WCCFTech has seen some decent Sandybridge offerings from MSI recently. We were especially taken with the budget P67 offering the P67A-C43. The 100 dollar board offers a great over-clocking experience while also providing the latest in storage technologies (USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gbps). Today we’ll look at its elder brother the GD65 which offers more features and goodies.
Motherboard Specifications
| Socket | LGA 1155 |
| Processor Support | All LGA 1155 Processors |
| Segment | Mid Range |
| Size | ATX |
| Memory | DDR3 4 Slots / 32 GB |
| Features | Military Grade Components
Active Phase Switching OC Genie Onboard Power, Reset, & OC Genie Buttons On-Board points for voltage monitoring (V-Check) Multi GPU Support (Xfire & SLi) EFI Driven Menu Dual EFI |
| Slots | PCI-e x16 (2) (x16 or x8,x8)PCI-e x1 (3)
PCI(2) |
| Overclocking | Yes (Processor Core) |
| I/O | USB 2.0 & USB 3.0SATA 6Gbps
Realtek LAN |
Packaging & Accessories
The board comes in a usual MSI cardboard box. Military Class components, B3 revision, support for USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gbps are prominently displayed.
An extensive set of accessories, which includes SATA 3 & 6 Gbps cables, USB 3.0 bracket (2 port), points for measuring voltage, 2 port SLI bridge, easy connectors for USB & front port, and the back plate, obligatory disk and manuals are provided with the board. The manual, though well written does get a little confusing as it covers more than one product.
This full length ATX board has a black and blue theme which is very common for Sandybridge board from the 3 major manufacturers. The board features MSI Military Class II specification which means that they have employed super ferrite chokes (SFC), Hi-Caps and solid capacitors. These help improve power delivery and efficiency while extending component life cycles. MSI employs a 6 phase power setup for the processor and 2 phase setup for memory (6+2 design). Each phase can deliver up to 35 amperes.
The voltage regulation circuitry is covered by passive heat-sinks connected by a heat pipe.
There is enough clearance around the socket area for the largest of heat sinks (we successfully tested the board with Thermalright HR-02).
The active phase switching LEDs are located to the right of the Lottes manufactured LGA 1155 socket.
Right in front of the 4 DDR3 memory slots are the power connector and V-check points. These points aid in measuring/ monitoring board voltages (CPU, VTT, PCH and memory). A blessing for purists who do not rely on EFI or software readings! Three system fan connectors are also found located right next to the V-check point and one to the left of the 24 pin power connector respectively.
The board features 8 right angles SATA ports. The SATA 6 Gbps ports are at the periphery (white), while the SATA 3 Gbps ports are central (black). The extra 6 Gbps ports come from a Marvell 88SE9128 controller. A JMicron controller provides E-SATA connectivity.
The P67 chipset lies under a low profile heatsink which should not interfere with multi-slot GPUs.
The first PCI-e x16 connector lies in the line of SATA ports, it will be difficult to plug/ unplug devices to the affected ports when a large graphics card is installed. It would be wise to connect the SATA devices before installing a graphics card. The second PCI-e x16 slot (electrical x8) is a tad too close to the front panel connectors (power, reset etc). The two PCI-e x1 slots are located between the x16 slots, while a lone x1 slot is located to the right of the x16 PCI-e slot. The two PCI slots are located towards the left edge of the board. With two dual slot GPUs installed, the board will still have 1 PCI and 2 PCI-e x1 slots available for use.
The OC Genie, power and reset buttons are located along the left edge of the board together with the USB (2.0 and 3.0, the latter powered by a NEC chip), IEEE 1394 and front audio ports headers. The red (eye sore) USB connector can super charge mobile devices (IPods etc) quick like by providing optimal voltage.
The board sports dual EFI (the two yellow ICs to the right and above the red USB header).
The IO area provides a wealth of connectivity options; Realtek LAN and Audio codec (892), both co-axial and optical SP/DIF, USB 2.0 (6) and USB 3.0 (2) ports. E-SATA connectivity as well as a legacy PS2 mouse/ keyboard connector complete the list.
The back of the board is devoid of any large solder points (or other structures) which would prevent after market cooler back plate installation. All the heat-sinks are held in place by screws which makes removal and reapplication of thermal compound really easy (we all know how good default TIM is!).
There are 5 fan connectors strategically located all over the board. The CPU fan connector is a 4pin variety while the rest are the usual 3pin variety.
Overall the board is well designed. There are a couple of things MSI could have done better (like positioning of SATA and front panel connectivity ports), but nothing that breaks board’s usability.
EFI
MSI employs its Click bios icon based mouse driven interface for EFI navigation. It is easy to use, though not quite as polished as the Asus solution. The main EFI screen has only 5 icons for each of the 5 main functions. Each icon then takes you to a subset of icons or control parameters.
The Utilities icon gives you access to a very hand memory tester, an equally handy HD backup program, ability to update the EFI online and design your own boot screen. The last three utilities require the motherboard’s disk to be in the optical drive.
The settings icon takes you to another series of icons via which you can setup your board, update the bios and check the system status.
Perhaps the most unique aspect of the EFI is provision of games! Yup you heard it right the EFI has games functionality. Don’t expect these to be your Call of Duty level games. They are basic games reminiscent of 80s arcade games. Good time killers, but nothing more than that.
