MSI - P55-G65 review
LGA1156 motherboard for Intel Lynnfield
Review date: 12 October, 2009. Review by: IT Reviews Staff
The core of the processor has undergone some surgery to make it both simpler and cheaper, with a reduction in the integrated DDR3 memory controller from triple channel to dual channel, and it has dropped the QPI (QuickPath Interface) bus used in Nehalem in favour of a new bus called DMI (Direct Media Interface).
In another change, the PCI Express graphics controller has been relocated from the chipset into the processor core, which means that the Northbridge and CPU have effectively been merged into a single unit.
This gives motherboard manufacturers an easier job when they are designing a Lynnfield motherboard compared to the original Core i7, as they only have to package and cool a single chip rather than a traditional dual chip layout.
Unfortunately the naming protocol for Lynnfield is a bit messy as the new LGA1156 CPU comes in two similar but different forms for the desktop. At launch there are three models of Lynnfield with the 2.8GHz Core i7 860 and 2.93GHz Core i7 870 that combine quad cores with hyper threading to present eight virtual cores, much like the original Core i7.
The third model is the 2.66GHz Core i5 750 which messes things up as it has quad cores without hyper threading and it also loses the VT-d virtualization feature. These Core i5 and Core i7 800 models have a TDP of 95W, which is considerably lower than the members of the Core i7 900 family with their TDP of 130W.
Although the specification of the MSI P55-GD65 is similar to many of the Core i7 X58 motherboards we have previously seen, the layout is considerably neater thanks to the single chipset and the move to dual channel DDR3. The MSI supports up to 16GB of DDR3-2133 RAM in four modules and has dual PCI Express 2.0 graphics slots that support both ATi CrossFireX and Nvidia SLI. You also get one PCIe x1 slot, one PCIe x4 slot and two regular PCI slots.
There are six SATA ports connected to the P55 chipset with RAID and in addition there is a JMicron controller that supports one internal SATA connector and an eSATA connector on the I/O panel. The rest of the I/O panel follows the usual form for a premium motherboard with dual PS/2 ports (OK, perhaps that is becoming a touch unusual these days), surround sound audio with optical and coaxial S/PDIF, eight USB 2.0 ports, one Firewire, the eSATA and dual Gigabit LAN.
There are three USB headers mid-board and MSI supplies a bracket with two USB ports in the package along with the usual cables. There is also a header for a second Firewire port mid-board, although you don't get a bracket from MSI.
The passive coolers on the DrMOS power regulation hardware look very smart and are linked by an enormous 8mm diameter heatpipe that MSI calls SuperPipe. Across the foot of the board there is the usual array of headers along with four micro buttons, and this is where things get especially interesting.
There's a big change for Lynnfield in the way the Turbo Boost feature works. Core i7 900 makes limited use of Turbo Boost and raises the CPU clock speed by one step of the 133MHz Base Clock for all four cores or two steps (266MHz) for one or two cores. This means that a 2.66GHz Core i7 920 can accelerate to 2.8GHz on all four cores or 2.93GHz on one or two cores.
Lynnfield uses Turbo Boost to greater effect and increases the clock speed of all four cores by two steps (266MHz) or two cores by four steps (533MHz) or it can raise a single core by five steps (666MHz). In the case of a 2.93GHz Core i7 870, Turbo Boost can dynamically overclock to 3.2GHz on all four cores, 3.46GHz on two cores or 3.6GHz on one core.
That's a huge amount of factory supplied Megahertz and it means that motherboard manufacturers have to redouble their efforts when it comes to overclocking features. Happily MSI has responded to this incentive. One of the four micro buttons is an On/Off switch, two allow you to raise and lower the base clock speed while the motherboard is running and the fourth is the new OC Genie button.
OC Genie offers a one-click method of overclocking that could hardly be simpler to operate. Turn off the PC, click down the OC Genie button, turn on the PC and observe the BIOS splash screen which tells you that OC Genie is operating and that you shouldn't attempt to change any BIOS settings manually. Wait a couple of seconds and your PC will start and miraculously the system will be overclocked. We were able to manually raise the speed of our 2.93GHz Core i7 870 to 3.99GHz, however OC Genie zipped the speed to 4.2GHz.
The operation is so rapid that there is no possibility that the system is trying a speed, testing it, raising the speed again, testing again and so on. Instead we are sure it is using a look-up table to apply preset figures. In the case of the Core i5 750 we saw OC Genie raise the speed from 2.67GHz to 3.34GHz when we could manually achieve 3.8GHz, so the human factor still has its part to play in overclocking, at least for now.
Verdict
Intel Lynnfield and the P55 chipset are superb pieces of hardware and the MSI P55-GD65 motherboard shows them both in a very good light. The price compares well to Core 2 and is considerably cheaper than Core i7, yet the new platform delivers an astounding level of performance.
Company: MSI
