MSI P35 Neo and MSI P35 Neo Combo - Motherboards Based on Intel P35 Chipset

• Chipset Intel P35 (P35 northbridge and ICH9 southbridge (ICH9R can be used))

MSI P35 Neo Combo

When boards based on new chipsets are released, the greatest interest of the reading public is caused not so much by the features of specific models as by the general trends that manifest themselves in the new generation. This is understandable: it's hard to study reviews of all boards in a row, but it's necessary to get an impression of how interesting new products are and deserve a timely (or even immediate) purchase. Well, anticipating these first reviews, we can note a few differences. The main thing we would call the P35/G33's significantly reduced heat dissipation, which leads to a very comfortable thermal regime while maintaining the old chipset heatsinks (this issue is discussed in more detail in the review of the new chipset line). Of course, some new products will have slots for DDR3 memory, but this change is quite obvious and expected. As for the rest, these are the same Intel chipsets (you can simply install a new board instead of the i915-based model, and Windows XP will boot without problems), we didn't find any unpleasant or unexpected moments.

Speaking now about specific boards, it is clear that we chose the combo model from MSI provided to us first for consideration. Generally speaking, boards with support for two types of memory at once seem to us an unnecessary thing in everyday life, and if you have no purely research interest, we cannot recommend such a purchase. (Let's leave the ideas of a "staged upgrade" to the conscience of forum dreamers, since DDR2 and DDR3 modules will not work at the same time.) However, MSI offers two almost identical mid-range models, differing only in DDR3 support for one of them, so we, in fact, In fact, today we will consider two boards at once.

The appearance of the board is quite familiar, only the memory slots attract attention. Firstly, because two of them are designed to install DDR3 modules and have a different location of the key in the slot. Secondly, their unusual mutual arrangement attracts attention: pairs of slots are shifted relative to each other, and in the second pair - the slots themselves (literally by half a contact, which suggests that the reason for this decision is the desire to more conveniently spread a wide loop of tracks across the board ). As for the general ease of wiring, there are no serious complaints about the board, except that the only IDE connector should be placed elsewhere, since in this design option access to it will be blocked by a cable from the power connector. Among the shortcomings, not the wiring, but the design, we note the presence of only two PCI slots (with three PCIEx1) - it is possible, however, that this should already be taken as the norm, since the range of expansion cards with the PCI Express interface is constantly expanding and even includes modern sound cards from Creative. (However, on the basis of the P35 it will soon be possible to find more unusual models - for example, without IDE support.)

There are 2 SATA connectors wired, but not soldered, on the PCB of our copy of the board (they are used in the version of the board with the ICH9R south bridge). In addition to the two models reviewed today, MSI is releasing another exactly the same one based on the G33 (G33 Neo with support for DDR2 only), as well as a number of boards on the P35 and G33 in the Platinum and Diamond series - these are based on a different PCB design (in particular, providing two PCIEx16 slot for CrossFire graphics) and use a complex heatpipe design to cool the chipset and FETs. It's interesting that another motherboard, P35 Neo2, is also based on the PCB design of the Platinum models. Access to the only available jumper (clear CMOS) is a bit difficult due to its proximity to the expansion slots, its functionality is described on the textolite. The board size is 305x225 mm (slightly narrower ATX), fastened to the case with six screws, the near edge of the board sags and causes some inconvenience when using the connectors located on it.

The three-channel switching processor voltage regulator uses 4 field-effect transistors per channel, which is quite enough to not worry about overheating of these transistors even despite the absence of additional cooling with radiators. In addition, in the new line of boards, MSI uses ferrite cores instead of iron cores, which has a beneficial effect on power consumption. The set of capacitors in the key power circuits can be assessed as good, although not the best (when, as in the top boards of most major manufacturers, only polymer capacitors are used on the entire board): 8 polymer capacitors of 680 uF each (from an unknown manufacturer) are used for the processor, 4 at 1000 uF and 1 at 3300 uF from United Chemi-Con, and the memory voltage regulator (enhanced with the use of inductive elements) includes 10 capacitors at 1000 uF from United Chemi-Con.

System monitoring (Fintek F71882FG, according to BIOS Setup)

• Processor voltage, +3.3, +5 and +12 V, +5 V Standby;
• Speed ​​of 3 fans;
• Temperature of the processor (by the built-in sensor of the processor) and the board (by the built-in sensor of the board);
• The technology of automatic regulation of the CPU fan rotation depending on the temperature (the temperature limit and the cooler rotation speed are set if this limit is not exceeded).

