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Intel P35 Express Motherboards Round Up

PCI Express x16 socket LGA-775 motherboards
Chipset P35 Express
PCI Express / PCI

The year is coming to a close and the market is gearing up for the holiday push. It will be a very busy fourth quarter for the tech industry, looks like everybody is launching something new this quarter. NVIDIA have already announced the GeForce 8800GT and pretty soon, a revised version of their GeForce 8800GTS will follow. AMD's graphics arm, ATI, will follow suit in several days. Intel have already announced their first 45 nm processor aimed for hardware enthusiast - the QX9650 - not to mention new chipsets, the X38 and its successor, the X48. Still on the processor front, hopefully AMD can make good on their promise to launch their Phenom X4 processors and accoompanying chipsets, the AMD 790 family this month.

All these announcements seems to come in a time where it is most needed. Gamers everywhere around the world are psyched up with the arrival of  new titles like Valve's Orange Box, Crysis, World In Conflict, Quake Wars: Enemy Territory, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Need for Speed: Pro Street and Gears of War. Unreal Tournament for the PC is also slated for fourth quarter release - hopefully Epic can make the deadline without too many bugs. Of all these games, Crysis is perhaps the most awaited of all and judging from many of the performance previewss all around the web, really, REALLY, tax your hardware to the limit. No doubt gamers who want more performance or just plain playable frame rates will scramble for new hardware.

Thanks to advancements in design and fabrication process, the upgrades you're likely get this quarter won't be as expensive as the ones early birds had to make early this year - though they are about the same in performance. For example, the GeForce 8800GT will cost less than the GeForce 8800GTS, offer more features (a universal video decoder much like the ones on NVIDIA's GeForce 8600 series), but offer performance close to or even surpassing the 'old' GeForce 8800GTS. Intel's latest dual core Wolfdale and quad core Yorkfield will offer slightly more performance - rough estimates is about 5 to 10 percent faster - with much better thermal dissipation and performance per watt. It also helps that the quad core Yorkfield will only cost between US$ 250 to 300 -about the same price as the Core 2 Duo was when it was first announced.

So what's the catch? Well, there's always one, isn't? If you want to use Intel's latest and greatest processor, you'll have to shelf out the bucks for a new motherboard which supports these processors - that would be Intel's Generation 3 series of chipsets - the G31/33, P35 and X38 chipsets. Does that mean you need to get DDR3 memory too? Thankfully, no -  you can still use your older DDR2 memory, as long as your memory is the same or faster than the new 1333 MHz FSB. Even if you do need to get new memory modules, DDR2 667 and 800 modules are at an all time low that you likely want to buy new ones  - maybe upgrade to 2 GB or even 4 GB.

Today, we will be looking at seven motherboards based on the P35 chipset. Three of them only suppports DDR3 memory, while the rest still uses DDR2 memory modules. They are the ASUS P5K3 and P5K Deluxe, Gigabyte P35T-DQ6 and P35-DS3P, and MSI P35 Diamond, P35 Platinum and P35 Neo. Let's look at these boards to see what they offer. 

Overview

ASUS P5K3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP

Intel Pentium 4 / Core socket LGA-775
Intel P35 Express
PCI Express, PCI

Overall Score: 96 points



The full specification (taken from ASUS's website)

CPU
LGA775 socket for Intel® Core™2 Quad / Core™2 Extreme / Core™2 Duo / Pentium® Extreme / Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 Processors
Compatible with Intel® 05B/05A/06 processors
Support Intel® next generation 45nm multi-core CPU
*This motherboard supports FSB 1333/1066/800
** Please update the latest BIOS to support Intel 45nm CPU

Chipset
Intel® P35 / ICH9R with Intel® Fast Memory Access Technology

Front Side Bus
1333 / 1066 / 800 MHz

Memory
4 x DIMM, max. 8GB, DDR3 1333*/1066 / 800 MHz, non-ECC, un-buffered memory
Dual channel memory architecture
*The chipset officially supports the memory frequency up to DDR3 1066MHz. Tuned by ASUS Super Memspeed Technology, this motherboard natively supports up to DDR3 1333MHz
Please refer to www.asus.com or user manual for Memory QVL.

Expansion Slots
Storage
Southbridge
JMicron® JMB363 PATA and SATA controller
LAN
   
Dual Gigabit LAN controllers, featuring AI NET2
Marvell88E8056® PCI-E Gigabit LAN controllers
RealtekRTL8110SC® PCI Gigabit LAN controller

Wireless LAN
ASUS WiFi-AP Solo
54 Mbps IEEE 802.11g and backwards compatible with 11 Mbps IEEE 802.11b
Audio
ADI® AD1988B 8-channel High Definition Audio CODEC
IEEE 1394
Agere® FW322 1394a controller supports 2 x IEEE 1394a ports (one at midboard; one at back panel)

USB
10 x USB 2.0 ports (4 ports at mid-board, 6ports at back panel)

ASUS AI Lifestyle Features
ASUS Quiet Thermal Solution:
ASUS Crystal Sound:
ASUS EZ DIY:
WiFi@Home:
Other Features
ASUS MyLogo 3
Multi-language BIOS

Overclocking Features
Intelligent overclocking tools:
Precision Tweaker:
SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection)
Overclocking Protection:
Back Panel I/O Ports
Internal I/O Connectors
BIOS
16 Mb Flash ROM, AMI BIOS, PnP, DMI2.0, WfM2.0, SM BIOS 2.3, ACPI 2.0a, Multi-language BIOS, ASUS EZ Flash 2, ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3

Manageability
WfM 2.0, DMI 2.0, WOL by PME, WOR by PME, PXE

Accessories
Support Disc
Form Factor
ATX Form Factor, 12"x 9.6" (30.5cm x 24.4cm)

Though it may seem like it, the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe is not ASUS top of the line model - that privelege is reserved for their Republic of Gamers - Blitz, Striker and Maximus- series of motherboards. But don't be mistaken - the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe is no slouch, as is also its DDR2 equipped sibling, the ASUS P5K Deluxe (which is also included in this round up). Both motherboards resemble each other in every way - the WiFi adapter / AP bundle, motherboard layout , a plethora of PCI and PCI-E expansion slots, SATA ports and dual Gigabit LAN adapters. Aside from the memory used, the only other difference is the cooling solution - very similar but there are notable differences.

Let's look at the Stackcool on P5K3 Deluxe. As you can see, all the heatsinks are connected together by three heatpipes. Theoretically, these heatpipes allow much more 'effective' heat dissipation area than traditional solutions. Of course, more heat dissipation area should meabs lower chipset temperatures. That's because heat from the hottest parts of the heatsink (the chipset) will travel to more cooler parts (the mosfet radiator fins and southbridge heatsink). The problem with that assumption is that the design rely on air exhaust from the CPU cooler to cool the three heatsinks (two on the mosfet and on the northbridge).

 

The two pictures above shows two points of concern with Stackcool on the P5K3 Deluxe. First, the P35 Express chipset. ASUS wisely chose to use thermal paste on the chipset. Unfortunately, not all the surface is covered. ASUS may want to re-examine their heatsink mounting procedures, we certainly expect better from them. Now, no doubt you'll notice the slightly strange angle we used for this shot. The reason - we couldn't (easily) detach Stackcool from the motherboard. Apparently, ASUS used a thermal adhesive on the southbridge heatsink. Not a good choice because it unnessarily complicates the removal of this cooling solution. Hardcore overclockers who want to use their own cooling solutions such as a bigger heatsink or a watercooling block may be a little put off with this decision. Of course, this is not a problem if you don't feel the need to remove the heatsink.

The second point of concern is the mosfet radiator sinks (the picture on the right). Notice the use of thermal tape / pad. Although there is enough pressure to maintain good contact between the heatsink and the mosfets, we believe the use of thermal tape or pad is not as optimal if compared to using thermal paste or plain direct contact between the heatsink and the mosfets. Of course, that's assuming the heatsinks are there to cool the mosfets.

If you look closely at Stackcool's design, it's clear that these radiator heatsinks are meant to help dissipate more heat from the P35 chipset by relying on exhaust airflow from the processor's fan / heatsink. The design assumes you'll be using a heatsink blowing air directly on the processor like Intel's stock cooler. If you're using third party fan / heatsink, you'll have to make sure there is enough airflow to cool the radiator heatsinks (or more directly, the heatsink on top of the P35 chipset). So, users of P5K3 and P5K Deluxe should make certain they have very good air circulation inside their case.

 

Previous experience with ASUS motherboards shows that you really have to pay more attention to memory timings and FSB clocks. The ASUS P5K3 Deluxe continues ASUS tradition to 'jump the gun'. Notice the differnce between the SPD timings of the Samsung DDR3 memory modules we used and the timings applies by the P5K3 Deluxe when you set the memory configuration by SPD. With slightly higher clocks (480 MHz), the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe is using timings similar to the modulues 457 MHz timing defaults - except for TRAS (15 as opposed to 18 cycles). How's that for aggressive?



