P67 $190 Part 2: MSI P67A-GD65, ASRock P67 Extreme6 and ECS P67H2-A2
by Ian Cutress on May 10, 2011 1:36 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- MSI
- ASRock
- P67
- ECS
- Cougar Point
MSI P67A-GD65: Overview
On the face of it, the MSI P67A-GD65 is aimed at a variety of markets—for system builders and sellers, we have the OC Genie button which implements a very quick overclock setting; for sub-zero overclockers we get a series of voltage read points; and for the general enthusiast, we have a nice PCIe slot layout, and the standard array of P67 internals. After a run through with the MSI board, I can totally see it as a capable daily machine with that OC button, but beware with the software that comes with the board—there is a mountain if you want to look through it (and we cover it here), and some of it isn't even applicable.
MSI have a history of producing fine boards, but often with a few niggles. It is similar here with the P67A-GD65, predominantly in terms of the lack of USB performance against its competitors from a variety of price points, and the fact that MSI offer games (??!) in the UEFI! I'm being serious—read on to find out more.
MSI P67A-GD65: Visual Inspection
When you first look at the MSI P67A-GD65, you'll notice that the power delivery chokes are not what we've seen on our previous Cougar Point motherboards—here we have 'Super Ferrite Chokes', which supposedly result in a reduced power loss from the power delivery to the components, and are part of the MSI DrMOS topology.
Around the CPU socket, the VRM heatsinks are smaller than what we see on other P67 boards, and are connected by a heatpipe to cover the 6+2 phase power delivery. Along the top of the board are six LEDs which light up when various CPU phases are active—for the most part, we only observed either one or all six of them on at a time. In terms of fan headers around the CPU socket, we have one 3-pin at the bottom left of the socket and a 4-pin CPU fan header at the top right. Two others are on the right hand side of the board above the 24-pin ATX power connector and another header below this—meaning any dual fan all-in-one CPU water cooling (such as the Corsair H50) should be catered for if the pump is plugged into a fan header on the far right of the board.
On the other side of the memory slots, we have our voltage read points, where two GND points are alongside the PCH, VCC_DDR, CPU_SA, CPU_VTT and VCCP pins. MSI include these on several boards in their P67 range, and of real use only to a sub-zero overclocker pushing the limits of the board.
The SATA ports could possibly be better color coded, as the white ports are the SATA 6 Gbps, however the top are from the PCH, and the bottom are from the Marvell SE9128 controller. The black ones in the middle are the standard SATA 3 Gbps ports. On the bottom right of the board are the Power/Reset buttons, alongside the MSI OC Genie. We cover the operation of the OC Genie switch in our overclocking section. We don't see a debug LED here on the MSI board—you could consider that as it is technically the cheapest in this round-up that it is less likely to have one, and that our previous $190 round-up the ASUS and Gigabyte didn't have them either, but the ASRock P67 Extreme4 at $160 had one, as well as the ECS P67H2-A2 in this roundup.
The PCH heatsink is small and flat, and complementary with the blue-black livery of the board, which is quite aesthetically pleasing in my view—even if the white SATA ports and red power USB header stick out like a sore thumb. The PCIe slot layout is fairly good, with an unrestricted PCIe 1x at the top, a triple slot gap between the PCIe 16x slots (run at 8x/8x when two GPUs are present), and when the two PCIe 16x slots are populated with dual slot cards, a PCIe 1x is available between the cards and a PCI slot is available at the bottom.
The IO back panel is fairly standard—one PS/2 mouse/keyboard port, optical and coaxial S/PDIF out connectors, a clear CMOS button, two eSATA 3 Gbps ports via a JMicron JMB362 controller, eight USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports in blue via a NEC uPD720200F1 controller, a single gigabit Ethernet port from a Realtek 8111E controller, a Firewire port, and the standard Realtek rear 8-channel HD audio with THX TruStudio Pro support.
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Etern205 - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - link
Didn't read the article yet, but IMO most P67 based boards within the same price range are similar to one another and in the past if I was looking for a board, I'll read every damn review on the product I want. Now, it's just pick a damn board with the features you like to have and be happy with it.fic2 - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - link
Still can't get rid of the legacy PS/2 port.... Just makes me laugh.Etern205 - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - link
What is there to laugh about?Some still have a good PS/2 devices which is a waste just to junk it out and PS/2 has a faster detection over USB. This benefits users who wants to access the bios where USB keyboards sometimes fails miserably.