Ports, connectors and connectors on the board surface

• Processor socket (Socket 775, all modern Core 2, Pentium Dual Core and Celeron processors (with Core microarchitecture) are declared to be supported for this socket, including the latest processors with a FSB frequency of 1333 MHz; of models with Netburst microarchitecture, only those with a bus frequency of 800 MHz and above);
• 2 x DDR2 SDRAM DIMM slots (up to 4 GB DDR2-533/667/800; supports dual-channel operation when both channels are full) and 2 x DDR3 SDRAM DIMM slots (up to 4 GB DDR3-800/1066; supports dual-channel operation when filling the slots of both channels); simultaneous operation of DDR2 and DDR3 is not possible; later, a list of certified modules should appear on the site;
• PCIEx16 slot for video accelerators;
• 3 PCIEx1 slots;
• 2 PCI slots;
• Power connectors: standard ATX 2.2 (24 pins, you can connect a regular 20-pin connector, but it is not recommended to use powerful video accelerators that do not have their own power connector) and 4-pin ATX12V to power the processor;
• FDD connector;
• IDE (Parallel ATA) connector, powered by an additional Marvell controller, for 2 ATA133 devices;
• 5 SATA-II (Serial ATA II) connectors for 5 SATA300 devices, 1 of which is powered by an additional Marvell controller and 4 "chipset" drives connected to the latter can be combined into a RAID array of levels 0, 1, 0 + 1, 5 and Matrix RAID if ICH9R chipset is used on the southbridge board;
• 4 connectors for brackets for 8 additional USB ports;
• Bracket connector for 1 additional FireWire port;
• Connector for audio signal output from CD/DVD drive;
• Block of connectors for connecting analog inputs and audio outputs on the front panel of the computer;
• Connector for digital audio output S/PDIF-Out on the bracket;
• Undocumented SPI connector;
• Connector for the chassis intrusion sensor (Chassis Intrusion);
• 3 connectors for connecting fans (all with the ability to control the number of revolutions), 4-pin CPU has the function of automatic speed control.

The back panel of the board (from left to right, block by block)

• PS / 2 connectors for connecting a mouse and keyboard;
• 1 LPT and 1 COM port;
• 2 USB ports and 1 FireWire;
• 2 USB ports and 1 RJ-45 (Gigabit Ethernet);
• 6 analog audio connectors (Line-In, Front, Mic-In, Rear, Center/Sub, Side).

The free space next to the COM port is obviously reserved for the video output (D-Sub) on the G33 Neo Combo board with integrated graphics.

Contents of delivery

By the release of boards based on new chipsets, MSI has updated the design of the box, making it quite spectacular. (In this case, we provide a photo of the P35 Neo box.) We describe the package with reference to MSI data, since our pre-production samples were incomplete. It seems that this is the first time that the box (in the standard package) does not have a cable for connecting a floppy drive.

• Packing: regular size box;
• Documentation: user manual in English;
• Cables: 1 SATA (with power adapter for one device) and 1 ATA66;
• Bracket on the back of the computer with 2 additional USB connectors;
• Bracket on the back of the computer with an additional FireWire connector;
• A plug on the back panel of the board for the output of the corresponding connectors;
• CDs with the necessary drivers and proprietary utilities, including Dual Core Center and DOT Express (for monitoring, controlling the speed of coolers, overclocking, etc.) and Live Update (for searching and updating drivers, utilities and BIOS firmware via the Internet).

Integrated controllers

• Audio, based on a 10-channel (7.1+2) HDA codec Realtek ALC888, with the ability to connect 7.1 audio systems, a connector for connecting front audio inputs/outputs and a connector for connecting an optical S/PDIF-Out output;
• Network, with support for speeds of 10/100/1000 Mbps (Gigabit Ethernet), based on the Realtek RTL8111B chip (PCIEx1 interface);
• IDE/SATA-II, based on Marvell 88SE6111 chip, supporting 2 devices on ATA133 channel and 1 SATA300 device (PCIEx1 interface);
• FireWire, based on the VIA 6308P chip, supporting 2 ports.

We evaluated the quality of the integrated audio solution in 16-bit, 44 kHz mode using the RightMark Audio Analyzer 5.5 test program and the Terratec DMX 6fire sound card:

Overall rating: Very good(). In this case, a high-quality, but “simple” 10-channel ALC888 audio codec was used, which does not have “additional” functions of interest to a home user (such as a set of DTS technologies implemented in drivers and on-the-fly coding of an audio stream in AC-3 for output via an S / interface PDF). But the quality of the analog output is at a very good level, corresponds to the best representatives of the integrated sound.