Thankfully, no such behavior is present in regards to clocks. The ASUS P5K3 Deluxe accurately applied 400 MHz, just like we manually set in the BIOS. Also notice the core voltage - 1.256 volts We set core voltage settings to 'Auto' for this test. That's actually pretty much the same voltage we originally set with this processor on the Gigabyte P965-DS3 (we had to up the voltage to 1.275 on the P965-DS3P). Now, let's see if these clocks changes during heavy processor loads.

.

As you can see from the Rivatuner graph above, there are some small fluctuations in processor clocks, but not to a degree that should be a concern. You'll likely won't notice the difference at all during routing operations and daily usage.

Expansions and Add-Ons

The ASUS P5B Deluxe offers three PCI slots, two PCI-E x16 slots and two PCI-E x1 slot. The two PCI-E x16 slots are Crossfire ready, but if you have plans to use two Radeon cards with dual slot coolers, you'll lose all those PCI slots. Why? Well, remember that you should leave the slot beside the cards empty for better airflow - dual slot coolers doesn't only mean the card takes space from two slots, you'll need to empty the slot the next to it. The second PCI-E x16 slot don't have this problem -  there's only one PCI slot to lose. But doesn't that mean less airflow? Well, yes and no - there's still enough space between the card. Plus the bottom of your case typically has much cooler air (with an ATX tower case). If you do use such a setup, your choice of expansions are limited to PCI-E x1 peripherals. We can actually think of at least three cards that might tickle your fancy - ASUS's own Xonar D1 sound card, Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio or K-World's dual tuner cards. The K-World tuner card and ASUS Xonar sound card with their long PCB might be a problem if you place it on the PCI-E x1 slot next to the PCI-E x16 slot, but overall a good compromise between expandibility and layout.

Bundle wise, ASUS have all your base covered. A full complement of six color coded SATA cables enables you to fully utilize the six available SATA ports on the motherboard. Granted, there's only one 4 pin ATX with two SATA power connectors, so you'll have to get four additional SATA power cables elsewhere. Thankfully, ASUS now consolidates the additional USB ports and Firewire ports on just one bracket. So, you don't have to choose between the bracket or an add-on card. The rest of the ports are located on the usual ATX back panel - you'll find the usual suspects here. In addition to the standard 6 jack analog ports, you'll find coaxial and optical SPDIFoutput port, six USB ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, a Firewire port and two eSATA ports. A slight deviation is the absence of a PS/2 mouse port, though the PS/2 keyboard is still present.

Of course, ASUS trademark bundle, the WiFi adapter is included, along with the appropriate drivers and access point software. The necessary drivers and other utilities inside the included driver CD - the standard ASUS fanfare of software utilities with some additional software - ASUS is nice enough to include an antivirus software plus an image editing suite. Of course, nowadays you could pick free versions of several antivirus and image editing tools of the Internet. It's nice, but chances are you'll be more comfortable with the ones you already using.

Tweaking and Overclocking Friendly

We don't like to analyze BIOS settings, since they sometimes change between BIOS revisions. Overall, the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe comes with more than ehough BIOS settings to satisfy most overclockers. Processor, PCI-Express slot, chipset and memory settings are available - these include clock, voltage and other plethora of settings. Even the hardware monitor page responds much better now - traditionally we had to wait a few seconds before we can see the values. BIOS overclocking profiles are supported and ASUS also provides a feature to quickly flash your BIOS without needing a DOS boot device.

However, there are minor gripes we had with this board. Here they are:
What do we think of the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe? Well, aside from those points and the exclusive use of DDR3 modules, it's a pretty good board. ASUS has fixed some of our gripes we saw with their P965 Express offering - the P5B Deluxe. Sound issues seem to be gone for good (though we didn't check the front panel connectors).  Stack Cool is basically a given - you have to life with it, since removing can be quite a chore. As for DDR3, with DDR2 memory prices expected to stay low through 2008, it's hard to recommend this board when an alternative version with support for more affordable DDR2 is available. DDR3 may offer some performance benefits for overclocking, but the real world gains are simply not significant enough for most users right now.

ASUS P5K Deluxe/WiFi-AP

Intel Pentium 4 / Core socket LGA-775
Intel P35 Express
PCI Express, PCI

Overall Score: 95 points



The full specification (taken from ASUS's website)

CPU
LGA775 socket for Intel® Core™2 Quad / Core™2 Extreme / Core™2 Duo / Pentium® Extreme / Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 Processors
Compatible with Intel® 05B/05A/06 processors
Support Intel® next generation 45nm multi-core CPU
*This motherboard supports FSB 1333/1066/800
** Please update the latest BIOS to support Intel 45nm CPU

Chipset
Intel® P35 / ICH9R with Intel® Fast Memory Access Technology
Front Side Bus  1333 / 1066 / 800 MHz

Memory
4 x DIMM, max. 8GB, DDR2 1066*/800 / 667 MHz, non-ECC, un-buffered memory
Dual channel memory architecture
* The chipset officially supports the memory frequency up to DDR2 800MHz. Tuned by ASUS Super Memspeed Technology, this motherboard natively supports up to DDR2 1066MHz
Please refer to www.asus.com or user manual for Memory QVL.

Expansion Slots
Storage
Southbridge
JMicron® JMB363 PATA and SATA controller
LAN
Dual Gigabit LAN controllers, featuring AI NET2
Marvell88E8056® PCI-E Gigabit LAN controllers
RealtekRTL8110SC® PCI Gigabit LAN controller

Wireless LAN
ASUS WiFi-AP Solo
54 Mbps IEEE 802.11g and backwards compatible with 11 Mbps IEEE 802.11b

Audio
ADI® AD1988B 8-channel High Definition Audio CODEC
IEEE 1394
Agere® FW322 1394a controller supports 2 x IEEE 1394a ports (one at midboard; one at back panel)

USB
10 x USB 2.0 ports (4 ports at mid-board, 6ports at back panel)

ASUS AI Lifestyle Features
ASUS Quiet Thermal Solution:
ASUS Crystal Sound:
ASUS EZ DIY:
ASUS WiFi@Home:
Other Features
ASUS MyLogo 3
Multi-language BIOS

Overclocking Features
Intelligent overclocking tools:
Precision Tweaker:
SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection)
Overclocking Protection:
Back Panel I/O Ports

Internal I/O Connectors
BIOS
16 Mb Flash ROM, AMI BIOS, PnP, DMI2.0, WfM2.0, SM BIOS 2.3, ACPI 2.0a, Multi-language BIOS, ASUS EZ Flash 2, ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3

Manageability
WfM 2.0, DMI 2.0, WOL by PME, WOR by PME, PXE

Accessories
UltraDMA 133/100/66 cable
FDD cable
4 x Serial ATA cables
1 x 2-port Serial ATA power cable
I/O Shield
User's manual
ASUS WiFi-AP Solo manual
3 in 1 Q-connector
1 x 2-port USB2.0 / 1-port IEEE1394 module
ASUS WiFi-AP Solo omni-directional antenna

Support Disc
Drivers
ASUS PC Probe II
ASUS Update
ASUS AI Suite
ASUS WiFi-AP Solo Wizard
Anti-virus software (OEM version)
Image-Editing Suite

Form Factor
ATX Form Factor, 12"x 9.6" (30.5cm x 24.4cm)

Since the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe and P5K Deluxe share the same design, we won't note all the features of the P5K Deluxe. We will simply highlight the differences between the boards and what do we think of it. First and foremost is of course, the cooling solution. Unlike the P5K3 Deluxe, not all the heatsinks on the P5K Deluxe are connected by heatpipes. The far heatsink  is isolated from the rest of the heatsink. We generally think this is better because that means the heatsink only have to dissipate heat from the mosfet rather than the chipset (which is much hotter). Of course, that also mean you have less heat dissipation area for the chipset. Because of this, the StackCool on the ASUS P5K Deluxe can be hotter than the P5K3 Deluxe version. So, like the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe, making sure your PC case has good airflow or directly blowing air to cool the heatsink is a very good idea. You simply can not rely solely on the exhaust air from the processor fan / heatsink.

Both radiator fins uses the same thermal tape / pad like the ones on the P5K3 Deluxe. ASUS also used the same arrangement for the P35 chipset (thermal paste) and ICH9R southbridge (thermal adhesive), so the same gripe we had with the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe also applies here.

 

Now, that's just odd. The ASUS P5K Deluxe is the only board in this round up that produces erronous results with CPU-Z 1.40.5 memory tab. RAS to CAS delay, RAS precharge and TRAS seems inline with SPD settings at PC6400 timings, but the CAS latency is just way off to be right. Thankfully, that's not the CAS latency value used by the board.  A CPU-Z problem? Doubtful since CPU-Z correctly displayed information about the memory modules and works just fine with other boards (including the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe).



