MSI P965 Platinum
Before we get into the thick of things, let us point out from the start that the particular P965 Platinum on test today is a pre-mass production board. While it represents the final retail spec in its entirity, from ICs to appearance to BIOS and everything in between, it's maybe a minor tweak and possible layout change away from being what you'll buy at retail. However, it's close enough for us that we're happy to give it the very same going over we give retail boards here at HEXUS. Disclosure says we must tell you it's pre-MP, though, so bear that in mind.Specification
| MSI P965 Platinum Specification | |
|---|---|
| Item | Specification |
| Processor Support | All Intel LGA775 processors, including Core 2 Duo |
| Northbridge | Intel P965 |
| Southbridge | Intel ICH8R |
| Memory Support | 4 DIMMs, DDR2, 533/667/800/1066, 8GiB max |
| Graphics | 2 x PCI Express Graphics 16X |
| PCI Express | 2 x 1X |
| PCI Conventional | 2 slots, PCI2.2 |
| ATA | 1 port, JMicron JMB361 on PCIe |
| SATA | 6 ports SATA2 AHCI, ICH8R 1 port SATA2 AHCI, JMicron JMB361 on PCIe |
| RAID | 0/1/5/10, ICH8R, Intel Matrix Storage |
| LAN | 1 x 10/100/1000, Realtek RTL8111B on PCIc, ICH8R |
| Audio | HD Audio, 8-channel, Realtek ALC883 |
| Floppy | 1 port |
| FireWire | VIA VT6307, Firewire 400, 2 ports |
| USB | 10 ports, USB2.0, ICH8R |
Discussion
The Intel P965 northbridge houses a dual-channel DDR2 memory controller with official support for up to PC2-6400/DDR2-800, a 16-lane PCI Express controller primarily for connection to graphics hardware, and finally support for any and all LGA775 processors on sale today (and support for quad-core in the future, but we can't tell for sure if this particular mainboard is suitable or not).It's as feature-rich as the i975X MCH, Intel's "high-performance" desktop chipset that the position above the P965, although it doesn't support ATI Crossfire. Connecting to that is Intel's new ICH8R, which tops the older ICH7R in use on most i975X performance boards by two more SATA2 ports and support for RAID10. Not bad for a supposed mid-range I/O processor, as marketed by Intel. However, the ICH8 family drops support for old ATA devices, so MSI augment a JMicron JMB361, connecting via PCI Express to one of the the ICH8R's six PCIe lanes and providing another SATA2 port and a lone ATA133 port.
That works for us since the number of optical drives on the market with SATA connectors can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Of a Simpson. You can therefore see why MSI want to give you at least one port for your ATA devices, and the JMicron IC is happy running opticals and hard disks alike. Nice one MSI!
The 8-channel audio support with dual digital outputs (coaxial cable and Toslink) is supplied by a Realtek ALC883, and Realtek provide the network IC too, a steadfast and dependable RTL8111B on PCIe. For the overclocker, and something we'll start noting down a bit more consistently, you've got an ICS D72X-920 clockgen chip that drives the P965 Platinum and provides it with the prodigious clock limits we'll explore and explain in a little while.
USB2.0 is well catered for as you'd expect, Firewire is provided as befits such a mainboard (2 FW400 ports, one on the backplane) and the PEG slot arrangement is the usual 16-1-1-16 (but only 16-1-1-4 electrically). As mentioned, P965 doesn't support any dual graphics solutions though, so the second PEG16X slot won't let you run Crossfire or SLI (for the time being at least).