MSI P35 Neo2-FR: Platinum performance for under $100

Synthetic Graphics Performance

The 3DMark series of benchmarks developed and provided by Futuremark are among the most widely used tools for benchmark reporting and comparisons. Although the benchmarks are very useful for providing apple to apple comparisons across a broad array of GPU and CPU configurations they are not a substitute for actual application and gaming benchmarks.

In our 3DMark06 test, all of the boards are within 1% of each other. When looking at the individual tests, the MSI board scores well in the CPU and SM2.0 sections and fourth from last in the SM3.0 tests.

In the more memory and CPU throughput sensitive 3DMark01 benchmark, we again see the spread between boards is less than 1%. The Neo2-FR board scores in the middle of the pack but is only 63 points from the lead even with a slight handicap in memory settings.

General System Performance

The PCMark05 benchmark developed and provided by Futuremark measures overall system performance for the typical home computing user. This tool provides both system and component level benchmarking results utilizing subsets of real world applications or programs. This benchmark is still useful for providing comparative results, but PCMark Vantage will replace it in our next article.

Once again, all of the boards are within 1% of each other with the Neo2-FR board finishing in the middle of the test group. There's nothing interesting to report here, so let's move on.