Everything seems to be OK here. FSB is right where we set it on the BIOS - 400 MHz - and the P5K Deluxe applied about the same amount of core voltage as the P5K3 Deluxe - 1.24 volt.



Hmmm, looks like the ASUS P5K Deluxe tends to fluctuate the processor clock much more often and just a tad lower than its sibling. Of course, upping the voltage may help, but honestly you won't see the difference in real world usage scenarios. Those who overclock like crazy might be more concerned about this. We are using the same setup for both motherboards, so the only thing that's different is the motherboard.

Expansions and Add-Ons

Much like ASUS P5K3 Deluxe, the ASUS P5K Deluxe comes with lots of bundle. They are mostly the same, with just a few exceptions. Instead of six SATA cables, you'll only get four cables - the non 90 degree cables. You still get a four pin ATX to 2 SATA power cable and two additional USB ports and one Firewire ports in one bracket. The same complements of ports are located on the backpanel - the standard six jack analog ports, coaxial and optical SPDIF output port, six USB ports, the two Gigabit Ethernet ports, a Firewire port and two eSATA ports. The PS/2 mouse port is also not present here.Needless to say,  ASUS WiFi adapter is also included along with the appropriate drivers and access point software. The ASUS P5K Deluxe also shares the same complementary of expansion slots three PCI slots, two PCI-E x16 slots and two PCI-E x1 slot, arranged in the same fashion.

Tweaking and Overclocking Friendly

The ASUS P5K Deluxe BIOS is identical to the P5K3 Deluxe, so we saw just as much settings and features with this board. Processor, PCI-Express slot, chipset, memory settings including clock, voltage and other setting are configurable. You can set them automatically or manually if you want. After you set all of them, you can save them as profile - up to four profile are configurable. BIOS flashing is also much easier due to the built in Q-Flash utility - you don't need to prepare a DOS boot disk just to flash the BIOS.

The gripes we have with the P5K Deluxe are basically the same. Here they are:
Sticking to DDR2 is probably the most logical decision with DDR2 memory prices being so low as they are now (and will likely to continue next year). So, we definitely recommend the ASUS P5K Deluxe over the P5K3 Deluxe - this board should be enough for most users and then some. If you want to built a setup with dual Gigabit ethernet plus a WiFi adapter - maybe a NAS or Windows Home server boxwith access point / router capabilities, the ASUS P5K Deluxe will fit the bill. The decision to ditch a PS/2 mouse may irk some users, but most mouse nowadays come as USB peripherals anyway so no great loss there. If losing a USB port is a concern, you could always buy a USB hub or additional USB cables for the internal headers

Gigabyte P35T-DQ6

Intel Pentium 4 / Core socket LGA-775
Intel P35 Express
PCI Express, PCI

Overall Score: 92 points



The full specification (taken from Gigabyte's website)

CPU
Supports Intel® Core™2 Extreme Quad-Core / Core™2 Duo / Intel® Pentium® Extreme/ Intel® Pentium® D processors
Supports 1333/1066/800 MHz FSB

Chipset
Northbridge: Intel® P35 Express Chipset
Southbridge: Intel® ICH9R
T.I IEEE 1394 Controller

Memory   
Supports DDR3 1333*/1066/800 memory
Dual Channel architecture supports up to 8GB by 4 DIMM slots
* Please refer "Memory Support List" for memory support information.

Expansion Slots   
Storage
Southbridge
6 x SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports
Intel Matrix Storage Technology supports RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10.

LAN
Gigabit LAN Controller (Marvell 8053)

Audio
Realtek ALC889A 8-Channel Audio Codec

Other Features Back Panel Connectors
Internal I/O Connectors
BIOS
Form Factor
ATX form factor, 305 x 244mm

Gigabyte's P35T-DQ6 (T denotes the use of DDR3 memory modules) is the heavyweight contender in this round up - literally. The all copper SilentPipe and CrazyCool cooling solution used by the board really adds some weight. For those uninitiated, SilentPipe is the cooling solution on top of the board while CrazyCool is the one on the bottom (back) of the board. With such a large heat dissipation area, the chipsen and the mosfet should be cooler than most boards running at full load for long periods of time even when overclocked to high FSBs.

Of course, there are some downsides to Gigabyte's approach. For one, SilentPipe. It takes so much space between the processor and the graphics card and the general area around the processor. So much so, the single PCI-E x1 slot between the heatsink and the PCI-E x16 slot is practically useless - you won't be able to fit much of a card there. Even a tall, short card like X-Fi Extreme Audio is a tight fit - there's so little space between the back of the card and the towering SilentPipe heatsink.



The SilentPipe and CrazyCool heatsink actually connect to each other and we believe there are some heat transfer between the two. Removing the heatsink is fairly easy and doable (unlike ASUS Stack Cool), but not as easy as you might think. All but one screw can be easily reached and turned with a screwdriver - the final screw can only be accessed after you remove the topmost part of the heatsink (the one with the 'SilentPipe' engraving).



Although Gigabyte took the time and effort to engineer a complex cooling solution - a silent cooling solution that works really well by the way - we were immediately dissapointed when we took a closer look at the bottom of this massive heatsink. They are still using thermal tape and pads between the P965 chipset, the ICH9R southbridge and the mosfets on the motherboard. Thermal paste would undoubtedly be more efficient - better heat transfer between the chipset and the heatsink and less hassle to reapply. If they were willing to use such a huge heatsink, why not make better use of it?

In the end, we couldn't help but wonder whether or not such extravagant cooling is necessary if Gigabyte had use thermal paste. The goal of SilentPipe and CrazyCool was to keep the temperature low enough (but silently) for very high overclocks. However, we have some reservations about that - hardcore overclockers will likely remove the SilentPipe / CrazyCool alltogether, replacing it with more extreme cooling like a waterblock and the like. So, is most cases they will likely not use it.

Then, there's the airflow factor. If you look at the overall design, undoubtedly just like Stackcool and Circupipe, SilentPipe still relies on the exhaust air from the processor fan / heatsink to keep itself cool - assuming the fan / heatsink blows the air down the processor like the stock cooling. If you were to use third party solutions with large / tall heatsink towers (with 120 mm fans blowing air sideways - from the front of the case to the back), you won't blow that much air on the SilentPipe heatsink. Fitting such a large heatsink will also likely be more troublesome than stock cooling.

 

Unlike the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe 'aggressive' timings when memory modules are set to SPD defaults, the Gigabyte P35T-DQ6 is more conservative in this regard. Notice memory timings at 480 MHz are closer to default timings of the Samsung DDR3 memory modules at 533 MHz, with the exception of a slightly lower TRAS cycles (19 as opposed to 20 cycles). The difference is understandable - after all its running at lower clocks (480 MHz vs 533 MHz). Due to a mixup on our end, we were unable to show the CPU-Z processor and FSB clock tab, which also includes core voltage values and also RivaTuner's shot of processor clocks during heavy loads.

Expansions and Add-Ons

For all your expansion needs, the Gigabyte P35T-DQ6 comes with two PCI, three x1 and two x16 PCI Express slots which are Crossfire ready. The arrangement of the expansion slots are typical of Gigabyte boards - again with dual slot cooling Radeon cards, you'll lose the two PCI and PCI-E x1 slots. Remember, with dual slot coolers its important to leave the slot beside the card empty to allow better airflow. That leaves just the single x1 PCI-E slot, which sadly, may not really be useful due to the available space limited by the giant SilentPipe chipset cooling.

The P35T-DQ6 may not have all the bells and whistles compared to the ASUS P5K3 and P5K3 Deluxe (WiFi adapter, dual Gigabit Ethernet), but it offers a very flexible storage options. Gigabyte was the first vendor to offer external SATA drives support on their 865 and 875 boards and they still continue to do so with their current offering. Unlike other vendors who opted to put eSATA ports on the ATX back panel, Gigabyte choose to use the internal SATA ports in combination with add-on brackets. That means users who don't use eSATA can still use all the available ports for internal drives. Of course, there is a matter of SATA ports placement - if you install a dual slot cooler card on the second PCI-E x16, you may find it hard to install / remove the SATA cables on ports 3 to 6.

Like many high end motherboards, you'll find the usual suspects of ports on the ATX back panel with this board - four USB ports, one Firewire port,a Gigabit Ethernet port courtesy of the Marvell Gigabit Ethernet controller chip, the standard six analog audio ports, both coax and optical SPDIF output ports, PS/2 ports, and a serial and paralel ports for backward compatibility. Expansion wise, in addition to the eSATA brackets, you'll find another bracket with additional USB ports. A full complementary of cables (one IDE cable, one floppy cable, four SATA cables (two internal, two external) are included.