Perhaps the most important icon is the over-clocking icon. This takes you to the various parameters that will help in your over-clocking endeavors.
As you can see that the board allows complete control over core CPU voltage, memory voltage and some control over PCH voltage.
You can also set the OC genie button function in the EFI. If this is activated then it is only possible (recommended) to change the various over-clocking parameters via software (MSI Control Center II, discussed below).
As always it is recommended to use the latest EFI available for this board. The latest version available (1.C as of this writing) helps improve memory compatibility and allowed the use of G.Skill sniper 1.25V modules on this board.
Bundled Software & Over-clocking
The board comes with MSI’s Control Center II application, which is one of the best software based over-clocking tools I have ever used.
Apart from its use as monitoring tool (for voltages, frequencies and power phases in use), the tool also allows software based over-clocking either via an automatic algorithm (OC Genie) or manual adjustment. To use the former one must press the OC Genie button on the board.
The board booted successfully at 4.2 GHz by using OC Genie, by manual tweaking we were able to get to a speed of 4.5 GHz using nothing but the standard heat-sink!
Note: Download the latest version of Control center from MSI’s website for enhanced stability.
CPU-Z
Testing motherboards is not an easy task. No matter what types of test are done the CPU’s performance does come into play. Testing IO is basically only testing the ability of the PCH. Thus what separates motherboards these days is their ability to provide functionality you need (read over clocking potential, RAID, multi GPU setup etc). But as the saying goes; when in Rome do as Romans do; we’ll put up some numbers to prove that we did spend time testing the board to dissect the ‘quantum’ difference between it and its peers!
System Specs
| Motherboard | MSI P67A-GD65
MSI P67A-C43 Asus P8P67 Asus Sabertooth P67 |
| Processor | Core i7 2600K |
| Video | HIS 6950 2GB |
| Memory | G.Skill Sniper 2X4GB (1600MHzl CL9; 1.25V) |
| Hard Disk | Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB (Both systems) |
| Power | Corsair HX 620 |
| OS | Windows 7 (Service Pack 1) |
Test Suite
| Synthetic | Sandra 2011X 264 Benchmark (HD V3)
Cinebench 3D Mark 11 - Physics Test |
| Real World | 7-ZipFar Cry 2
Crysis Warhead |
| I/O Performance | SATA - HD TunreUSB - Crystal Mark 3 |
LEGEND
| S67 | Asus Sabertooth P67 |
| P67 | Asus P8P67 |
| C43 | MSI P67A-C43 |
| GD 65 | MSI P67A-GD65 |
All benchmark indices are rounded off to the nearest 0.
Synthetics
Sandra
Sandra is a very competent stress testing and benchmarking suite.
You’ll need an electron microscope to discern between these products. The reliance of these benchmarks on CPU subsystem is great enough to negate differences produced by motherboard component choice
X264 HD V3 & Cinebench R11.5
This benchmark measures the encoding performance of the processor. It offers a standardized benchmark as the clip as well as the encoder used is uniform.
Cinebench is based on Maxon’s Cinema 4D. It is used to compare graphics as well as processor performance.
Non significant differences are apparent in these tests, but they can be attributed test run anomalies. They are not significant enough to pick apples from oranges!
3D Mark 11 –Physics Test & Games
This is the latest incarnation of one of the oldest graphics benchmarking suites. The latest incarnation supports DirectX 11. It has a physics test that emulates physics on the processor.
Games
The base line for all tests is a Core i7-950 processor running at its default speed (100%)
Far Cry 2
| Far Cry 2 | 1680x1050 |
| Benchmark | Inbuilt 'Ranch Small' CPU |
| Rendering Path | DX9 - Medium |
Crysis -Warhead
| Crysis Warhead | 1680x1050 |
| Benchmark | Customized |
| Rendering Path | DX9; Physics Set to Enthusiast |
All the contenders cross the line at the same point. We’ll have to wait for higher speed cameras to point out the winner!
7-Zip
Some might argue against using 7-zip’s compression and decompression benchmark as a ‘real world’ test. But if you try and think about it for a minute, the benchmark does show how fast the program will either compress or decompress, while negating the impact of disk transfers.
It is amazing how one can use charts to accentuate minor differences so that they appear as if the difference is like between day and night!
IO Tests: Storage
USB Tests
USB performance was compared between boards. Crystal Mark V3 was used in conjunction with a USB 3.0 compliant Kingston Data Traveler (Ultimate 16 GB)
SATA Performance
HD Tune was used to assess SATA performance.
Again differences, if any, are minor. All platforms perform the same.
Result Impressions
As I said before, motherboards these days are hard to distinguish by their ability to perform tasks that are CPU dependent. Gone are the days where one manufacturer could boast higher scores in one benchmark. All boards these days are dependent on CPU (with almost every important component besides the video card inside it, and even for almost all tasks even video encoding video core of SNB processors will do).
Conclusion
This is the 3rd MSI board WCCFTech has reviewed recently. In terms of design and functionality, like the other reviewed products, the GD65 cannot be put at fault. It uses components found only on the highest end boards from its main competitor, performs just like any other P67 board and over-clocks just like them as well. There are a few design quibbles, but then again nothing in this world is perfect. If you are in the market for a mid-range P67 board you can do far worse than the GD65 and often no better
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