It is curious that since the release of the Intel 965 chipsets, almost all motherboard manufacturers have unanimously begun to use JMicron controllers to implement (now missing in the chipset) support for IDE (PATA) devices. MSI is one of the few companies that is not satisfied with standard solutions like JMB363 and JMB361 (which do have some drawbacks) and is constantly looking for alternatives. In the case of P35 and G33 boards, MSI uses Marvell's solution, and we must say that the first acquaintance made a favorable impression on us: the board booted easily from an IDE CD drive, allowed installing the OS from CD / DVD, did not require updating specific managers for working with disk images and drivers in Windows XP. However, only after some time, having collected statistics from different users, it will be possible to conclude that there are or are no problems with the implementation from Marvell. Well, for those who do not want to wait or take risks, we strongly recommend purchasing a drive with a SATA interface.

Settings

With jumpers and switches	Jumper to clear CMOS contents
From BIOS based on version 2.61 from AMI	Ability to disable specific processor functions	+	Hyper-Threading, Execute Disable Bit, Enhanced SpeedStep, Virtualization Technology
	Memory timing settings	+	By SPD, CAS# Latency, RAS# to CAS# Delay, RAS# Precharge, RAS# Activate to Precharge, tRFC, tWR, tWTR, tRRD, tRTP
	Memory frequency selection	+	Auto or set a multiplier relative to the FSB frequency: 1:1, 1:1.2, 1:1.25, 1:1.5, 1:1.67, 1:2
	Ability to set the frequency for peripheral buses	+	PCI-E: 100-200 MHz in 1 MHz increments
	Manual allocation of interrupts to slots	+
	Changing the FSB frequency	+	from nominal to 500 MHz in 1 MHz steps; there is a function of dynamic overclocking of the processor
	Changing the processor multiplier	+
	Changing the processor core voltage	+	up to +0.7875 V in steps of 0.0125 V
	Memory voltage change	+	1.80-3.30V in 0.05V steps to 2.1V and 0.1V steps above
	Chipset voltage change	+	1.25-1.65V in 0.05V steps for northbridge; 1.05 and 1.15 V for the south bridge; 1.5-1.8V in 0.1V steps for southbridge I/O
	FSB voltage change	+	1.2-1.6V in 0.1V steps

We used BIOS version 1.0B10 (one of the beta versions of the first firmware), as the latest available at the time of testing. The listed BIOS features are available in the specified firmware, the performance of non-standard settings has not been tested. The board allows you to call up a menu to select a boot device by pressing a certain key during the POST procedure, which makes it possible to conveniently perform a one-time boot, for example, from a CD drive, without making appropriate changes in BIOS Setup.

It should be noted that during testing we used one of the early beta versions of the BIOS, which did not even provide for the implementation of DDR3 memory features (which we will discuss below). In this regard, it is worth considering all data on the ranges of permissible voltages and frequencies, etc. as preliminary, and before buying it is advisable to check them with the owners of the board in Internet conferences if this issue is important to you.

MSI P35 Neo

So, as we have already said, the MSI P35 Neo version with DDR2 support only functionally and externally fully corresponds to the combo model (with a clear exception in the issue of DDR3 support). It's curious that this board also has memory slots arranged in more than one column, but, however, here their arrangement is less exotic - "only" a pair of slots are shifted relative to each other. Another interesting detail is the size of the board: it is 305x220mm, i.e. 5mm at same as the combo board, and without any visible changes in the wiring.

Obviously, everything said above about the MSI P35 Neo Combo fully applies to this model; even the variations of these boards that came to us for testing were the same: with the ICH9 south bridge (ICH9R is possible) and with the FireWire controller (it may be absent). As for the BIOS firmware, they were also the same for these boards (at the time of our testing), so we have nothing to add on this point. Thus, we will consider the question of the performance of MSI P35 Neo boards in one section, and then we will sum up the results for both models at once.

Performance

Test stand configuration:

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4 GHz)
• Memory:
  • 2 x 1 GB modules Corsair CM2X1024-9136C5D (DDR2-1142)
  • 2 x 1GB Corsair XMS3-1066C7 (DDR3-1066) modules
• Video card: ATI Radeon X1900 XTX 512 MB
• Hard drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 (SATA, 7200 rpm)
• PSU: HiPro W460GC31
• OS: Windows XP SP2

Note that the BIOS version of the P35 Neo Combo available at the time of testing did not provide the ability to set the normal (for DDR3) supply voltage (1.5 V) and timings (they were limited by the standard DDR2 scheme, so it was impossible to set values ​​greater than 6). As a result, our options for using DDR3 memory turned out to be very limited. For testbed setup details and performance comparison results, we refer you to the Intel 3x chipset presentation, here we also present the results of the new boards in the standard configuration ( [email protected]) and with DDR3-1066 at 7-7-7 timings.

