Good design, good overclock, good pipe-The MSI P35 Neo2-FR overview

[windwithme]

Since Intel launched their P35 series over 5 months, all the motherboard
makers also started to sell their products since May. In the first minute,
P35 series defined on Mid-high range segment products,
that push P965 series become mainstream or entry level.

MSI first launch their P35 Platinum, defined on mid-high range segment.
This board have better overclock ability and valuable spec.,
that’s great improvement compare with MSI old Intel platform products,
also can beat other competitors.

The higher level X38 chipset products will come out soon,
We don’t know if this will match same situation as 975X/P965 segment define,
But on P35 products side which come our over 4 months, it’s about time to
have more competition on Cost/Performance.

This time we have mainstream fighter P35 from MSI – P35 Neo2-FR
As I know, the K8 platform Socket939 generation, the model “MSI K8N Neo2”
did have great moment on the market. Hope the P35 Neo2 could have that
kind of glory to hot sell on the market.

The box design, similar as P35 Platinum, just don’t have the shinning surface cover design.


Inside stuff
Maybe not much, but all needed things here, comes with EZ-Jumper (Below IDE cable.


MSI P35 Neo2-FR
Compare with P35 Platinum, only have some pipe reduce on looks,
but that makes this board more clear and clean.




MB Down left side.
2x PCI-E x16 (Support ATI CrossFire technology, run on 16x+4x speed.)


4x SATAII (ICH9R)
1x SATA2+1x IDE (marvell 88SE6111)
The red button is for Clear CMOS function, with debug signal LED near by.


Up right side,
4x DIMM DDR2 memory, support 667/800/1066 frequency.


Up left side,
LGA775 architecture, support Intel Core 2 Quad/Core 2 Duo processors.
The PWM designed with 4 Phase circuit.


IO
6x USB 2.0
2x eSATA(ICH9R)
1x RJ45 jack
7.1 channel audio connector


Smaller but easier design heatpipe.
Northbridge P35 heat spread zone.


Southbridge ICH9R heatsink zone,
new version sink height is thin, that won’t block big size VGA install.


PWM circuit heatsink zone.



BIOS part

Bootup Screen


BIOS option menu


Cell menu main adjust menu.




DRAM adjust options.


DDRII multiplier options


Support 2 set BIOS setup file save.


H/W Monitor



CPU:INTEL Core 2 Duo E6700/Core 2 Extreme QX6700/QX6850
MB: MSI P35 Neo2-FR
DRAM:CORSAIR Dominator TWIN2X2048-10000C5DF
VGA:ELSA 860GT PH2 EX 256B3 2DT
HD:WD1600AAJS
POWER:Corsair HX620W Modular Power Supply
Cooler:Thermaltake V1


QX6700 463X7=>3240Mhz run with 3DMARK
ELSA 8600GT EXTREME default frequency 650/2000

3DMARK2003


3DMARK2005



QX6850 450x8 => 3600MHz at 1.336V
DDRII 1080 CL4 4-4-9 2.3V
4 PI 32M test done.
Since that’s 4phase PWM design,
it still very stable with Quad Core overclock heavy loading test.


Dual Core E6700 extreme overclock test
555*6 => 3328MHz stable with dual SP2004 test


This board can also into OS on 560MHz setting,
But it’s almost the CPU frequency top limited.


According to my experience with many P35 motherboards, compare with P965,
The FSB overclock frequency is 1~2 step higher then 965, support 45nm CPU is also an advantage.
MSI launched this great cost/performance value P35 Neo2-FR, have good
performance and spec with good price, that can make this board replace the 965 series motherboards.
We also hope that more motherboard makers will pull the higher P35 series
price down to 120~160USD, then end-users can have more options to choose.

Pros:
1.Retail price about 139USD, depends on different regional.
2.Full solid capacitors, all made in Japan.
3.Only reduce few heatpipe design, total functions very close to Platinum/Diamond segment.
4.CPU FSB overclock ability can catch up other competitors, the DRAM overclock ability is also good.
5.This heatpipe design did have better efficiency, the work temperature is lower then others.