The most expensive SNB board from Asus still has a PS/2 port (combo PS/2).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
Hrel - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - link
Can someone please explain to me why despite the fact that more and more chips are moving off the motherboard and onto the CPU motherboards seem to keep getting more and more expensive. Ok, increased power delivery testing; I get that. But the motherboard manufacturers are literally buying fewer chips to make their board. These things should be getting cheaper!The northbridge is on the CPU, the iGPU is on the CPU and that right there is the majority of the cost of a motherboard. Seriously, WTF! $190 is the sweetspot? WTF! $130 bought a hell of a board 3-5 years ago. Now they're cheaper to make but cost more? WTF! I shouldn't be spending anymore than 100 bucks on a brand new Asus P5NE-SLI class motherboard. I'm an enthusiast, we should be seeing tons of these things for 50 bucks. WTFFFFFFFFFFF!
ggathagan - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - link
You're paying $100 for a brand new P5NE-SLI because it's obsolete technology which translates into higher support costs for the manufacturer.The same can be said for SDRAM, the original DDR RAM and Socket 478 CPU's.
As to why a *modern* motherboard costs so much with more of the chipset being integrated into the CPU: They don't.
You can get a LGA1155 motherboard for under $50 and $130 still gets you "a hell of a board ".
P67-based motherboards are not at the low end of the market, so any decently featured mid-tier motherboard remains in the $150-$200 range.
Regardless of what Intel or AMD incorporate into the CPU, the support chipsets *still* need to be purchased.
AMD and Intel set the price for that, not Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, etc...
Sound and LAN support remain seperate from the core chipset.
Lastly, in the case of Intel systems, there is the desire for USB 3.0 support that has to be added via additonal chips.
Upper tier boards have never been about the chipset/CPU; they've always been about the "bells & whistles" factor.
As such, the buyer's perception of what is valuable is more of a factor than logic centering around what a specific chipset or CPU brings to the table.
TheJian - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link
I don't think a decently featured board costs $150-200. My current GByte board had all the bells and whistles for $129. The only thing missing from the top boards was more vid slots, and a few more Sata's (mine has 8 so plenty for me).http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
$70, has everything but Btooth/Firewire (who cares)/SLI (who cares). Includes both USB3 and 2 SATA 6 ports.
What features are there that cost another $130? I get that P67 adds another $30 (which is where P67 boards start on newegg), and we get overclocking for that (but we got screwed out of a vid card on that deal so hmmm).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
$110 for P67 Gigabyte D3 B3, USB3, Sata6. Missing Btooth/1394/SLI(xfire-either). We now know you can put USB3 on a $70 board (jetway has a $70 USB3 board too). They have an ECS for $100, and it has USB3 and even 2 vids.
So are these worth $100? A few more USB's and Btooth is all I'd ask for (and there's already plenty of USB). USB3 chip probably costs a few bucks at best (likely $1). They throw on audio for $1. I don't call the boards in this review mid tier. I'd say more like upper class. SLI/Xfire used to be all that was needed to put your board into upper class. It should still be that way. Unless it's a server board, anything over $200 is probably just a pretty box. Maybe someone else can point to a reason why prices shot up on the top end and the mid is considered by some as $150-200 (I thought it was $100-150, with the low being $60-100, but that's just me).
You can't say the dollar is dropping or bring up gold - I shouldn't be able to post a $70 full featured H67 or $100 full featured P67. The guy on the $100/P67 is overclocked at 4.8ghz (i7-2600K) and folding 24x7...ROFL. I think this board's a winner. Probably should be in your next review :) Might be a little low, but you get the point. Then again, this is probably what most will buy (or lower in the H67 range most likely).
Rookie Monster - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - link
Two reasons come to mind.1. Gold is $1500oz
2. U.S. dollar is falling like a rock.
knedle - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - link
I even found a movie on youtube showing MSI Games:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmdoRfgNkCg
I think it may be usefull if your HDD with important data just died and you want to commit suicide. ;)
wifiwolf - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - link
I'm with Hrel on this. It's just ridiculous that we're buying boards with less parts needed even more expensive then they were before moving northbridge and int-graphics.PS: Unfinished chipsets should be for beta testing and not for sale.
Patrick Wolf - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - link
I agree, these boards should be cheaper (which could be said for most components really), but to be fair these aren't all $190 boards, they were at 1st but new tech is always more. Lowest current price I could find for each board is as follows:P67A-GD65 - $170 (newegg, could be even cheaper at superbiiz depending on promo)
P67 Extreme6 - $200 (superbiiz, again promo)
P67H2-A2 - $173 after MIR (newegg)
GA-P67A-UD4 - $175 after MIR (superbiiz, again promo)
P8P67 PRO - $180 (newegg/superbiiz, again promo)
Compare that to 775. The ever popular GA-EP45-UD3P was about $130 and now the GA-P67A-UD3 which has similar features is $125. Or better yet the MSI P67A-G43 for $125.