Test	MSI P35 Neo Combo, [email protected]	MSI P35 Neo Combo, [email protected]	MSI P35 Neo, [email protected]	Gigabyte 965P-DQ6 (Intel P965), [email protected]
Archiving in 7-Zip, min:sec	4:17	4:17	4:17	4:10
MPEG4 encoding (XviD), min:sec	3:37	3:37	3:37	3:37
Far Cry ( [email protected]×480), fps	354	352	353	359
Far Cry ( [email protected]×1200), fps	151	152	152	151
Doom 3 ( [email protected]×480), fps	218	215	215	218
Doom 3 ( [email protected]×1200), fps	121	121	121	123

We repeat that we made more detailed conclusions in the above article, but here we only note the absolute equality in performance of MSI P35 Neo and MSI P35 Neo Combo, as well as the fact that new boards, at least with current BIOS firmware, are a little slower representatives of old chipsets, and DDR3 does not help them to get ahead in speed, even at a frequency of 1066 MHz.

Outcome

So, motherboards based on P35 have not become a revelation, they are quite suitable for purchase by almost anyone (although we have not yet seen a full-fledged implementation of DDR3 support). As for the two specific MSI boards we reviewed, these are solid mid-range models, without "frills" both in terms of bundles and branded features. But only computer enthusiasts can make claims to their functionality, and the convenience of wiring and the design of the power unit also deserve praise. We really liked these models in everyday life, especially the chipset cooling, and we see no reason why MSI P35 Neo boards should be avoided.

Boards provided for testing by the manufacturer

Published on PS, we started to explore low-end motherboards that are not perceived by most users as "overclocking" products. Against the background of a similarly priced product called Biostar TP45 HP, the MSI P45 Neo-F motherboard has only one significant advantage - widespread use. When searching for the next review candidate, we decided to find a board that combines the same popularity as the MSI P45 Neo-F, but is neither a direct nor an indirect price competitor for the Biostar TP45 HP. After a short search, such a board was found - MSI P35 Neo.

INTRODUCING YOUR MOTHERBOARD

Launched over a year ago, the MSI P35 Neo comes in a small blue box.

advertising

The front side contains information about compatibility with processors and the supported frequency of the system bus. The reverse side provides information about the main technologies and capabilities:

On the side there is a sticker with the main characteristics:

The delivery set is typical for all MSI motherboards of the lower price category, it includes.

The MSI Neo line of motherboards contains standard components, so you should expect the P35 Neo to work well, but not have a bunch of additional features that the average user might not need. Due to the fact that the cost of production is low, the board is in the lower price range.

Inexpensive motherboards usually don't support two PCI Express x16 graphics cards, and the MSI P35 Neo is no exception. This fact should not greatly affect the decision when buying a motherboard by "budget" enthusiasts who are ready to compromise in performance, because the second video card slot on expensive motherboards still works only in x4 mode. The only PCI Express x16 slot on the P35 Neo motherboard works in full x16 mode. The board also has three PCI Express x1 slots and two older PCI slots, for a total of six expansion cards. ATX supports a maximum of seven slots, and on the P35 Neo board, the place of the uppermost "missing" slot is reserved for a fan connector.

The P35 Neo motherboard is equipped with a three-phase voltage regulator, typical for cheap motherboards, there are no heatsinks for cooling the voltage regulators. The two heatsinks keep the northbridge and southbridge cool enough, aided by the downdraft cooler.

The power and ATA connectors are ideal for traditional cases. A 4-pin ATX12V power socket is located at the top of the board near the rear edge, a 24-pin power socket is at the front edge of the board, and an UltraATA connector is located at the top of the board near the front edge. Users of UltraATA optical drives will love how easy it is to run a cable from here to the top bays of their cases.

The four SATA ports supported by Intel's cheap ICH9 southbridge are also positioned almost perfectly for running cables to the lower hard drive bays, but that's where the compliments end. The fifth SATA port, supported by the built-in Marvell Ultra+Serial ATA controller, is blocked by the heatsink of long video cards. The front panel audio port is inconveniently located in the farthest bottom corner, away from the front panel ports that are on the top of many modern cases. Finally, the floppy drive connector is also unfortunately located under the lowest PCI slot. Luckily, users won't need a disk drive to load RAID drivers during Windows XP installation, since this southbridge doesn't support RAID.