Cons:
1.Other DRAM multiplier overclock ability could be improved.
2.BIOS options could design under voltage for CPU
3.Same boot-up screen already use 2 years, needs to be refreshed.

The upcoming review – about memory modules:
CORSAIR TWIN3X2048-1800C7DF
The fastest DDR3 and high-end spec product, frequency up to 1800MHz CL7.

[Speederlander]

Wow, nice looking board I must say.

[K404]

That looks a great board for the price Thanks for the info windwithme

If you have a chance, please could you bench a tweaked SPi 1M and 32M at 3600MHz, with a list of tweaks you use- I think my Giga boards PPC is a bit low and I want something faster per clock.

Thankyou

[lol]

wind, would you take this board over a blood iron/DS3R/p5k?

[Pete]

What rev is your bord? I had a rev 1.0 which blew with a really nice blue flame off a cap around the socket

[NickS]

Wow, 560 FSB. Looks to do around 465FSB with a quad as well! I might get this board!

[L'enFer]

i liked it Cell menu. i've never used MSI motherboards before, now i'd like to have this one .

[tet5uo]

I loved my Neo2 Platinum socket 939 board, hopefully this one will live up to the namesake!

[heydo6]

nice ram

[NickS]

windwithme

Have you played with the board any more? Are there any weird bugs, quirks? Is there any new BIOS' out? Were you running a BETA BIOS? Thanks!

Nick

[Hans Gruber]

I have this board, it's great. I bought it because of the heatpipe system and it's almost identical to the Platinum version with less a less exotic heatpipe system.

This is my second MSI motherboard. My other board is the Neo-4 939 Nforce 4. MSI has NAZI like moderators on their hard to find support forum.

I was accused of hijacking a post titled NEO-2FR bios. I asked how to flash to the newest bios using Vista 64-bit. I'm still running bios 1.1 and it works well. I got no answer on MSI's forum and my post was deleted.

I would have bought the gigabyte P35 version if they had the heatpipe system at a lower price. I have the Gigabyte GA-965 DS3 board and they have 14 or more bios updates and they encourage users to update their bios to newer versions regularly.

MSI moderators told me I should never update my bios unless my current bios. Using Windows XP makes bios upgrading easy on MSI.

Anyway, I love the board, MSI makes great motherboards but the MSI forum moderators are the worst and they have around 10,000 posts.

PCSTATS.COM tested the platinum version of this board and it holds the record for highest FSB overclock of any motherboard.

If you crank up the NB and the FSB voltage, you get much more performance at lower voltages on the GO Q6600. I'm running at 3.4Ghz at 1.30v

[Flinch]

I read your post in that thread Hans, the mods were complete asses to you, their attitude was uncalled for.

Just placed my order for this board, as I'm saying goodbye to my DS3R when it returns from another RMA.

[windwithme]

Wow, 560 FSB. Looks to do around 465FSB with a quad as well! I might get this board!

I think this board is easy to overclock,
but I didn't test all of the functions, just feel smoothly when I use the board.

Overclock depends on all the components,
but this board did have great improvement compare with MSI P965 series.

[rob[GL]]

I love MSI board.

[natedog420]

I have this board, it's great. I bought it because of the heatpipe system and it's almost identical to the Platinum version with less a less exotic heatpipe system.

This is my second MSI motherboard. My other board is the Neo-4 939 Nforce 4. MSI has NAZI like moderators on their hard to find support forum.

I was accused of hijacking a post titled NEO-2FR bios. I asked how to flash to the newest bios using Vista 64-bit. I'm still running bios 1.1 and it works well. I got no answer on MSI's forum and my post was deleted.

I would have bought the gigabyte P35 version if they had the heatpipe system at a lower price. I have the Gigabyte GA-965 DS3 board and they have 14 or more bios updates and they encourage users to update their bios to newer versions regularly. please post a link to the world record from pcstats. the records are 690fsb and 8.1ghz and both are not with this board.

