MSI P67A-GD65 Motherboard Review
Up Close
Published: 31st January 2011 | Source: MSI | Price: £142.99 @ Aria |
Up Close
The box is standard MSI fare with their quality components "Military Class II" classification dominating the box.
Once open the accessories bundle has all the bits you'd expect. SATA leads, IO shield, manuals for both the motherboard and the included utility disc. The utilities are comprehensive containing monitoring, overclocking, updating, and a wealth of other features in an easily installed, small footprint package.
The board itself follows the modern MSI colour scheme of black and dark blue plastics with gun-metal hardware. It looks very classy although it's visually strange to not have the standard chipset cooler below the CPU socket.
PCI arrangement is fine with plenty of space between the two main PCIe slots. It's, as I said on the previous page, odd to see three PCIe x1 sockets and 2 legacy PCI ones on such a modern board. Sure the GD65 isn't the top-end model, but if MSI are going for the masses then why hasn't it got an IDE socket?
The bottom right hand corner has the on-board buttons for overclocking out of the case, and of course the magical OC Genie button itself. Just above the OC Genie is the JFP1 which is actually the front panel connectors. We laud Gigabyte regularly for their use of a colour-coded one, but to see one without even a plastic surround is perhaps a step too far in the other direction for our tastes.
Around the DIMM sockets we have the ATX24 pin as we'd expect and also a place for your probes if you're a high-end overclocker wanting more accurate monitoring of your motherboard. It's nice to see a couple of fan headers out here too which makes cable routing for your intake fans much simpler.
The CPU socket has plenty of room around it for even the largest cooler, although if you've got tall RAM and a big cooler the DIMM sockets are too close to be able to use both. Thankfully modern RAM doesn't really need the oversized heat-sinks any more. The down-slope of the MSI power circuitry heat-sinks are incredibly polished.
MSI have provided plenty of SATA headers for your storage needs and thankfully we haven't got any of those silly vertical ones.
Around the back is all you'd expect these days, including USB 3.0, e-SATA and a combined PS2 port. It's nice to see the CMOS clear switch located somewhere easy to get hold of too, for reasons we'll get to on the next page.
Most Recent Comments
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Originally Posted by PCTwin
lol. 28.8Ghz. |
So perhaps the truly brilliant OC Genie will be the solution to the poor stock performance?
If it works as good as it does on my P55-GD65 then weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I finally thought MSI was going good in the mobo section yet this is pretty disappointing to me
EDIT i must be fair i also hear people using it and its perfectly fine,
i guess my luck comes in again....
I read in all these other sites about how awesome it was, but after seeing this I feel bitterly disappointed as well as being confused how it fared to badly here. EDIT: Quite a few people seem to get 4.2GHz clock, so I guess MSI is being extremely conservative, in case someone got a half completed chip or something.
We have to review as we find, and it was just a bit.. meh.
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Originally Posted by Zeals
I feel crushed I read in all these other sites about how awesome it was, but after seeing this I feel bitterly disappointed as well as being confused how it fared to badly here. EDIT: Quite a few people seem to get 4.2GHz clock, so I guess MSI is being extremely conservative, in case someone got a half completed chip or something. |
The board isnt 'bad' just that it isnt a great as it should have been.
Real dissapointment on the results, I had this at top of my list for my new system. Gues i'm gonna have to wait untill another midrange board gets a good (overclock)review.
Or untill MSI can make the 28 GHZ work
its a lower end board so lesser results are to be expected vs some of the others. im happy you was honest and open about your findings but i got the feeling as i read it you was harsh on it because you expected more.
imo (and thats all it is) is i think people are wanting ocing to get too easy, it used to be about soldering bits on to pcb and fiddling with jumpers, then it all went into the bios and now we have fancy gui and 1 button ocing. pfft kids today dont know they are born xD
also, long live pci!! my xfi still kicks arse
The results are what they are, and then we review based upon that. In this case although the overclocked results were disappointing if the stock benchmarks had held out we'd have happily accepted it as being potentially great and possibly hindered by the flaky BIOS.