MSI P35 Neo (Revision 1.0)
north bridge	Intel P35 GMCH
south bridge	Intel ICH9
Voltage regulator	three-phase
BIOS	1.1B7 (05/18/2007)
266.6 MHz (FSB1066)	266.9 MHz (+0.1%)
Connectors and interfaces
On board	1x PCIe x16 (1x x16) 3x PCIe x1 2x PCI 4x USB 2.0 (2 ports per header) 1x IEEE-1394 FireWire 1x disk drive 1x Ultra ATA (2 drives) 5x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s 1x for front panel audio ports 1x CD Audio input 1x digital audio output (S/P-DIF) 1x 4-pin for cooler (CPU) 2x 3-pin for fans (case)
On the I/O panel	2x PS2 (keyboard + mouse) 1x parallel port 1x serial port 1x RJ-45 network 1x IEEE-1394 FireWire 4x USB 2.0 6x analog audio ports (7.1ch + mic in + line in)
Drive Controllers
Intel ICH9	4x SATA 3.0Gb/s
Marvell 88SE6111	1x Ultra ATA-100 (2 drives) 1x SATA 3.0Gb/s
Net
Realtek RTL8111B PCI-E	1x gigabit ethernet connection
Sound
HDA controller (Azalia)	Realtek ALC888 codec (8 channels)
firewire
VIA VT6308P	2x IEEE-1394a (400 Mbps)

Adding to the attractiveness of this inexpensive motherboard is the IEEE-1394 FireWire controller.

The I/O panel of the P35 Neo motherboard is based on traditional interfaces, including legacy PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports, parallel and serial COM ports. Six analog audio ports provide 8-channel audio with simultaneous microphone and line inputs, four USB 2.0 ports and one IEEE-1394 FireWire port for high-speed devices, and a single gigabit network port for networking.

The BIOS of the MSI P35 Neo motherboard limits the bus frequency to a maximum of 500 MHz (FSB2000), which is probably the board's limit even when using "perfectly overclocked" processors. Incredibly huge CPU and memory voltages give the impression of maximum overclocking of the processor and memory, but do not forget that this inexpensive motherboard is equipped with only a three-phase voltage regulator.

BIOS frequencies and voltages (for overclocking)
FSB frequency	100-500 MHz (1 MHz step)
Multiplier adjustment	Yes
Memory frequency	FSB x 1.0; 1.2; 1.25; 1.5; 1.66; 2.0
PCIe frequency	100-200 MHz (1 MHz step)
CPU Vcore	Default - +0.7875 V (0.0125 V), 1.550 V maximum
CPU FSB voltage	1.20 - 1.60V (0.10V step)
North Bridge Voltage (MCH)	1.25 - 1.625V (0.025V step)
South Bridge Voltage (ICH)	1.05/1.15V
Memory voltage	1.50 - 2.10 - 3.30V (0.05/0.10V)
CAS delay range	tCAS: 3-6; tRCD: 3-6; tRP: 3-6; tRAS: 9-24

On the P35 Neo motherboard, we overclocked the Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 to 3.44 GHz, although you can get 3.46 GHz on other boards. Reducing the CPU multiplier to 6x only increased the bus frequency to 369 MHz (FSB1476).

The P35 Neo comes with only the essential accessories to build a low cost system, including one SATA cable and one Ultra ATA cable.

MotherboardMSIP35NEO-F

MSI's line of motherboards based on the Intel P35 chipset currently consists of five motherboards that differ in both price and functionality.

NEO series boards are positioned as solutions for economical users. The package bundle of such boards is, as a rule, an example of reasonable minimalism. The Platinum and Diamond series are designed for computer enthusiasts. For their manufacture, high-quality Japanese capacitors are used, copper radiators and heat pipes are used to cool the heating elements.

Packaging and equipment

The MSI P35 NEO-F board comes in a box made of glossy cardboard with an image of the clawed paw of an unknown monster pushing its steel claws through an obstacle towards the board:

Opening the box, you, in addition to the board itself, will find a minimal set of additional accessories:

2 discs with software and drivers for various operating systems: Windows XP and Windows Vista (information on the official website says that WinME/9x OS is not supported by the board);

user guide;

UDMA-66/100/133 cable;

SATA cable;

power cord for SATA devices (MOLEX-SATA adapter);

rear I/O panel (not shown).

This is a typical bundle for motherboards in the lower price range, and MSI could add a couple of additional brackets to the kit, especially since according to the manual this is optionally possible.

Board features, design and layout,BIOS, included software

The main features of the board are described in the table:

Supported processors	- Intel Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium and Celeron (LGA775)
Supported FSB	- 1333/ 1066/ 800 MHz
Chipset	- Northbridge: Intel® P35 - Southbridge: Intel® ICH9
Supported memory	- DDR2 667/800 SDRAM (240pin/non-ECC) - 4 DDR2 DIMM slots (8 GB Max)
Net	- Gigabit network (Realtek RTL8111B)
Audio	- Realtek ALC888 - 7.1 channel audio output - Compatible with Azalia
IDE	- 1 IDE port supported by Marvell 88SE6111 - Support for Ultra DMA 66/100/133, PIO and Bus Master modes
SATA	- 4 SATA ports (SATA1~4) supported by ICH9 south bridge - SATA 5 supported by Marvell 8SE6111 - Bandwidth up to 300 MB/s
RAID	- SATA1~6 support RAID 0/ 1/ 0+1/ 5
Floppy	- 1 floppy port - Support 1 FDD (360 KB, 720 KB, 1.2 MB, 1.44 MB and 2.88 MB)
Back panel	- 1 PS/2 connector (mouse) - 1 PS/2 connector (keyboard) - 1 parallel port supporting SPP/EPP/ECP mode - 1 COM1 port - 4 USB ports - 1 LAN connector - 6 audio outputs
Soldered connectors on the board	- 4 USB 2.0 - 1 Front Panel Audio - 1 CD-In - 1 SPDIF-out
Slots	- 1 PCI Express x 16 - 3 PCI Express x 1 - 2 PCI slots, 3.3V/ 5V PCI
Form factor	ATX (30.5cm X 22.0cm)
Number of mounting holes	6

