Intel P35 / X38 Motherboards Roundup
MSI P35 Neo (Intel P35; DDR2) and P35 Neo Combo (Intel P35; DDR2 + DDR3)
Both the motherboards are aimed at thrifty users and are priced at 115$ in the retail (as of December 2007). They are based on the same PCB design, with one exception: the Neo board supports 4 DDR2 slots, Neo Combo - 2 DDR2 and 2 for DDR3.
The boards offer one PCI Express x16 slot, three PCI Express x1, and two "regular" PCI slots.
The remaining expansion options include 4 SerialATA II (ICH9) links + 1 (Marvell 88SE6111) link, one ParallelATA (Marvell 88SE6111) link, a Gigabit network controller, 12 USB2.0 ports and 8-channel integrated audio. Besides, both the boards support the Firewire (2 ports).
The boards' rear panels are the same and are of the following configuration:
Evidently, it is the same PCB design and engineers at MSI will use it for the manufacture of integrated boards with the VGA output (instead of the second COM port).
The BIOS settings are quite decent.
Both the motherboards display the current temperatures of the CPU and system, voltages, keep track the rotational speed of all the three fans, and both offer the feature for adjusting the rotational speed of the CPU cooler depending on the CPU temperature.
As regards the overclocking tools, they are absolutely the same for both the boards. Here they are: the FSB speed is adjustable within 200 to 500 MHz, the CPU voltage can be raised by +0.7875V, on the memory - to 3.3V (DDR2), on the north bridge - to 1.6V, on the south bridge - to 1.15V, and on the FSB bus - to 1.6V.
However, in practice the boards showed quite different results: stable FSB = 466 MHz for the Neo board and FSB = 350 MHz for the Neo Combo board.
| MSI P35 Neo Combo
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MSI P35 Neo
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Pros:
- Support for DDR2 and DDR3;
- High stability and good performance level;
- Support for SerialATA II /RAID ( 5 lines; ICH9 + Marvell 88SE6111);
- Support for one P-ATA line (Marvell 88SE6111);
- Integrated 8-channel audio and (Gigabit Ethernet) LAN controller;
- Support for USB2.0 (12 ports) and IEEE-1394 (Firewire, 2 ports);
Cons:
The board's specific features:
- Overclocking results are below the average;
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Pros:
- High stability and performance;
- Support for SerialATA II /RAID ( 5 lines; ICH9 + Marvell 88SE6111);
- Support for one P-ATA line (Marvell 88SE6111);
- Integrated 8-channel audio and (Gigabit Ethernet) LAN controller;
- Support for USB2.0 (12 ports) and IEEE-1394 (Firewire, 2 ports);
Cons:
The board's specific features:
- Middling overclocking results;
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MoBo:
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VGA Card:
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CPU & Memory:
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