go the Intel route for the latest chipset, the Sandy Bridge+6 series chipset combination is the way to go.  The X58 and 6-core CPU platform still exists for the high-end market as it has more PCI Express lanes and higher memory bandwidth due to triple memory channels, but the Sandy Bridge+6 series chipset replaces the Clarkdale+P55 chipset and H55 chipsets.

MSI is best known as a Tier-1 Taiwanese motherboard manufacturer which has really focused on their design strengths in recent years. They were the first motherboard company to introduce LucidLogix HydraLogix platform, the first to use Military-Class components in their motherboards and much more. They have a full lineup of motherboards to coincide with the Sandy Bridge launch ranging from a new high-end Big Bang Marshall board to the mainstream H67MS-E43 and P67S-C43 boards that are geared for the lower end of the market. The important thing to realize is that with the launch of their 6 series motherboards they have brought features like Military-Class 2 components to their entire lineup. Today I’m looking at their Performance segment in the form of the P67A-GD65 board.

Features

• Intel LGA-1155 CPU support
• Intel P67 Chipset
• Military Class II components
• Click BIOS
• OC Genie II
• Control Center Instant OC
• Winki3
• THX TruStudio Pro
• DrMOS
• V-Check Points
• AMD CrossfireX
• NVIDIA SLI
• Super-Charger
• Live Update 4
• USB 3.0
• SATA 3.0

 

The MSI P67A-GD65 is based upon Intel’s newest P67 Express chipset that is released to support their newest Sandy Bridge processors. Intel is launching a full line of Core i7/i5/i3 CPUs to meet every market segment for the performance/mainstream and value markets. The P67 is designed for the performance user that wants external graphics instead of the H67 chipset which is designed for the mainstream user that might use the integrated graphics on the Sandy Bridge processors.

One of the big things with the MSI series of boards is that they are stressing Military-Class components and build quality. While some of the other manufacturers have begun using Driver MOSFETs with their 6 series motherboards, MSI has been using DrMOS for at least a couple of years now. Driver MOSFETs combine the Low Side MOSFET, the High Side MOSFET and the Driver chips into one package giving efficient power, lower temperatures and giving a longer life.

With the P67A-GD65 motherboard MSI has introduced Military Class II components. There are three components of the MC II standards SFC, Hi-C Caps and Solid Capacitors. MSI says these components are tested to the standards set forth by the military to give the best build quality, high quality components and more power, higher stability than previously. Highly-Conducive Polymerized Capacitors are a new component that they use around the CPU Socket.

Hi-c CAPs have a Tantalum Core. The Hi-c CAP are low-profile capacitors meaning that the footprint of the Capacitors are lower than regular ones, allowing for more room for CPU cooler installation. They have 8x the lifespan of regular capacitors and have a high thermal stability. MSI introduced Super Ferrite Chokes on their high end motherboards last year. These have 30% higher current capacity, and a 10% power efficiency over regular chokes.

MSI is introducing a new feature to their P67A-GD65 boards in the form of i-charger Snooze Charger and Mobile Charger. As you know USB 3.0 was introduced last year to motherboards from many manufacturers. USB 3.0 has an increased power availability from the 500 micro Amps on 2.0 to 900 micro Amps on the 3.0 standard. Using USB 2.0 to charge your mobile phone can take a while. With USB 3.0 you can charge your mobile phone much faster due to the increased power. You can also charge these devices in Sleep mode.

MSI has always overclocked well with their boards. The P67A-GD65 has easy overclocking options with their 1 second overclocking processor, the OC Genie II with GPU Boost and Super Unlock. Simply install a Intel K series unlocked processor, push the OC Genie button when the system is off and the OC Genie chip will overclock your system automatically in 1 second. You can gain up to 36% increase in performance. P67A-GD65 will overclock the memory and CPU.  MSI’s overclocking utility is called Control Center and you can save and load OC profiles automatically without a system reboot.

Winki III is a small Linux-based Operating System that can be used for booting quickly before Windows loads. You can use it to recover files from your HDD in case Windows won’t start up, Surf the Internet, view photos and much more. It’s not quite the same as having Windows, but it also doesn’t have the bloat of Windows, allowing it to boot in a few seconds. MSI supports THX TruStudio Pro in the P67A-GD65. This accurately reproduces the fullest audio experience of movies, music and game soundtracks on the PC.

 

The Bundle

• MSI P67A-GD65 motherboard
• 3-year warranty
• User’s Guide
• Software User’s Guide
• Quick Installation Guide
• 5 SATA Data Cables
• SATA Power Cable
• Driver DVD
• USB 3.0 Bracket
• SLI bridge
• MSI M-Keys
• I/O Shield

The MSI P67A-GD65 board comes inside a white box. The top left of the front of the box has the MSI logo. Below that is a sticker with the 3 year warranty. MSI offers a full 3-year warranty with their board while others may offer a 2 year warranty. Prominent on the front cover is the MSI Military Class II slogan with the SFC, Hi-c capacitors and Solid capacitors.

The rear of the box has the features of the board explained in detail. Opening the box, we find that MSI has put the accessories, Driver DVD and manuals. MSI has included a user guide for the software included with the board including the Control Center, Winki 3 software and more. MSI includes a USB 3.0 bracket that attaches to the USB 3.0 header on the board and provides two additional external USB 3.0 ports, a SLI bridge and various SATA cables. MSI has included M-Keys which allow the user to install the Power and other cables on the board easier.