Design and layout

You can evaluate the layout of the board by looking at the following picture:

As a rule, when designing a budget-level motherboard, engineers do not have to rack their brains over the problem of placing various components due to their scarcity. Of the main disadvantages of the wiring, it should be noted that the memory slot, power connector and IDE connector are too close: if it is not difficult to assemble the system on an open bench, then in most cases this will create some problems.

The cumbersome cooling of some modern cards can block the first couple of memory slots, and by the way, this problem occurs all the time in most boards. The FDD connector is located at the very bottom of the board, but given the widespread death of floppy disks, we can safely close our eyes to this.

After evaluating the wiring, it's time to pay attention directly to the board:

Any sophisticated user will immediately understand by the bright red color of the textolite that there is an MSI board in front of him, and a budget one at that. MSI prefers to produce more expensive products on black textolite.

The Northbridge, Intel P35, is covered by a rather large passive heatsink, which, as was said in the introductory part of the review, fully complies with the recommendations of the chipset manufacturer.

The processor power module is assembled according to a three-channel scheme, which is quite enough if you use processors of the lower and middle levels. But for overclocking, especially if you want to overclock, for example, a top-end quad-core, this may simply not be enough. However, it is difficult to blame MSI engineers for this: a top-end processor is usually paired with an appropriate motherboard, and for this, MSI has Platinum or Diamond series boards in store. On the tested board, you can find both classic capacitors from various manufacturers (there are traces of savings) and modern polymer electrolytes:

The board under test supports up to 8 GB of DDR2-800 memory; for this, 4 memory slots are soldered, offset in pairs relative to each other:

The board is equipped with three PCI-E 1x slots, which, in our opinion, is somewhat redundant: we can't find the corresponding peripherals so far, so it would be better if MSI engineers unsoldered at least one more PCI slot. Judge for yourself, in the computer of a digital technology lover you can often find a TV tuner or a video capture card, a high-quality sound card, and that's it, if the card provides only two PCI slots. You have to go to additional expenses by purchasing an external sound card or modem, but the list of common peripherals does not end there.

The Clear CMOS (JBAT1) jumper is also conveniently located - near the two lower PCI-E 1x slots, near the battery, so even in the system unit it will be enough to simply reset the BIOS settings in case of unsuccessful overclocking.

The southbridge is also covered with a passive radiator, but this is quite enough: according to the digital thermometer, during testing, the temperature of the radiator did not exceed 40? C. The board uses the ICH9 southbridge, so only 4 + 1 SATA connectors are soldered, support for the fifth SATA connector is provided by a chip manufactured by Marvell (Marvell 88SE6111):

The rear I/O panel also lacks functionality:

As you can see from the figure, only the most necessary things are displayed on the rear panel: PS / 2 connectors for a mouse and keyboard, four USB connectors, Serial and Parallel ports, and outputs and inputs of the audio subsystem. The user manual mentions that an optional D-SUB VGA connector can be found on the rear panel. Perhaps in the future, MSI plans to provide a budget board with an integrated video core. However, why not? Naturally, the G33 northbridge will be used in it.

On the reverse side, the board does not contain any soldered elements, so there should not be any problems with fixing some back-plates.

System monitoring is carried out thanks to the Fintek F71882FG chip:

BIOS and overclocking options

MSI is one of the few motherboard manufacturers that use AMI BIOS.

The most interesting, of course, is the Frequency/Voltage Control section, where overclocking functions are concentrated. For inexperienced users, the possibility of automatic overclocking is provided. A similar opportunity is available for boards from other manufacturers, in particular, ASUS. MSI refers to this feature as D.O.T., which stands for Dynamic Overclocking Technology. The names may be different, but the essence remains the same: the board gradually increases the system bus frequency and stops at a certain stable frequency, which is suggested to be used. Needless to say, overclocking the processor manually will bring much better results. The user can disable this feature and select one of the following options:

Everything is extremely simple: by choosing, for example, the Commander option, the board will increase the system bus frequency by 15%, thus overclocking the processor.

