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- Date:
- Thursday , April 17, 2008
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
MSI P35 Platinum Combo
Every now and then a product comes along that raises an eyebrow, the MSI P35 Platinum Combo is one such a product. MSI takes an unusual approach to making a board that supports DDR2 & DDR3 memory technologies yet is enthusiast oriented.
Introduction
MSI is known the world over for their motherboards, graphics cards and other PC oriented solutions. MSI has earned their reputation for building solid enthusiast parts and catering to the needs of that community. Today they cater to the enthusiast in a new way buy providing a enthusiast class P35 motherboard that is both DDR2 and DDR3 compatible. This offers enthusiasts the ability to use existing DDR2 modules or to buy cheaper DDR2 modules while leaving a DDR3 upgrade path available to them in the future.
The MSI P35 Platinum Combo uses Intel’s P35 chipset. The P35 chipset has always supported DDR2 or DDR3 memory technologies, however most motherboard manufacturers choose to implement one memory type or the other rather than both. Often products like this are catered for budget or OEM systems and are usually light on features, low on quality and they are flaky to boot. Well MSI is looking to change that by creating an enthusiast class board that allows for transitional memory usage adding value and long life to the platform. supports the latest Intel ® Core™2 Extreme Quad-Core / Core™2 Duo / Intel® Pentium® Extreme and Intel® Pentium® D processors. As with all motherboards these days, few components are required to complete a working system. All that is needed are an LGA775 processor, DDR2 or DDR3 memory modules, power supply, video card, and drives.
Main Specifications Overview:
Detailed Specifications Overview:
Packaging
The packaging for the MSI P35 Platinum Combo is standard stuff. The board is protected by some cardboard and a thin sheet of foam packed outside of the anti-static bag. Inside you’ll find SATA cables, an ATA-133 cable, floppy cable, USB bracket, quick connectors, quick start guide, driver disks, and manual.
Board Layout
For the most part, the layout of the MSI P35 Platinum combo is really very good. There are very few flaws with the layout overall. I don’t care for the 8 pin power connector placement, and I don’t particularly like the location of the auxiliary power connector either.
The CPU area is pretty crowded. My Apogee GT water block wouldn’t fit due to the Circu-Pipe cooling hardware. I ended up using a Innovotek G-Flow water block instead and that fit fine. Air cooling enthusiasts are probably ok with coolers like the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme, but some coolers may not fit correctly due to the afore mentioned space limitations.
This board has a pretty interesting memory configuration. There are two different types of slots. There are 2 DDR3 slots and four DDR2 slots. MSI as usual uses their standard cryptic color pattern for dual channel operation but things get a bit more complicated here. When using DDR 3 the included terminators must be used in the correct DDR2 slots. (The second slot in each bank.) When using DDR2 memory, simply flip the terminators over and use them in the DDR3 slots. The terminators light up and show what memory type is being used. To further complicate things you can’t install and remove memory with the video card installed. I wish manufacturers would get a handle on this. There is no excuse for this in my opinion. Memory upgrades are the most common of upgrades and the most likely upgrade to be performed by the systems’ actual owner even if they are novices.
The north bridge is located in the usual spot next to the CPU. It is cooled by MSIs’ Circu-Pipe cooling system. The system is reasonably effective, but takes up a ton of room. There are is also no possible way to attach a standard cooling fan to the top of the north bridge due to the loops. While this solution works reasonably well, it isn’t the best setup I’ve ever seen.
The south bridge is located in front of the expansion slots. The south bridge is a little on the tall side, but it doesn’t interfere with the use of any cards in this application. The SATA ports are directly in front of the south bridge, but again they aren’t in the way of anything. The south bridge also stayed relatively cool to the touch during testing.
The MSI P35 Platinum Combo has two PCI-Express x16 slots. The yellow slot operates at x4 speeds while the primary operates at x16 speeds. There are two PCIe x1 slots and two legacy PCI v2.2 slots.
As you can see, there is one RJ-45 port, 2 PS/2 ports, 1 IEEE1394 port, 1 SPDIF port, 6 USB ports, two eSATA ports, an optical out port, and 6 mini-headphone jacks.