We still wish Gigabyte offered more flexibility with their eSATA brackets. In its current form, the cables can only be used for external drives. Then' there is the general problem of brackets - we just don't like having too many brackets. The use of brackets (eSATA and the additional USB ports) means you'll have to choose between them or losing two expansion slots. Maybe Gigabyte should think about putting the serial and paralel ports on brackets rather than the additiona USB ports, a better compromise since you hardly users those ports nowadays.

Tweaking and Overclocking Friendly

The Gigabyte P35T-DQ6 offers the usual complement of important, overclocking settings In the BIOS under the menu 'MIB Intelligent Tweaker'. For those unaccustomed to their boards, you need to press 'Ctrl' and "F1' on the main BIOS menu to enable all the advanced options - the ones you really need. Various settings  - multiplier, voltage, FSB settings are available in addition to other settings such as chipset, memory clock and FSB clocks and other options. Gigabyte made several nice touches to the BIOS - color coded settings for various voltages denoting risk factors, default core voltage displays made overclocking much more easier. Memory divider settings are in ratios, but you can always see what the current settings are and at what speed the memory will run when you change them.

All these settings can be set manually or automatically. Gigabyte's P35 motherbaords also include more strap options compared to their previous P965 boards. The BIOS also supports several BIOS profiles, allowing you to save several overclocking settings for troubleshooting. If you want to update the BIOS, you can use Q-Flash so you don't have to rely on floppys or USB boot devices.

Overall, its a pretty good BIOS. Of course, we still would like Gigabyte change their default 'OK' settings for processor, memory voltage and 3.3, 5 and 12 volt rails values on the hardware monitor page (which incidentally, they did change on their X38 motherboards) and ditch the 'Ctrl'+'F1' option. Changing it into a BIOS popup dialog box alerting users.when they enter the MIB menu should be more than enough (plus the option to disable such warning for advanced users).

As you would guess, we do have some minor gripes with this board, though nothing really serious.
Overall, our gripes aside, the Gigabyte P35T-DQ6 is a good high-end board focused on performance and overclocking. It lack the feature lists of its rivals (WiFi, dual Gigabit LAN), but overclockers probably don't need most of those features anyway. If DDR3 supports doesnt appeal to you, Gigabyte does offer the DDR2 equipped P35-DQ6 (without the T) which could be more to your liking. Of course, you still have to deal with SilentPipe and CrazyCool.

Gigabyte P35-DS3P

Intel Pentium 4 / Core socket LGA-775
Intel P35 Express
PCI Express, PCI

Overall Score: 90 points



The full specification (taken from Gigabyte's website)

CPU   
Supports Intel® Core™2 Extreme Quad-Core / Core™2 Duo / Intel® Pentium® Extreme/ Intel® Pentium® D processors
Supports1333/1066/800 MHz FSB

Chipset   
Northbridge: Intel® P35 Express Chipset
T.I IEEE 1394 Controller

Memory   
Supports DDR2 1066*/800/667 memory
Dual Channel architecture supports up to 8GB by 4 DIMM slots
* Please refer "Memory Support List" for memory support information.

Expansion Slots   
Storage
Southbridge: Intel® ICH9R

LAN
Gigabit LAN Controller (Marvell 8053)

Audio
Realtek ALC889A 8-Channel Audio Codec

Other Features   
Back Panel Connectors   
Internal I/O Connectors   
BIOS
Form Factor   
ATX form factor, 305 x 244mm

The P35-DS3P is the successor to the P965-DS3P and DS3, which coincidentally is our motherboard of choice for test setups. It's a very good stable board with lots of overclocking features and comes equipped with almost the same set of features found on Gigabyte's high end DQ6 (and to some extent DS4) boards. In fact, if you look real close, you'll notice the board practically is based on the same layout as the high end DQ6 - with some 'minor' omissions (less eletrical components here and there). This board also feature a more simple cooling soltuion not like SilentPipe and CrazyCool, one that's more easily removable and takes very little space (compared to SilentPipe). The norhtbridge chipset cooling have been slightly 'beefed up' compard to the P965 version. Here's what we saw when we remove it.




Of course, this should be no surprise since we saw the same thing with DQ6's SilentPipe cooling. Again, we think using a thermal paste would not only offer slightly cooler temperatures (depending on the thermal paste used and how you apply it), but also less hassle from having to clean the heatsink and reapply paste when you remove it. Sure, the average user will likey never do such a thing. But if you periodically clean your PC, you'll likely find it will be much more easier (and much more effective) if you were able to remove the heatsink 

 

This is another reason why we like the Gigabyte DS3P series so much - it adheres to SPD values when set to 'Auto'. With memory prices being so low, there's a very good chance most users will choose not to buy high end memory modules. The quality of commodity - value - modules tend to vary no only from vendor to vendor, but even module to module. For these kinds of modules, it's generally accepted to always use SPD settings. A board that doesn't respect SPD settings will likely have problems with such modules. That's why we like SPD settings.



Hmmm, the P35-DS3P seems to supply more core voltage when the CPU voltage is set to 'Auto' - 1.296 volts. It does allow for more overclocking headroom, but we generalliy like a more precise setting. A slightly higher voltage than needed means core temperatures may be unnecessarily higher. Too much voltage can even be dangerous to the processor. FSB and processor clock is where it should be, but let's look what happens when we examine these clocks over time.



There's some small ripples in clocks, but generally its nothing to worry about.

Expansions and Add-Ons

This board is equipped with all the standard equipment you expect - PS/2, serial and printer ports plus four USB ports and a complete set of six audio ports, including coax and optical SPDIF output. If you're upgrading your PC, you might want to retain any internal USB cables you have - there are three additional USB headers in the board but Gigabyte only bundle one cable / bracket with two USB ports to make use of them. Users with Firewire peripherals will have to do with the single Firewire port on the ATX backpanel, otherwise they need to get a Firewire add-on card. There are more than enough PCI and x1 PCI-E slots to go around - a total of two PCI and three x1 PCI-E slots, plus the two x16 PCI-E slots are available for your expansion needs. Gigabyte's external SATA brackets are also bundled with the P35-DS3P, though it's limited to two external SATA drives (instead of 4 on the DQ6). External SATA cables are also included.

Gigabyte made some minor layout changes with the P35-DS3P, which we think is an improvement to the P965 version  You actually.have one additional usable fan header this time - the P35 northbridge fan header is nowthe standard 3 pin fan header rather than the 2 pin header. The second system fan header is upgraded to the 4 pin variety. The board's layout near the southbridge have also been changed. For one, they ditch the placement of capacitors near the IDE controller, minimizing the risk of accidentally breaking it off when pressing down on the IDE connector for leverage. The relabeled J-Micron controller moved downwards to allow for an additional USB header. However, we don't like the SATA ports alignment (it still may interfere with full length PCI cards installed on the second / last PCI slot).

The trouble with the board's layout is that it suffer from the same problems we saw with the DQ6 - DIMM and SATA ports placement. We often bug Gigabyte with pleas of using horizontal SATA ports or even slightly changing the layout so you won't lose four SATA ports if you use Crossfire (with dual slot coolers). Moving the 5th and 6th ports slightly southward (swapping the third series of ports with the J-Micron controller so the ports are vertically aligned) would have been a great improvement (you'll only lose two ports instead of four).

Tweaking and Overclocking Friendly

One area where the DS3P does not disappoint is in the tweaking and overclocking settings - you'll get the same numerous options and settings available on the DQ6 to push this board to the limit. Settings such as the processor's FSB, multiplier, memory ratio, clock and voltage tweaks are available inside the MIB Intelligent Tweaker menu on the BIOS. Of course, the gripes we have with the DQ6 BIOS alos applies here - OK values instead of numerical ones and 'Ctrl'+'F1' keystroke to enable advanced menu settings.  In the end, we think the Gigabyte P35-DS3P is a very good, affordable board  with a real focus on performance, features and overclockability without breaking your wallet

As you would guess, we do have some minor gripes with this board, though nothing really serious.

MSI P35 Diamond

Intel Pentium 4 / Core socket LGA-775
Intel P35 Express
PCI Express, PCI

Overall Score: 96 points



The full specification (taken from MSI's website)

CPU
Supports Intel® Core 2 Quad/Core 2 Duo based processors in LGA775 package.
Supports Intel® Yorkfield, Wolfdale in the LGA775 package.
Supports FSB 1333/1066/800 MHz.
Please refer to CPU Support for compatible CPU; the above description is for reference only.

Chipset
Intel® P35 Chipset
Supports FSB 800/1066/1333MHz.
Supports dual channel, DDR3 800/1066.

Main Memory 
Supports four unbuffered DIMM of 1.5 Volt DDR3 SDRAM
Supports up to 8GB memory size.
Supports dual channel DDR3 memory architecture.
Supports DDR3 800/1066 memory interface.

Expansion Slots 
Storage
Intel® ICH9R Chipset
*eSATA function would be fully supported by VISTA ( In Box driver with AHCI driver). eSATA function would not be fully supported without AHCI driver under WinXP.
   
