![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , June 12, 2008
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
MSI P45 Platinum
MSI brings their P45 Platinum to the table making use of Intel’s P45 chipset. In addition to building this board around the P45 chipset, MSI has added some new features to their P45 chipset based boards that are certainly worth looking at.
Subsystem Testing
NOTE: For all Subsystem Testing, an Intel LGA775 Core 2 Duo E8500 clocked at 3.16GHz with 2048MB (2x1GB) Corsair Dominator CM2x1024-10000C5D DDR2 memory modules running at 1066MHz were used.
Audio – Subjective Listening
For subjective listening you want to listen to something that covers a range of sound types. For this portion of the review I went with System of a Down, Mesmerized.
The MSI P45 Platinum audio solution provided excellent CD playback. No hissing or popping was heard.
Audio – Microphone Port Testing
The onboard audio MIC-IN port was tested using a Logitech Internet Chat Headset. Spoken words were recorded from the Windows Sound Recorder found under the Accessories\Entertainment folder in the start menu within Windows XP. The recording was made with the Microphone Boost option disabled, then enabled. The Microphone Boost option is found within the advanced menu under the microphone section within the Volume Control Menu.
The audio playback of my recording sample was easy to hear with the microphone boost option disabled, but there was some distortion present. To be fair I’ve heard much worse on other boards. When the Microphone boost option was enabled the playback was almost too loud and some minor distortion was heard, but after turning down the volume I barely noticed it.
Drive Performance
To test the capabilities of the on board USB 2.0 connections, we used an ACOMDATA HD060U2FE-72-USB 2.0/FireWire HDD connected first to the USB port. SATA and IDE drive tests were performed using Maxtor 80Gb ATA 133 model 6E080P0 hard drives on the IDE headers and Samsung 40 GB SATA 3G with NCQ hard drives on the SATA headers. The SATA drives were used for testing in RAID 0 16k block size configurations on all applicable controllers. Testing was also conducted using a standalone SATA drive on all applicable controllers, and an IDE drives connected in a primary slave configuration on the JM363 controller All drive benchmarks were done using the open source Iometer program.
The ICH10R is basically the same as it ever was. There is nothing new here compared to ICH9R results we’ve seen in the past. Clearly the ICH10R is about evolution and not revolution. As usual the best results came from a RAID 0 configuration which was to be expected. RAID 0 always turns in good benchmark numbers but its’ real world usefulness in desktop applications is of course always in question. It is worth mentioning that JMicron 363 controller is well implemented here as it scored very close to the ICH10R in most of the tests.
Network Utilization Tests
Hagel Technologies’ DU Meter software was used with Windows Task Manager to determine the performance levels of the onboard network interface. DU Meter was used to measure bandwidth and transfer speeds, while Windows Task Manager monitored CPU utilization on the test system. For the testing, a 750MB Archive file consisting of several compressed WMA/MP3 files was used for the large file transfer, and 750MB worth of MP3/WMA files were used ranging in sizes from 3 to 30MB was used for the small files transfer test. The test was performed using a plenum rated category 5e crossover cable to bypass any traffic, routing or other transfer issues and possible packet loss or corruption that can be caused by a router/switch or hub. They cables were connected between two test machines, one using the onboard NICs and the secondary onboard NIC of the Tyan K8SD Pro (S2882-D) which uses dual Broadcom NetXtreme GigE Ethernet ports.
For their integrated networking solution MSI has chosen Realtek’s PCI-Express based RTL8111C networking controller which is capable of 10/100/1000MB speeds.
LAN1
The small files download test had a peak transfer rate of 55.58MB a second with an average transfer speed of 28.97MB a second. CPU usage was steady at 15%. The small files upload test peaked at 43.10Mb a second with an average sustained transfer of 22.82MB a second. CPU usage was a miniscule 8%.
The large files download test showed a maximum transfer speed of 64.27MB a second. Average transfer speeds were 57.11Mb a second. CPU usage was a steady 12%. The large files upload test peaked at 32.85MB a second while averaging 23.65MB a second. CPU usage was again low at only 10%.
While not a record breaker by any stretch of the imagination the integrated Realtek 8111C controller was well implemented and delivered solid performance. Not only with excellent transfer rates for the most part but very low CPU usage. This is one of the better integrated NICs I’ve tested in some time.
Test Systems
The following system configurations were used for the Sandra memory benchmark graph, as well as all graphs listed under the Application and Gaming Benchmarks sections:
Graphs are labeled as follows: Motherboard - CPU Clock - FSB Clock - Memory Clock
SiSoft Sandra XII -Memory Bandwidth Buffered
Note that all results above were obtained running the installed memory in Dual Channel mode.
It at first appears that MSI falters in this synthetic memory bandwidth test, but remember that we are on an even playing field. The fact is that all the other chipsets and boards in this comparison have advantages over the P45 chipset. MSI’s P45 RAM bus at 1066MHz is matched up against DDR3 at much higher speeds. The other P45 board, and all the X38/X48 chipset based boards are all DDR3 based and the 780i SLI is capable of running memory speeds far in excess of JDEC specifications. Though that solution has its' own shortcomings the 780i SLI chipset based boards usually show good bandwidth numbers for as far as DDR2 boards are concerned. The AMD Phenom and Athlon X2 based systems have the advantage of an integrated memory controller, so while the P45 Platinum does indeed fall short here it is understandable as to why it fell short.
SiSoft Sandra CPU Operation Benchmark
I have little explanation for this other than it might be a quirk of the brand new P45 chipset. The more mature X38 and X48 chipset based systems score much better than both our P45 test configurations even though all of them use the same processor. We had thought these scores were wrong, till we got nearly identical scores on two totally different P45 motherboard test configurations. Still this is a synthetic benchmark and means little in real world performance. We have to write this one off to a software quirk.
Super Pi Mod v1.5 Benchmark
Super Pi is a processor based benchmark so the differences in the motherboards are not really that apparent here. However the value of such a test becomes clear in a diagnostic fashion as it proves that our test boards are working properly.
wPrime 1.5
As with Super Pi the same explanation applies to this test. Here the P45 Platinum does as it should.