More experienced users can independently change the bus frequencies, as well as the operating voltage on the processor, memory and northbridge.

To the credit of MSI engineers, they did not cut down the overclocking capabilities of the board, even despite its obvious positioning in the budget segment: the maximum voltage values ​​are very high, they are most likely typical for top overclocking solutions, judge for yourself:

So, you can increase the voltage on the processor to 1.55V, which, in the presence of a highly efficient cooler or more serious cooling, will allow you to successfully overclock most of the processors supported by the board. Only a three-channel power subsystem can become (and probably will become) a hindrance, but this is already a little off topic. From the default value for DDR2 voltage of 1.8 V, the user has the opportunity to increase it right up to 3.3 V. Considering that only the legendary BH-5 chips, which are known to comply with the DDR standard, could endure such a voltage without signs of long-term destruction, and even modern overclocker DDR2 modules are designed for an operating voltage of about 2.4 V (with a further increase in voltage, the memory will simply collapse), then 3.3 V is clearly a bit too much. The board designers could, for example, hide the increase in voltage in the range of 2.4-3.3 V from most inept experimenters, but this did not happen.

As for the voltage on the northbridge, you can increase it from 1.2 V to 1.6 V. Perhaps, in this case, passive cooling of the chipset will not be enough.

For finer tuning, the user is given the opportunity to use various FSB:DRAM dividers.

An unpleasant surprise awaited us here: the board set the values ​​at its own discretion, and sometimes, in order to achieve memory operation at a frequency of 800 MHz, we had to set values ​​at random - at a system bus frequency of 200 MHz, a 1:2 divider gave absolutely wrong results. Naturally, the correctness of the memory had to be checked by several information and test utilities, for example, Everest. Obviously, this is an annoying flaw in the BIOS, which should be fixed in the latest firmware versions.

The hardware monitoring section provides the ability to monitor the following parameters:

Nothing special, everything is modest, just like in GigaByte boards.

Included software

As for the proprietary software, MSI offered the Dual Core Center utility. As the name implies, the utility provides access to monitoring and settings of both the system board parameters and the video adapter. But with a small caveat: the video card must also be manufactured by MSI. The test showed that the utility often produces complete nonsense, and the usefulness of its use is very doubtful.

In the absence of overclocking, however, such bugs were not observed.

Another, the Live Update utility, which is designed to safely update the BIOS in a Windows environment, stubbornly insisted that the latest BIOS for this board was already shipped, although the update had already appeared on the site:

Thus, the utilities supplied by the manufacturer turned out to be an absolutely useless toy, and they also do not shine with design delights.

Today we're going to look at two motherboards based on the P35 chipset: MSI P35 Neo and MSI P35 Neo Combo. Both products are intended for middle-end systems, however, due to the novelty of the chipset, the retail price is quite high. In our opinion, the time of the P35 chipset has not yet come: it does not provide a noticeable increase in functionality, and also does not provide a performance boost in conjunction with DDR3 memory. As for support for processors with a 1333 MHz bus, there are a lot of boards based on chipsets of the previous generation that officially support such processors.

Specifications

CPU	- Intel Pentium 4 (Prescott (2M)/Gallatin/CedarMill) with bus frequency 1066/800/533 MHz; - Dual-core Intel Pentium D/EE (Smithfield/Presler) with bus frequency 800/1066 MHz; - Intel Celeron-D (Prescott) with a bus frequency of 533 MHz; - Support for Intel Core 2 Duo (Kentsfield (4 cores), Conroe/Allendale (2 cores)) with a bus frequency of 800/1066/1333 MHz; - Support for Intel Yorkfield, Wolfdale with a bus frequency of 1333/1066/800 MHz; - Socket LGA775; - Support for processors with HyperThreading technology;
Chipset	- Northbridge Intel P35 Memory Controller Hub (MCH); - Intel ICH9 Southbridge (Enhanced I/O Controller Hub); - Communication between bridges: DMI;
System memory	- Two 240-pin DDR2 SDRAM DIMM slots; - Two 240-pin DDR3 SDRAM DIMM slots; - Maximum memory capacity 4 GB; - Supported memory type DDR3 800/1066;	- Four 240-pin DDR2 SDRAM DIMM slots; - Maximum memory capacity 8 GB; - Supported memory type DDR2 667/800; - Dual-channel memory access is possible;
Graphics	- One PCI Express x16 slot;
Expandability	- Two 32-bit PCI Bus Master slots; - Three PCI Express x1 slots; - Twelve USB 2.0 ports (4 built-in + 8 optional); - Two IEEE1394 ports (Firewire; one built-in + one optional); - Built-in High Definition Audio 7.1; - Gigabit Ethernet network controller;
Overclocking options	- Changing the FSB frequency from 200 to 500 MHz in 1 MHz steps; multiplier change; - Changing the voltage on the processor, memory, PCI-E and chipset (nb & sb);
Disk subsystem	- 1 channel UltraDMA133/100/66/33 Bus Master IDE (Marvell 88SE6111; supports up to 2 ATAPI devices); - Support for SerialATA II protocol (4 channels - ICH9); - Support for the SerialATA II protocol (1 channel - Marvell 88SE6111); - Support for LS-120 / ZIP / ATAPI CD-ROM;
BIOS	- 4Mbit Flash ROM; - AMI BIOS with support for Enhanced ACPI, DMI, Green, PnP Features;
Miscellaneous	- One port for FDD, one serial port, ports for PS/2 mouse and keyboard; - STR (Suspend to RAM); - SPDIF out;
Power management	- Wake up from modem, mouse, keyboard, network, timer and USB; - Main 24-pin ATX power connector; - Additional 4-pin power connector;
Monitoring	- Tracking the temperature of the processor, system, voltage, rotation speed of three fans; - Smart Fan technology;
Size	- ATX form factor, 220mm x 305mm (8.65" x 12");