On-Board IDE/SATA   
One Ultra DMA 66/100/133 IDE controller integrated in Marvell® 88SE6111.
SATAII controller integrated in ICH9R and Marvell® 88SE6111 chipest
MSI Reminds You...
The RAID setup floppy disk is optional depending on the districts. You can download the files from the website to make the setup disk.

Audio
Chip integrated by Realtek® ALC888T
LAN
Supports PCI Express LAN 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet by Realtek 8111B.

IEEE1394
VIA® VT6308 chipset
Back Panel I/O Ports
Internal I/O Connectors
MSI Reminds You...
The floppy disk cable will be optional.

BIOS
The mainboard BIOS provides "Plug & Play" BIOS which detects the peripheral devices and  expansion cards of the board automatically.
The mainboard provides a Desktop Management Interface(DMI) function which records your mainboard specifications.

Form Factor
30.5cm(L) x 24.5cm(W) ATX

If the Gigabyte P35T-DQ6 is the heavy contender, then the MSI P35 DIamond is the all around, full featured competitor. The most prominent bundle is not one, but two add-on cards - the X-Fi Xtreme audio PCI-E x1 card and the Skytell VoIP PCI card. Bundling the X-Fi card certainly will appeal to gamers, though we're not so sure about the Skytel add-on, but then again, we never used VoIP services. So, let's concentrate on the X-Fi bundle.

 

Although you don't get the extras of X-Fi premium cards, the most compelling reasons to get X-Fi (EAX Advanced HD) for gamers is alive and well in the X-Fi Xtreme Audio, at least if you're still using Windows XP. If you're using Vista like we do, you need to get Creative's ALchemy software to 'bring back' this feature. Unfortunately, MSI didn't bundle the ALchemy software for our sample - hopefully that will change in the future. An small oversight perhaps? Maybe, but we feel there's more to ot - this bundle just seem a little bit 'unbalanced'..

For one, MSI still includes a Realtek ALC888T on the board so you basically get two sound cards with this motherboard. MSI's earlier efforts like the K8N Platinum which we used as our test setup back in the days of Athlon 64 integrates Creative's Live! Value on the motherboard. Though some may see the value of having two sound cards (and a separate card you can use on another PC or when you upgrade to another motherboard), we feel its more of a waste this time around. Why? Well, completely integrating the X-Fi Xtreme audio (and not including the Realtek codec) would have been better, if not cheaper than bundling it as a separate card. Plus, the add-on X-Fi does not include coaxial AND optical SPDIF output which is the usual norm for high end and premium motherboards. You also don't have the means to connect the X-Fi Xtreme Audio card to front panel audio jacks - you'll have to use the onboard audio for that. The budget MSI might have saved by removing the Realtek codec completely could have gone to giving the X-Fi Xtreme audio a more complete complement of ports.

   

Now, let's talk about Circupipe. Unlike Stackcool on ASUS P5K3 and P5K Deluxe and SilentPipe on Gigabyte P35T-DQ6, removing Circupipe is very easy - in fact its the easiest to remove. The shots above are shots taken of the  Circupipe radiator heatsinks.. Similar to ASUS and Gigabyte, MSI used thermal tape / pad between the heatsink and the components. If you look at the picture on the left, you can clearly see imprints left by the mosfets on the tape / pad. Although the tape doesn't dissolve, we can see the mounting mechanism iworks very well. But why aren't we seeing the same thing with the second picture? Well, to answer that question, you'll have to look at the next picture.



Here is a picture of the processor's socket and the surrounding area. For those who noticed, that's the P35 Platinum, not the P35 Diamond but they actually use the same cooler design so we think this is OK. As you might have guessed, the two radiator sinks (when in place) covers the mosfets on the top (not included in the picture) and area between the processor's socket and the DIMM slots. Immediately after seeing this, we thought to ourselves - what does the second radiator sink rest on? You guessed it - the PCB close to the DIMM slots. We feel this is not necessarily a good thing - excess heat that didn't get dissipated by the chipset cooler will travel to cooler parts of the Circupipe - the radiator heatsinks. Unless the thermal pad below the radiator sink between the processor socket and the memory slots dont conduct heat (we're pretty certain it doesn't since it defeats the purpose of the heatsink), Circupipe actually heats up the PCB (to a certain extent).

Obviously, there is something very bad about this. Of course, one could argue this is not a problem if the radiator sinks never got to very hot - i.e there's sufficient airflow around the processor and you're using a processor fan / heatsink that directly blows air downward to the processor like the stock cooler. It might be a problem if the chipset (and the radiator heatsinks) got hot enough though.

Just like Stackcool and SilentPipe, Circupipe also have its share of problems when you're trying to install a fan / heatsink on the processor - more so during removal. There's barely enough room for your finger to twist the lock on the stock cooler. The dual heatpipe of Circupipe also makes plugging in the ATX 12 volts cable unnecessarily troublesome. Thankfully, MSI is aware of this and supplied an extension so you can plug the cable much more easier.

 

At least, MSI went an extra mile with Circupipe. Keeping inline with tradition. MSI still uses thermal paste to help heat transfer between the P35 chipset (left picture) and the ICH9R southbridge (right picture). This extra effort allows Circupipe much better thermal performance - though we didn't do any controlled measurements, we generrally saw or rather 'feel' the temperature never got really high - somewhere between the P5K and DQ6 - after long hours of testing with overclocked FSBs. However, don't press your luck - always make sure there's enough airflow to cool down Circupipe.

 

Well, that's a bit strange - the MSI P35 Diamond seems to 'mix' the timings a little bit. At 480 MHz, it applies CAS latency for 533 MHz but everything else as if it runs at 457 MHz. It's still much more 'safer' than the ASUS P5K3, but not as 'strict' as the GIgabyte P35T-DQ6. So, out of the three DDR3 motherboards in this round up, it looks like only the Gigabyte P35T-DQ6 that manages to apply 'correct' timings for the Samsung DDR3 modules we used for this test.



The P35 Diamond does supply the core with slightly higher voltage than we'd like - 1.3 volts. We did notice something peculiar when we set the FSB clock to 400 MHz though. The BIOS would automatically raise the FSB and MCH voltages. The thing is, the adjusted values are actually deemed by the BIOS to be somewhat 'dangerous' - red color coded. This may contribute to the higher core voltage we see here. We selected a voltage one option down to slightly 'safer' levels. 



This is something we'd like to see one every motherboard - a flat - or at least reasonably free of ripple - graph of clock rate. Kudos to MSI for actually achieving such a feat on the P35 Diamond.

Expansions and Add-Ons

As a premium board, the MSI P35 Diamond comes with a plethora of expansion options. There's two x16 and x1 PCI-E slots, plus another two PCI slots. Of course, if you're planning to use the SkyTel VoIP and the X-Fi Xtreme cards, you'll be left with only one x1 PCI-E and one PCI slot. If you;re using Crossfire, both with dual slot cooling or a multi monitor setup, you'll find there's no free slots left. The good news is that the two add-on card MSI bundled won't hinder airflow (much), particularly if the graphics cards you use has their intake further inside the case (near the end of the card).

On the ATX back panel, MSI chose to do things differently to other vendors. They ditch the serial and paralel port completely and in their place you'll see four USB ports, a Firewire port and an optical SPDIF output port. PS/2 ports are still present, so users who still prefer PS/2 peripherals need not worry. In addition to these ports, you can also find two USB ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, two eSATA ports and the standard six analog audio ports. A bracket with one Firewire port is included. Honestly though, we think MSI should have placed the port on back panel - either under the four USB ports (like the SPDIF output port) or on top of the eSATA ports. We also prefer a much more flexibile arrangements of eSATA ports like on Gigabyte motherboards - using two SATA ports on the ICH9R as eSATA ports means you can only use four internal SATA drives (plus one from the Marvell SATA / IDE controller which doesn't support RAID). We think the SATA port placement could've been better - while the four ICH 9 ports shouldn't interfere with long, dual slot cooled graphics cards, the fifth SATA port courtesy of the Marvell chip will likely go unused if you have a dual slot cooling card on the second x16 PCI-E slot.   

The necessary cable accessories - four SATA cables, one 4 pin ATX with two SATA power connectors, an IDE and floppy cable are included. Too bad, the IDE and floppy cable are not the rounded cable type.Of course, all the drivers and other utilities (including those for the add-on bundled cards) are included with the board..

Tweaking and Overclocking Options

The MSI P35 Platinum BIOS offer lots of tweaking and overclocking options, enough for most people and average users. Important settings like FSB, memory timings and voltage settings can be set automatically or manually adjusted. What we slightly dislike is the method for strap configuration - the MSI P35 Diamond relies on two jumpers. Think that's bad? Well, it gets worse - they are placed in front of the first x1 PCI-E slot so you have to remove your dual slot cooling graphics card to access them. Thankfully, in their default state (333MHz on our sample), achieving 400 MHz is a no brainer.

