MSI P67A-GD65 Motherboard Review
AIDA64
Published: 31st January 2011 | Source: MSI | Price: £142.99 @ Aria |

AIDA64
Memory Benchmarks
At stock the GD65 makes use of the performance of the Kingston very well. Although the write speed is a little low generally everything is good and much higher than the reference Intel board.
Overclocked is a different matter though as the memory, even at 2133MHz and with our 4.7 GHz CPU doesn't seem to benefit much from the overclock. Certainly nowhere near as well as the reference Intel or the Gigabyte UD7.
CPU Benchmarks
We find similar things with the CPU benchmarking suite of AIDA64. The GD65 performs very well at stock but the overclocked result doesn't really thrill us quite as we'd hoped. Although the zLib result is far and away the best we've seen rocking 267MB/s.
Most Recent Comments
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....
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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I feel crushed 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"
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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.
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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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??
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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@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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