boxes

Both boards are completely identical.

• Motherboard;
• English user manual + quick start guide;
• CD with software and drivers;
• One ATA-133 cable;
• One SerialATA cable + power adapter (one connector);
• Plug on the rear panel of the case;

And contains only the most necessary components for assembly.

Boards

It's easy to see that both boards have a very similar PCB design. Differences only in the area of ​​memory slots. In particular, the MSI P35 Neo Combo board has four multi-colored slots, two of which are for DDR2 modules, and two for DDR3.

The MSI P35 Neo board also has four slots, but all of them are for DDR2 modules.

Each board has three fan connectors: one 4-pin (for the CPU cooler) and two three-pin. The latter are not used - the chipset's cooling system is completely passive and consists of two heatsinks.

The boards have one PCI Express x16 slot, two PCI slots, and three PCI Express x1 slots.

Both boards have an ICH9 southbridge with a heatsink. As a result, the boards support four SerialATA II channels.

In addition, the boards have an additional ParallelATA/SerialATA controller Marvell 88SE6111.

As a result, seven hard drives (5 SATA + 2 PATA) can be connected to each board. Further, the ICH9 south bridge supports 12 USB2.0 ports: four on the rear panel, and eight more are connected using brackets (not included). In addition, the boards support the Firewire serial bus. To do this, they have an additional controller VT6308P manufactured by VIA.

Accordingly, the boards support two ports each, one of which is installed on the rear panel, the other is connected using a bracket (not included).

Also, the ALC888 audio codec is installed on both boards.

A few words about the network: both boards support high-speed network connection; they have the same RTL8111B controller installed:

The back panel of the boards is the same and has the following configuration:

Let's talk about BIOS settings.

BIOS

The BIOS of the MSI P35 Neo and P35 Neo Combo boards is based on the AMI BIOS version and is unified as much as possible.

In the memory settings section, the following set of timings:

An important parameter that affects performance is setting the memory frequency.

Let's look at the system monitoring section.

Both boards display the current CPU and system temperatures, voltages, monitor the rotation speed of three fans, and have the function of adjusting the rotation of the CPU cooler depending on the CPU temperature.

Overclocking and stability

Before moving on to overclocking, let's look at power converters. Their circuit is the same: PWM of MSI P35 Neo Combo board and MSI P35 Neo board has 3-phase circuit, which has one 3300uF capacitor, four 1000uF capacitors and eight 680uF capacitors.

The overclocking features are also the same.

Pay	MSI P35 Neo/Neo Combo
Changing the multiplier	+
FSB change	200 to 500 MHz (1)
Vcore change	up to +0.7875 V (0.0125 V)
Change Vmem	1.8V to 3.3V (0.05-0.1V)
Change Vdd	1.2 V to 1.6 V (0.025 V)
Change Vpcix	1.5 V to 1.8 V (0.1 V)
Vsb change	from 1.05 V; 1.15 V
Vtt change	1.2V to 1.6V (0.025V)
Change PCI-E	100 MHz to 200 MHz (1)

A few words about the MSI D.O.T mode, in which overclocking is carried out exactly when needed. In other words, the increase in the FSB frequency occurs at the time of launching a resource-intensive application (for example, a game). And after exiting the application, the system returns to the regular frequency.

Let's look at the practical results of overclocking. The maximum stable FSB frequency for MSI P35 Neo is 466 MHz; the MSI P35 Neo Combo board has 350 MHz.

Performance

When determining the starting FSB frequency, it turned out that both boards overestimate it by 1 MHz.