There are two feature we think MSI should consider adding to their BIOS - a built in BIOS flasher and BIOS profile support. These features will go a long way to making it easier for installation and troubleshooting, especially when you're looking for the best overclocking setting.

There are some small things MSI could have done differently Here's what we think they should've done:
Overall, we are disappointed with the MSI P35 Diamond board. It may offer good value due to the bundling of X-Fi Xtreme audio and SkyTell VoIP card, but the board have too many misses on other areas - the design of Circupipe, the strap jumper placement, the eSATA port arrangement, less usable SATA ports due to the use of the Marvell 88SE6111 chip and last,  the RAID issue with some configurations. The MSI P35 Diamond just doesn't feel like a premium board it potentially can be.

MSI P35 Platinum

Intel Pentium 4 / Core socket LGA-775
Intel P35 Express
PCI Express, PCI

Overall Score: 92 points



The full specification (taken from MSI's website)

CPU
Supports Intel® Core 2 Quad/Core 2 Duo based processors in LGA775 package.
Supports Intel® Yorkfield, Wolfdale.
Supports FSB 1333/1066/800 MHz.
Please refer to CPU Support for compatible CPU; the above description is for reference only.

Chipset
Intel® P35 Chipset
Supports FSB 800/1066/1333MHz.
Supports dual channel, DDR2 667/800/1066 (OC).

Main Memory 
Supports four unbuffered DIMM of 1.8 Volt DDR2 SDRAM
Supports up to 8GB memory size.
Supports dual channel DDR2 memory architecture.
Supports DDR2 667/800/1066 (OC) memory interface.

Expansion Slots 
Storage
Intel® ICH9R Chipset
On-Board IDE/SATA   
One Ultra DMA 66/100/133 IDE controller integrated in Marvell® 88SE6111.
SATAII controller integrated in ICH9R and Marvell® 88SE6111 chipest
MSI Reminds You...
The RAID setup floppy disk is optional depending on the districts. You can download the files from the website to make the setup disk.

Audio
Chip integrated by Realtek® ALC888/ALC888T
LAN
Supports PCI Express LAN 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet by Realtek 8111B.

IEEE1394
VIA® VT6308 chipset
Back Panel I/O Ports
Internal I/O Connectors
MSI Reminds You...
The floppy disk cable will be optional.

BIOS
The mainboard BIOS provides "Plug & Play" BIOS which detects the peripheral devices and expansion cards of the board automatically.
The mainboard provides a Desktop Management Interface(DMI) function which records your  mainboard specifications.

Form Factor
30.5cm(L) x 24.5cm(W) ATX

At first glance, the P35 Platinum looks a lot like the P35 Diamond. That's natural, since the layout of both boards are generally the same. However, look closer and you'll see some small differences. In addition to DDR2 support, slightly different fifth SATA port placement, the MSI P35 Platinum uses fewer electrical components. Another difference which may be a little hard to spot is the audio codec used - the MSI P35 Platinum sample we received uses the 'lighter' ALC 888 codec instead of 888T.  Why is that important? Well, unlike the P35 Diamond, you won't get the X-Fi Xtreme Audio. Cost savings? We think so, after all, every little bit helps. Also notice, the MSI P35 Platinum doesn't offer the ATX 12 volt connector extension. Everything else is pretty much the same, so we won't go into them here.

 

The P35 Platinum seems to be more conservative than the Gigabyte P35-DS3P by using slightly looser timings than the SPD values. In fact, except for the CAS latency, the other timings are the same to what we saw on the ASUS P5K Deluxe. As we said before, we generally prefer more accurate timings, so though safer, we still generally prefer Gigabyte's P35-DS3P in this regard. Of course, you can always set the timngs manually from the BIOS plus the latency differences are so small, they certainly won't be noticeable at all in real life conditions..



Just like the MSI P35 Diamond, the P35 Platinum applied slightly higher voltage than we'd like - about 1.3 volts - when we set the core voltage to 'Auto'. Processor and FSB clocks are all right on the dot. Let's see whether or not the P35 Platinum behaves just like its higher sibling under load.



Umm, it would seem there's a lot more ripple - much like the other boards in this round up. 

Expansions and Add-Ons

Using, the same layout, the MSI P35 Platinum offers virtually the same complement of expansion options. You'll get two PCI slots, two x1 and x16x PCI-E slots, which you can use for Crossfire. The ATX back panel also offer the same set of ports in the same arrangement as with the MSI P35 Diamond - PS/2 ports, six USB ports, a Firewire port, a coax SPDIF port, six audio port, two eSATA port and a Gigabit Ethernet port. As we noted earlier, the only difference in regards to expansion is the fifth SATA port courtesy of the Marvell 88SE6111 chip. Unfortunately, this mean the P35 Platinum also suffer the same RAID problem we saw on the P35 Diamond.

On the accesories side, you'll get slightly less - you won't get the X-Fi Xtreme audio PCI Express card and the SkyTel VoIP PCI card. Although MSI's website lists four SATA cables and one 4 pin ATX to two SATA power connector, we only found one 4 pin ATX to one SATA power connector with our sample. So, your mileage may vary depending on where you live and the policy of your local MSI distributor / representative. IDE and floppy cables, plus the same, one port Fireiwer bracket is still bundled with the P35 Platinum, so no loss there.

Tweaking and Overclocking Options

The MSI P35 Platinum BIOS is identical to the P35 Diamond, so the same options and features can be found in this motherboard. Of course, that also mean there's no built in BIOS flasher and BIOS profile support. The MSI P35 Platinum BIOS offer lots of tweaking and overclocking options, enough for most people and average users. Important settings like FSB, memory timings and voltage settings can be set automatically or manually adjusted. What we slightly dislike is the method for strap configuration - the MSI P35 Diamond relies on two jumpers. Think that's bad? Well, it gets worse - they are placed in front of the first x1 PCI-E slot so you have to remove your dual slot cooling graphics card to access them. Thankfully, in their default state (333MHz on our sample), achieving 400 MHz is a no brainer.

There are some small things MSI could have done differently Here's what we think they should've done:
Just like with the P35 Diamond, we are disappointed with the MSI P35 Platinum board. Perhaps even more since there no add-ons like the X-Fi Xtreme audio card. The onboard audio chip is also different and offers slightly less features. Overall, we don't think the whole package is compelling enough, especially since other vendors offer more flexible and less troublesome options in the same price range.

MSI P35 Neo

Intel Pentium 4 / Core socket LGA-775
Intel P35 Express
PCI Express, PCI

Overall Score: 85 points



The full specification (taken from MSI's website)

CPU
Supports Intel® Core 2 Quad/Core 2 Duo based processors in LGA775 package.
Supports Intel® Yorkfield, Wolfdale.
Supports FSB 1333/1066/800 MHz.
Please refer to CPU Support for compatible CPU; the above description is for reference only.

Chipset
Intel® P35 Chipset
Supports FSB 800/1066/1333MHz.
Supports dual channel, DDR2 667/800.

Main Memory 
Supports four unbuffered DIMM of 1.8 Volt DDR2 SDRAM
Supports up to 8GB memory size.
Supports dual channel DDR2 memory architecture.
Supports DDR2 667/800 memory interface.

Expansion Slots
Storage
Intel® ICH9 Chipset
On-Board IDE/SATA   
One Ultra DMA 66/100/133 IDE controller integrated in Marvell® 88SE6111.
SATAII controller integrated in ICH9 and Marvell® 88SE6111 chipest
Audio
Chip integrated by Realtek® AL888
LAN
Supports PCI Express LAN 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet by Realtek 8111B.

IEEE1394
VIA® VT6308 chipset
Back Panel I/O Ports
Internal I/O Connectors
MSI Reminds You
The floppy disk cable will be optional.

BIOS
The mainboard BIOS provides "Plug & Play" BIOS which detects the peripheral devices and expansion cards of the board automatically.
The mainboard provides a Desktop Management Interface(DMI) function which records your mainboard specifications.

Form Factor
30.5cm(L) x 22.0cm(W) ATX

The MSI P35 Neo is the only value oriented motherboard in this round up. Because of this, you won't see features like Crossfire support (no second x16 PCI-E slot). However, we were slightly surprised MSI chose to bundle the standard ICH9 southbridge - so, no RAID support whatsoever with this board. The board also only boasts 5 internal SATA ports without any eSATA ports at all (the fifth SATA ports is courtesy of the Marvell 88SE6111 chip. What's good to know is that because there's no RAID support, the motherboad does not suffer the RAID problem we saw with the P35 Diamond and P35 Platinum..

As a value motherboard, you won't see any extravagant cooling - the MSI P35 Neo simply make do with two very simple heatsinks to cool both the P35 Express chipset and ICH9 southbridge. Thankfully, MSI still is nice enough to use thermal paste even for a value oriented board. Though not pictured, the southbridge cooler also uses thermal paste.