MSI moderators told me I should never update my bios unless my current bios. Using Windows XP makes bios upgrading easy on MSI.

Anyway, I love the board, MSI makes great motherboards but the MSI forum moderators are the worst and they have around 10,000 posts.

PCSTATS.COM tested the platinum version of this board and it holds the record for highest FSB overclock of any motherboard.

If you crank up the NB and the FSB voltage, you get much more performance at lower voltages on the GO Q6600. I'm running at 3.4Ghz at 1.30v

the record is 690fsb with dfi lp ut p35 from andre yang and are not with this board.

[Rolf]

Does this Board likes D9GMH's?

[chuckbam]

I have this board, it's great. I bought it because of the heatpipe system and it's almost identical to the Platinum version with less a less exotic heatpipe system.

This is my second MSI motherboard. My other board is the Neo-4 939 Nforce 4. MSI has NAZI like moderators on their hard to find support forum.

I was accused of hijacking a post titled NEO-2FR bios. I asked how to flash to the newest bios using Vista 64-bit. I'm still running bios 1.1 and it works well. I got no answer on MSI's forum and my post was deleted.

I would have bought the gigabyte P35 version if they had the heatpipe system at a lower price. I have the Gigabyte GA-965 DS3 board and they have 14 or more bios updates and they encourage users to update their bios to newer versions regularly.

MSI moderators told me I should never update my bios unless my current bios. Using Windows XP makes bios upgrading easy on MSI.

Anyway, I love the board, MSI makes great motherboards but the MSI forum moderators are the worst and they have around 10,000 posts.

PCSTATS.COM tested the platinum version of this board and it holds the record for highest FSB overclock of any motherboard.

If you crank up the NB and the FSB voltage, you get much more performance at lower voltages on the GO Q6600. I'm running at 3.4Ghz at 1.30v

Hans, you could not flash the bios with the DOS option?

[chuckbam]

where is the Memory remap ? I don't see it in the PDF.

[Aleki]

Does this Board likes D9GMH's?

seems to like my crucial ballistix just fine.
oc'd 2 sticks to 1gz @ 4-4-4-10 2.1vram
4 sticks can do 900mhz @ 4-4-4-10 2.1vram. need to cool them before i push them higher

not bad for a cheap board. paid 115 three months ago. though i would have personally gone with my friends gygabite for the extra 15 bucks. has advanced features. way better than my board. though his does run a bit hotter

[Phen0m]

This is a pretty powerful board especially for the price.. i built my system a month ago and have gone through p35 neo2 fr>>abit ip35 pro>>biostar tr2d7>>asus deluxe wifi and finally landed on the dfi lp.. i prefer the msi over them all except the lanparty. Overclocks super easy out of the box, easy to understand bios options, very good soundcard, had 0 problems with it.

Its underrated only because noone was willingly to give it a try.

[clon22]

I bought this board when it 1st released.
Its my 1st MSI Intel board.
Been using msi for amd and asus,giga for intel.
So far not bad.
Tested on my previous q6600 too.
In the Bios menu,
press F4, a power user menu will appear.
Dunno for what thou..







Will try out on the LS when I have time.

[Aleki]

how... how did you get the board to post lower than 9 clocks under tras??
the lowest my board allows me to go is 3-3-3-9 on any frequency.
i have crucual ballistix 667 and 800's.
i tried them each individually and they wont give me that option

thought i saw the ballistix hit pretty low clocks somewhere on this forum which is why i'm asking

[clon22]

how... how did you get the board to post lower than 9 clocks under tras??
the lowest my board allows me to go is 3-3-3-9 on any frequency.
i have crucual ballistix 667 and 800's.
i tried them each individually and they wont give me that option

thought i saw the ballistix hit pretty low clocks somewhere on this forum which is why i'm asking

I used memset to adjust.

[NickS]

Bump - anyone got this board? I got one coming soon..

[wyemarn]

I'm using this board. Testing E2140 now. I can say this is a very good budget board. BIOS is little buggy though.