 

Layout

 

 

The MSI P67A-GD65 motherboard is a full-sized ATX motherboard meaning it will fit inside any case with an ATX form factor or larger. They have taken to using an all-black PCB which is a cool motherboard color. The upper right hand side of the board has a row of solid capacitors. The 8-pin power connector is below the S/PDIF connectors on the Rear I/O.

MSI is really stressing their high-quality components and the heatsinks above their DrMOS chips is connected by a heatpipe. One of the heatsinks has Military Class II, the other has the OC Genie II logos on it. The CPU area is clear of obstacles. This is helped by the use of low-profile Hi-c CAPs around the CPU area and the use of SFC as well. Below the CPU area are four DIMM sockets for up to 32GB of DDR3-2133MHz memory when overclocked. The Core i7-2500K and 2600K CPUs natively support 1333MHz.

There are a series of LEDs right below the heatsink with the OC Genie II logo. The bottom of the board starts off with connects points for your multimeter You can attach leads to your multimeter and read the voltages right off the board.  To the left of that is where two fan headers are located. Above the voltage connect points are more MOSFETs and SFC.  The 24-pin power connector is almost in the middle of the P67A-GD65 board.

MSI has included eight SATA ports on the board. Two of these are SATA 6 Gb/second ports controlled by the P67 Express PCH. Four are SATA 3 Gb/second ports also controlled by the Intel PCH. The last two ports are SATA 6 Gb/second ports controlled by a Marvell 9128 SATA controller. MSI offers four SATA 6 ports which is impressive. The last items on the bottom of the board are the two Front Panel headers to connect your Power, LED etc.

MSI starts off the left side of the board with OC Genie button. The OC Genie is a hardware IC that controls the overclocking of the board, simply push the button while the board is in off mode and it activates. There is also a Power and Reset button in this location. To the left of that is the COM1 header, the TPM HEADER A USB header and a Firewire header. The next item is a USB 3.0 header for the USB 3.0 bracket.   The SPDIF, the CD-In and the front panel audio headers round out the board.

MSI really put a lot of thought into the expansion on the board. While others may be content to put one or maybe two PCIE x1 slots on the board, MSI put 3 to allow users to install multiple PCIE x1 devices. There are also two PCIE x16 slots. These are spaced apart so you can install cards with up to three space coolers. The P67 Express chipset can do both SLI and CrossfireX. If two cards are installed the PCI Express x16 available on the Sandy Bridge CPUs are split into x8/x8 mode.

Onboard sound is provided by a Realtek ALC892 Sound CODEC. This is one of the latest CODECs from Realtek and supports flexible 8-channel audio with jack sensing and is compliant with the Azalia specification. The back panel has a PS/2 keyboard/mouse port, a Clear CMOS button, a Coaxial S/PDIF-Out, an Optical S/PDIF Out, a Firewire port, 8 USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, two e-SATA ports, one LAN port, and 6 audio ports for the onboard audio.

BIOS

 

 

GIGABYTE uses what they call a Click BIOS based upon the latest EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface). This allows you to use your mouse to navigate the menus and change settings with a click of the mouse button and navigate the menus by moving a mouse. The Main Menu has a submenu on top where you can change the Language and close out of the BIOS.

Below that are five icons: Green Power, Utility, OC, Game, and setting. The Green Power Menu is where you change the CPU Phase control and the Motherboard LED enables/disables the motherboard phase LED lights. Utility has four menus: Memory test, Live Update, HDD Backup and the menu to change the boot screen.

Most of the tweaking is done in the OC submenu. You can modify the CPU Base Frequency in steps of 10 KHz or 0.01MHz at a time. Due to the way Intel has changed the Base Clock, these stepping may make a larger difference than you might think. The multiplier on a Core i7-2600K for example is 34 so each 0.0 1 changes the frequency 0.34MHz. You can also adjust the CPU Ratio and shows the adjusted frequency. You can also change the various memory settings here. I was able to overclock the 2600K to over 4.5GHz on the MSI board.

Performance

Test System

• Intel Core i7-2600K CPU running with both Turbo on and Off
• 4GB DDR3-2133 Kingston KHX2133C9AD8X2K2/4GX memory
• 2 30GB ADATA SSD Drives in RAID 0 Mode
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 reference card running Forceware 263.09 drivers
• ASUS MSI P67A-GD65 motherboard running latest drivers and BIOS
• Intel LGA-1156 CPU Cooler
• ASUS 16x DVD-RW
• Cooler Master UCP-1100W PSU
• Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate

Tests

• 3DMark 11
• 3Dmark Vantage
• PCMark Vantage
• Sisoft Sandra 2011 Processor Arithematic Test
• Cinebench r11.5

Conclusion

 

MSI has spent a lot of time with their new motherboard platform stressing the high quality components they use on the Sandy Bridge platform. Each P67 or H67 motherboard from them will have Military Class II components bringing the Hi-c Caps, Solid Caps and Super Ferrite Chokes to their entire lineup. Most motherboards for the new P67 chipset will have simlar performance scores, but a motherboards feature set is what makes it stand out in the crowd. The GD65 overclocked well with the 1-click overclocking features taking the 2600K to over 4.5GHz. In the end -game, with a ton of great features, good overclocking and an excellent layout the MSI P67A-GD65 is a solid Editors Choice product for the latest Intel CPU lineup.