 

During testing, the MSI P35 Neo ran flawlessly, even when overclocked to an FSB of 400 MHz (1600 MHz effective). The board does display the same behaviour as its high end sibling - the BIOS will automatically raise the FSB and MCH voltage when your raise the FSB. Just lke with the P35 Diamond and P35 Platinum, we selected a slightly lower value than what is set by the BIOS. Unlike the P35 Diamond and P35 Platinum, the P35 Neo does not offer any control over the FSB strap, so your overclocking headroom will be more limited, but unless you're planning to use very high FSBs in excess of 400 MHz, you really don't need strap control.

 

It's silghtly unnerving to see a value board does better in regards to applying correct SPD timings than premium boards, but that's what we're seeing here. Of course, one could argue the difference in timing doesn't really matter anyway in real life performance, but it just shows that MSI still have some home work to do with their P35 Diamond and P35 Platinum boards. After all, it's completely natural to get something more when you pay more.



Well, this is slightly over the top. In our opinion, the P35 Neo applied too high voltage for our E6300 processor, even when taking overclocking into account - 1.4 volts. That's about 0.15 volts higher than we generally use and saw with the other boards. Of course, you can always change the voltage manually from the BIOS, but again we expected better from MSI. Let's see what the board behave when put under heavy load for a certain period of time - clock wise.



Guess only the P35 Diamond is the only motherboard with considerable advantage in this area. The MSI P35 Neo still shows some ripples in clocks, though again as we said before, you probably won't notice them in real world situations.

Expansions and Add-Ons

Typically, you don't expect to get extra features with a value board and this is also the case with P35 Neo. We already mentioned there's five SATA ports you can use (four fron the ICH9 and one from the Marvell chip). For expansions, there's two PCI slots, three 1x and one x16 PCI-E slot. Of course, if you're using a dual slot cooling graphics card, you'll likely lost one 1x PCI-E slot - two if you want to allow more room for airflow. On the backpanel, you'll find four USB ports, PS/2 ports, a serial and paralel port plus the standard six analog ports. Nothing out of the ordinary really. We think MSI skimp too much in terms of accesories with this board - you'll only get one SATA cable and one 4 pin ATX to SATA power connector, plus an IDE cable. Even without RAID, we still expect at least two SATA cables and the appropriate SATA power connectors.

We're not really crazy about the layout either. With such sparsely feature motherboard, we'd certainly expect a better layout than the P35 Neo offer. No doubt MSI could've positioned the first and second DIMM slots inline with the third and fourth slot - allowing you to remove memory modules without fiddling with the graphics card. That fifth SATA port placement can also complicate things if you have a long enough graphics card with dual slot cooling. Although we had to admit, it won't hinder installation and removal somce ot
so far out.

Tweaking and Overclocking Options

Though the MSI P35 Neo doesn't offer all the bells and whistles like the P35 Diamond and P35 Platinum, MSI is still nice enough to provide the most iimportant BIOS setting for overclocking. Settings like FSB, memory timings and voltage settings can be set automatically or manually adjusted. Much like its higher end siblings, the MSI P35 Neo does not offer any built in BIOS utility or BIOS profile support.

We generally think MSI could have done better with this board Here are some things we think would've made the board so much better:
Overall, we are slightly disappointed with the MSI P35 Neo board. It does have the potential to be better - a value board that overclocks very well (though not anything hardcore).

Performance

All these boards ran fine during  testing, but there are some notes we'd like you to know. The settings we used for this round up are limited to just 1024 x 768, 32 bit with without AA and AF. These settings were chosen so that the graphics card performance is not a factor. Any performance difference will likely be caused by other factors, more likely related to processor and memory subsystems (clock, timing). Storrage and audio may also play a factor here.  All of these boards are tested with the default SATA controller on Intel's ICH9R southbridge - under RAID mode or basically AHCI mode for single drives. For the MSI P35 Diamond, we'd include benchmarks both with the onboard audio and X-FI Xtreme audio card. Though not featured on the graph, we also include test results with ALchemy.

Our test setup
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 socket LGA-775 (running at 7 x 400 MHz)
2 x 1024 MB Kingston KHX 5-5-5-16 PC8500 DDR2-SDRAM
2 x 1024 MB Samsung 7-7-7-20 PC8500 DDR3-SDRAM
Gigabyte Radeon X1950 Pro 256 MB
Hitachi Deskstar 250 GB Serial ATA 16 MB buffer 7200 rpm hard drives
LiteOn 1673S DVD-RW
FSP Epsilon 800 watts ATX/BTX power supply

Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit with all the latest updates.
ATI Catalyst 7.9 reference driver
Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility 8.3.0.1011
Realtek Semiconductor High Definition Audio System Software Ver:R1.72
SoundMAX Audio Ver 610x6180 (for ASUS P5K Deluxe and P5K3 Deluxe)
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi driver Ver 5.10.0.21 (for MSI P35 Diamond)
Creative ALchemy (X-Fi Edition) Web Release 1.00.7 (for MSI P35 Diamond)
DirectX 10
all respected games used for benchmarks have been updated to their latest, final builds.

The results:

F.E.A.R - Performance Test
ASUS P5K
ASUS
P5K - SoundMAX
ASUS P5K3 - SoundMAX
Gigabyte P35T-DQ6
Gigabyte P35-DS3P
MSI P35 Platinum
MSI P35 Diamond
MSI P35 Diamond - X-Fi
MSI P35 NeoF
48.33
117.16
289.67
.
48.33
118.81
291
.
48.33
118.3
291.33
.
48.67
114.26
279.67
.
48
116.93
286.67
.
48.67
116.92
288.33
.
48.33
116.52
287.67
.
48.33
116.36
286
.
48.33
114.61
284.33
Minimum fps
Average fps
Maximum fps


 ASUS P5K Deluxe ASUS P5K Deluxe w SoundMAX ASUS P5K3 Deluxe w SoundMAX Gigabyte P35T-DQ6 Gigabyte P35-DS3P MSI P35 Platinum MSI P35 Diamond MSI P35 Diamond w X-Fi MSI P35 NeoF
1st Run
Min 49 49 49 48 49 49 49 49 49
Avg 117.96 118.59 117.49 116.32 118.05 117.33 115.85 116.2 115.63
Max 289 290 292 287 290 290 288 286 285
2nd Run








Min 48 48 48 49 48 49 48 48 48
Avg 116.64 118.53 118.06 114.41 118.06 116.41 116.45 115.66 113.33
Max 289 290 291 277 288 287 287 285 284
3rd Run








Min 48 48 48 49 47 48 48 48 48
Avg 116.88 119.31 119.35 112.05 114.69 117.02 117.26 117.21 114.89
Max 291 293 291 275 282 288 288 287 284

*numbers are in frame rates - higher is better

Well, it's pretty hard to spot any significant difference between the boards from the graph - these are averages between runs. Let's look at the table, which is more interesting. If you look closely, you'll see the difference between runs typically is about 1 fps - very small (for both minimum and average fps). Though not noticeable in real life, both Gigabyte boards - the P35T-DQ6 and P35-DS3P do have higher variations between runs - 4 fps. Its not much and small enough not to matter, but it certainly isn't the norm.


 MSI P35 Diamond MSI P35 Diamond w X-Fi Alchemy
1st Run
Min 49 49 49
Avg 115.85 116.2 115.95
Max 288 286 285
2nd Run


Min 48 48 48
Avg 116.45 115.66 114.26
Max 287 285 282
3nd Run


Min 48 48 48
Avg 117.26 117.21 115.47
Max 288 287 286

*numbers are in frame rates - higher is better

FEAR is one title ALchemy directly support in Vista. It's good to know that you're not only gain back EAX effects, but performance in general is better - by about 1 to 2 fps faster if you're not using ALchemy. The disadvantage of the approach is that ALchemy must explicitly have the profile for the game. Otherwise, you likely will not see any performance or quality difference at all.