As it is either our test CPU is abysmal, or the MSI just doesn't perform as well as the other boards we've tested. Sure one button overclocking is nice, but if a 4.2GHz overclock gives the same results as a stock chip on other motherboards, it's tough to come to any conclusion other than poor performance.
We always make sure we consider each product on its merits, and not against what has gone before. Otherwise you end up in this hell-hole of "well I remember when a 486DX2-66 was brilliant"
(personally my first PC was a 386-SX16).|
Originally Posted by marsey99
just to play devils advocate here, was you expecting greatness as standard on all msi boards based on last years findings? its a lower end board so lesser results are to be expected vs some of the others. im happy you was honest and open about your findings but i got the feeling as i read it you was harsh on it because you expected more. imo (and thats all it is) is i think people are wanting ocing to get too easy, it used to be about soldering bits on to pcb and fiddling with jumpers, then it all went into the bios and now we have fancy gui and 1 button ocing. pfft kids today dont know they are born xD also, long live pci!! my xfi still kicks arse |
also don't think Tom was expecting more...
Tbh I think an improved bios would to the board a world of good.
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Originally Posted by killablade
The results are strange to say the least. I don't think any of the other reviews I read showed similar results. Maybe you just got a bad sample? O.o Tbh I think an improved bios would to the board a world of good. |
Haven't had a proper chance to overclock yet but I did a very quick run in at 4.5 GHz at 1.2v which went in ok before I updated the BIOS again. This new one is meant to overclock much much better.
I'll happily run a test or two again afterwards and post them in this thread with the BIOS I'm running if anyone is interested as my setup is practically the same. Running a 570 along with 4GB of 2133MHz memory.
Oh yeah, at £140 maybe not great value but I got it when the VAT back deal was going so got it for £110.
Oooo yeah one last thing... No dissin the PCI! I've still got my Xfi which I have no need or want to replace... The sound is fantastic so as long as boards support it, I'll use it
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Originally Posted by Bungral
I'm running this board now and can confirm that they are still ironing out the EFI BIOS as the one it shipped with (1.4 I think) was garbage.. They are now officially up to 1.6 I believe but there are plenty of other beta versions out there which make a massive differnce. All the single click and double click crapness is gone from the BIOS with the BIOS I'm running. Haven't had a proper chance to overclock yet but I did a very quick run in at 4.5 GHz at 1.2v which went in ok before I updated the BIOS again. This new one is meant to overclock much much better. I'll happily run a test or two again afterwards and post them in this thread with the BIOS I'm running if anyone is interested as my setup is practically the same. Running a 570 along with 4GB of 2133MHz memory. Oh yeah, at £140 maybe not great value but I got it when the VAT back deal was going so got it for £110. Oooo yeah one last thing... No dissin the PCI! I've still got my Xfi which I have no need or want to replace... The sound is fantastic so as long as boards support it, I'll use it |
)Any pref as to the benchies you want to see??
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Originally Posted by Bungral
No probs.. I'll probably look to do it maybe on Thursday as I'm working late all this week. If not then Sunday night. Any pref as to the benchies you want to see?? |
But hey maybe MSI will take the time waiting on Intel to improve this board
@ OC3D do you guys know any intresting inside facts on the Intel issues ?
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Originally Posted by THD
@Bungral, would love to see your results but there is no rush in light of the big new on Intel yesterday (chipset issues) But hey maybe MSI will take the time waiting on Intel to improve this board @ OC3D do you guys know any intresting inside facts on the Intel issues ? |
So right now if you have a Sandy Bridge motherboard, plug the devices into the SATA III ports, however if you have too many devices, make sure high traffic and more important devices are in the SATA III ports, but it's best minimalize use. In all likelihood a mass recall would probably be initiated.
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