![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , December 21, 2006
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
MSI P965 Platinum
MSI is no stranger to creating enthusiast motherboards, geared toward PC enthusiasts of all types. Today we look at MSI’s latest offering, the P965 Platinum based on Intel’s popular P965 Express chipset.
BIOS
MSI chose to use the AMI BIOS with the P965 Platinum. Version 1.1 was used for testing.
The AMI BIOS looks basically like most other do it yourself motherboard BIOS’. Version 1.1 was used for testing on this board, and is the latest one available from MSI’s website at the time this article was written. The first section is Standard CMOS Features. This is where you will find basic time and date settings, floppy drive settings, and basic system information. Under the system information screen, you will find information on system memory, the installed CPU model and speed, CPU ID, and the current clock frequency. The BIOS for the MSI P965 Platinum is elegant, simple and easy to understand. Everything is perfectly standard and normal for a motherboard of this type, and the overclocking and
The Advanced BIOS Features section is next. Here the most important settings are boot sequence, Execute Disable, and Vanderpool (virtualization) technology. The standard Full Screen Logo show, quick booting, num lock LED settings are all here as well. Then we have the Advanced Chipset Features menu. Here is where you configure DRAM timings and Memory Hole settings. With the DRAM Timing settings, the default setting is by SPD. Once in manual mode, you can configure DRAM CAS# Latency, DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay, DRAM RAS# Precharge, DRAM RAS# Activate to Precharge.
The next section is Integrated Peripherals. Here USB functions, Legacy USB support and onboard device controls are found. Here you can enable or disable the Onboard LAN Option ROM, and here you can also set the SATA/RAID mode to IDE, AHCI, and RAID. Firewire and onboard audio are also controlled here. On-Chip ATA Devices is a submenu found within Integrated Peripherals. Within the afore mentioned sub menu you will find PCI IDE BusMaster settings, Configure SATA as RAID, IDE or AHCI settings. Also there is an additional submenu called AHCI Devices Group. This allows you to specify AHCI settings for individual devices connected to specific SATA ports attached to the ICH8R south bridge. I/O devices is next, and here you set your OnBoard Floppy Controller to enabled or disabled, and you can enable or disable COM and Legacy Parallel ports. Under Power Management, you have ACPI Function, and Standby states, Suspend and wakeup settings and all the standard settings you’d find on virtually any motherboard manufactured today.
PNP/PCI is up next, and here you will see Primary Graphics Adapter ordering, PCI latency and IRQ settings.
H/W Monitor is the next section, and in it you will find Chassis Intrusion, CPU Smart Fan Target, and System Smart Fan Target settings. With these settings you can control the fan speed by setting the thermal thresholds that will bring the fans to full speed. Voltage thresholds can be set from 40C to 65C. You can also monitor the status of CPU VCore, 3.3, 5v, and 12v power on the motherboard.
The Cell Menu is the last menu in the BIOS. This is where the enthusiasts will spend most of their time. At the top of this menu, you will see Current CPU Clock and Current DRAM Frequency. The next setting is Dynamic Overclocking Mode. There are four settings for this option; Disabled, CPU Only, PCIE Only, and CPU and PCIE. As the name implies, Dynamic Overclocking dynamically overclocks the CPU, PCIe bus, or both. Adjust CPU FSB Frequency is the next, and one of the most important settings in this menu. It defaults to 266MHz, and is adjustable to 500MHz. While you adjust this setting, you can see the new clock speed under the FSB Frequency setting grayed out. CPU VCore is also displayed underneath that. You can also add CPU voltage over the standard VCore. This can potentially be used to stabilize an overclock. DRAM voltage is adjustable to 2.45 volts. Also within this section is the PCIx4 Speed Controller setting. You can also adjust PCI Express Frequency from 100MHz to 150MHz and adjust north bridge voltage from 1.21v to 1.69v. The last setting is Auto Disable DIMM/PCI Clock.