Quake 4 - Data Processing Terminal
ASUS P5K
ASUS
P5K - SoundMAX
ASUS P5K3 - SoundMAX
Gigabyte P35T-DQ6
Gigabyte P35-DS3P
MSI P35 Platinum
MSI P35 Diamond
MSI P35 Diamond - X-Fi
MSI P35 NeoF
92.67
156.15
227
.
93
155.6
233.33
.
92.67
157.03
231.67
.
98
161.48
250
.
93.67
157.52
233.67
.
93.33
156.76
227.67
.
92.67
154.81
226
.
93
154.3
220.67
.
93
153.15
215.33
Minimum fps
Average fps
Maximum fps


 ASUS P5K Deluxe ASUS P5K Deluxe w SoundMAX ASUS P5K3 Deluxe w SoundMAX Gigabyte P35T-DQ6 Gigabyte P35-DS3P MSI P35 Platinum MSI P35 Diamond MSI P35 Diamond w X-Fi MSI P35 NeoF
1st Run
Min 92 93 93 99 94 93 93 93 93
Avg 154.65 155.51 156.8 163.95 158.22 156.27 154.67 151.95 152.59
Max 218 232 238 250 236 219 225 225 214
2nd Run








Min 93 93 92 97 93 94 92 93 93
Avg 157.21 153.93 157.96 160.35 157.2 157.14 154.77 154.9 152.94
Max 230 237 230 254 233 236 219 219 211
3rd Run








Min 93 93 93 98 94 93 93 93 93
Avg 156.59 157.35 156.33 160.14 157.14 156.88 155 156.04 153.92
Max 233 231 227 246 232 228 234 218 221

*numbers are in frame rates - higher is better

From the graph, you can tell the Gigabyte P35T-DQ6 slightly edges out the other boards. Looking at the raw results rather than the average fps confirms that assessment - it's about 4 fps faster. Interesting. Our first guess would the higher bandwidth from the use of DDR3 modules, but that's not likely seeing the ASUS P5K3 and MSI P35 Diamond don't offer the same level of performance. Better BIOS tuning perhaps? More likely, nonetheless the P35T-DQ6 is faster in this benchmark.

Unfortunately, ALchemy doesn't have a profile for Quake 4, so we were unable to show results from the MSI P35 Diamond with X-Fi when Alchemy is enabled.

Serious Sam II - Greendale
ASUS P5K
ASUS
P5K - SoundMAX
ASUS P5K3 - SoundMAX
Gigabyte P35T-DQ6
Gigabyte P35-DS3P
MSI P35 Platinum
MSI P35 Diamond
MSI P35 Diamond - X-Fi
MSI P35 NeoF
66
90.16
109.67
.
67.67
89.84
108.67
.
66.33
94.39
117.67
.
64.67
90.48
110.67
.
67.33
89.65
113.67
.
61.67
92.58
115
.
66
89.55
107
.
67.33
91.87
111
.
64.67
90.62
109.67
Minimum fps
Average fps
Maximum fps


 ASUS P5K Deluxe ASUS P5K Deluxe w SoundMAX ASUS P5K3 Deluxe w SoundMAX Gigabyte P35T-DQ6 Gigabyte P35-DS3P MSI P35 Platinum MSI P35 Diamond MSI P35 Diamond w X -Fi MSI P35 NeoF
1st Run
Min 68 67 64 66 69 60 63 73 65
Avg 90.55 89.41 94.17 93.96 92.9 92.52 89.35 92.23 90.28
Max 110 108 118 116 115 115 107 112 109
2nd Run








Min 63 68 65 63 69 64 68 65 62
Avg 89.9 90.27 94.52 89.97 83.14 92.92 89.66 91.57 90.94
Max 109 109 117 109 114 115 107 111 110
3rd Run








Min 67 68 70 65 64 61 67 64 67
Avg 90.04 89.83 94.47 87.5 92.9 92.31 89.65 91.83 90.66
Max 110 109 118 107 112 115 107 110 110

*numbers are in frame rates - higher is better

Interestingly enough, the graph shows this particular benchmark seem to favor boards using codecs ot Realtek. Look ath the difference just by using ADI SundMAX drivers on the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe and the MSI P35 Diamond with X-Fi Xtreme audio. Clearly, these sound solutions frees the processor just a little bit - enough to offer you about 3 to 4 fps higher. Now, there's something funny with both Gigabyte's board - look how performance changes from one run to the next. Although whatever Gigabyte did offered a slight performance advantage in Quake 4, it certainly didn't work that well in F.E.A.R and Serious Sam II.


 MSI P35 Diamond MSI P35 Diamond w X -Fi Alchemy
1st Run
Min 63 73 67
Avg 89.35 92.23 90.96
Max 107 112 110
2nd Run


Min 68 65 68
Avg 89.66 91.57 91.88
Max 107 111 115
3rd Run


Min 67 64 69
Avg 89.65 91.83 92.23
Max 107 110 113

*numbers are in frame rates - higher is better

There's no doubt about it, using X-Fi Xtreme audio frees enough processor time for you to get better performance.sting. Even turning on EAX by way of ALchemy doesn't incur any performance penalty at all. In that respect, its hard not to see the value of bundling the X-Fi Xtreme audio - even if it doesn't boast a full complement of audio ports and extra features found on premium X-Fi cards.

Penryn (45 nm) Processors Support

One of the biggest appeal of P35 boards is the (promised) support for Intel latest 45nm processors. Ideally, you'll just need a BIOS update for these motherboards if you're going to use 45 nm processors. This is the main reason why we waited so long to release this article - to see whether or not this is true. Alas, we couldn't get a sample of a QX9650 to test, so we couldn't tell you whether or not these motherboards will work with Intel's latest and greatest. We did however, take a a look at the supported CPU list on all these vendors' website - you might want to think twice about Penryn support. As of November 4th, 2007, Gigabyte is the only vendor 'confident' enough to claim support for Intel's latest 45nm processor, the QX9650. Even then, its limited to newer (beta) BIOS and on certain motherboards.

GA-P35-DQ6(rev. 1.0) F7b
GA-P35T-DQ6(rev. 1.0) F5x
GA-P35T-DS3P(rev. 1.0) F5b

MSI states that QX9650 support for their boards is still 'in testing'. ASUS didn't even list the QX9650 on their supported CPU list (yet). So, if you're in no hurry to upgrade and want full assurance the motherboard you're buying will work with the entire Penryn processor family, we suggest you wait at least until January (when Intel release the rest of the 45 nm processor lineup) and motherboard vendors have time to inro out any BIOS issues. If you're unwilling to wait, the three motherboards above will likely be your best bet, unless you're willing to buy the more expensive X38 and X48 equipped motherboards.

Conclusion:

We always say, picking a motherboard to use for your PC is never easy. There's a lot of factors to consider. Looking at the results, it's clear performance will not be the determining factor for most people. These motherboards offer pretty much the same level of performance - assuming you're using the same setting on all boards. Overall, we are impressed with the P35 chipset. Remember, in our test we overclocked the processor from the default 266 MHz FSB to 400 MHz FSB. None of the boards exhibit problems with this setting in testing. Even a P35 equpped value boards like the MSI P35 Neo are so easy to overclock and rock stable. This is an improvement ot what we saw with motherboards based on P35's predecessor, the P965 Express chipset.

With basically indistinguishable difference in performance, what will the deciding factor for you? For the most part, features, price, built and support. By far, MSI P35 Diamond offer a most compelling feature - X-Fi Xtreme Audio card and a SkyTel VoIP card. There's also the ASUS P5K Deluxe with WiFi (or the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe if you hell bent on using DDR3 memory modules). The Gigabyte P35T-DQ6, thoug missing such exotic and excting features, offer more flexible storage options. These boards are no doubt targeted at different users - the digital / multimedia enthusiast, the hardcore gamer or people who need more storage capacity and backup flexibility.

Though commendable efforts all of them, we have some reservations about the use of extravagant cooling solutions on those three motherboards. We have nothing against passive cooling in general, but we'd like to see passive cooling solutions that works well and much more 'focused'.

First of, all three of them (Stackcool, SilentPipe, Circupipe) still relies on exhaust air from the processor's fan / heatsink. Is that a problem? No, if you're using the stock cooler or third party cooling solutions that directly blows air on to the processor (and the surround area on the motherboard). If you look at most third party solutions aimed at performance enthusiast with silent running in mind, you'll see most of them are oriented differently (tall heatsink connected to a base and air is blown sideways through the heatsink - not downward to the processor / motherboard).

These chipset cooling solutions also slightly complicates fan / heatsink installation - even if you're using the stock cooler. Larger, more complicated third party solutions will likely be more troublesome to install. There's also little touches we think could've helped, or small designs decisions that should've been avoided all together.

Then there's also the DDR3 memory support. Sure, it scales well with clock and performance. However, at around US$ 400 to 500 per 2 GB kits, most users will likely think twice before reaching deep into their pockets. You can buy 4 GB of DDR2-1066 modules for about half the price (US$ 250 - 280).  Unless you're planning to overclock the FSB extremely high or use asynchronous memory settings, there's no immediate reason to use DDR3 at this time. Thankfully, vendors usually also offer DDR2 versions of the same series (the ASUS P5K Deluxe and Gigabyte P35-DQ6).



Gigabyte P35-DS3P

In the end, our choice for this round up is clear. We recommend the Gigabyte P935-DS3P compared to the other motherboards in this round up. It offers a compelling package for all kinds of users - gamers, overclockers or even the average user. Though it may lack the extra features, it made up for it in price and value. Priced much lower than the DQ6, it still offer pretty much the same features and lacks the extravagant SilentPipe cooling. If you do find the cooling to be inadequate, the money you save can go to much more effective, third party cooling solutions for both the chipset and the processor.

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