MSI P965 Platinum Motherboard (Intel Core 2 Extreme/Core 2 Duo/Pentium EE/Pentium, Socket T, P965, ATX, 8GB DDR2, 1066MHz)

• Reviewed by: Supercop007

  Strengths: Reasonable price for a full-featured P965 Intel Chipset motherboard, Firewire and Parallel ports are a plus, easy to set-up.

  Weaknesses: When using sleep mode in Microsoft Vista, the keyboard and mouse may work upon resuming.

  Overall: After using the MSI P965 Platinum Motherboard for a few months, I've found that it is very stable and easy to work with. The onboard features like firewire and parallel ports were very useful since I still use them for my camcorder and printer. The only problem I ran into early on was that the mouse and keyboard ceased to work after resuming from sleep mode in Vista. However this may partly be contributed to the fact that once I turned sleep mode off my problem went away.I'm not an overclocker so I can't comment on how well it does in comparison to other motherboards, but from a tools point of view, MSI provides easy access to pushing more MHZ out of your CPU if you have little or no knowledge in fiddling with the BIOS.Overall I would recommend this product, although it doesn't get the community support of Gigabyte's DS3 board or Asus' P5B Deluxe board. It's really a matter of which onboard features you like.

• Reviewed by: lionfan

  Strengths: 10 USB ports, solid construction, Gigabit LAN, Firewire, 7.1 surround sound

  Weaknesses: BIOS, some connections are difficult to access

  Overall: First off, I recommend that you read the product manual, and spend some time on the MSI International(taiwan web site)forums reading posts regarding this board. There is a lot of valuable information regarding updated drivers and fixes to problems others have had that allow you to set this board up relatively problem free. Basically if you want to slip stream your installation with the latest drivers, many problems will be solved during OS installation. Definitely get the latest BIOS as soon as possible. MSI has never had the friendliest of BIOS, so if you are new to O.C.. there are probably better MOBO alternatives. All in all this is a basic board that includes all the features an average user would want. There is a single LAN port, but it is Gigabit for the latest networking speed, plenty of USB and SATA ports, and supports crossfire. For me, a decent overclock can be had on an E4300 using Kingston Value RAM. There have been problems reported with the E6xxx series achieving high FSB, but the E4xx processors should O.C. with little effort.

• Reviewed by: pitaandfreddy

  Strengths: Worked out of box; no need to flash bios or anything; lots of onboard features

  Weaknesses: MSI website is weak--wasn't easy to find Vista software (found it only thanks to Google!)

  Overall: Found this motherboard because it was recommended as an Editor's Choice on Tom's Hardware. Couldn't be happier. Haven't tried to overclock (supposed to have great support for that).Here's what we're running:-Intel Core 2 Duo E6600-Corsair XMS2 2GB PC2-6400 DDR2-eVGA GeForce 8800 GTS-Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320 GB-Samsung SHS182M/BEBN Dual Layer DVD±RW -Antec Nine Hundred-Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W ATX EPS12V PS/2 Modular Power Supply-ViewSonic VP930b-3 19" LCD Monitor (*2)-Linksys WMP54G

• Reviewed by: tengst

  Strengths: Price, ease of setup, overclocking abilities

  Weaknesses: Second full-length PCI-E slot is not x16, only x4; doesn't come with enough expansion USB headers to use all the USB ports.

  Overall: So far this has been an excellent motherboard with automatic overclocking abilities. Early on their seemed to be some driver issues depending on the version of BIOS but I've had no problems with v1.2 and above. I haven't had a chance to manually overclock yet. There were also reports that it was touchy with different types of memory but I've had no problems with the discount Corsair memory I purchased for it. While it may not come with enough USB headers to break out all the USB ports on the back, depending on how many ports you may have on the front of the case, this isn't a major issue at all.

• Reviewed by: da GEEK

  Strengths: 10 usb Ports (4 onboard, 2 via supplied cable), Firewire (1 O/B & 1 Supplied, D-Bracket, Gigabit Ethernet, 7 sata, supplied cables.

  Weaknesses: Board Layout {Not all of it ;-)}, 1 ide port, BIOS (v1.1-The original), Supplied JMicron drivers, Supplied Digicel & Dual Core center S/W. Southbridge heatsink

  Overall: The board is a vry gd stable one in a nutshell. This mobo has many features that most of us wud need today. lookin @ d specs if u want details.Overclockin:Don't expect vry much 4rm this. this is a vry gd & stable O/C board but this aint the wet dream of it. has pleanty of option 2 O/c but if u go nut on o/cing go find another 1.Board Layout:Its mess i must say. After u plug all yr cables its a a real mess. Have to put a real fight to clear up the area to give a good ventalation. other than that evrythings fine.Please note that as soon as u set up windows or prior to it pls get the latest of the jmicron drivers cos the supplied driver doesnt work & the installer crashes. Otherwise it wud tak u 1hr & 40mins to write a 4gb dvd.If possible add a fan to the southbridge heatsink cos it gets pretty hot. Hotter than the n/b.As soon as u've finished setting up, update yr bios (current - v1.2) via msi live update utility or another way. the original (v1.1) has few glitches. if the boot sequence is set to cd/dvd prior to hdd(where the o/s wud be) & a non bootable cd or even if the drive's epty the system wud hang & say "no bootable blah blah blah" & press any key to continue. After pressing the key it will boot to the next option set i.e hdd in this instance.this's fixed in the v1.2 & jmicron bios's updated too.for me the supplied s/w's metioned above crashes after installation. i dnt knw wots d reason.Anyways overall now my system is running smoothly i o/c'd a C2D E6300 to 2.09Ghz & using Kingston KVR 667 ram. Works Gr8 & hasnt hanged on me ever.This is a rly gd board to wrk with & the ride is vry much enjoyable. Try it & u'll c wot i mean.Though i'm sad to say i bought this board @ a USD230 mark 4rm singapore. other than that. all's gd.