Full Solid CAP and big heat-pipe MB on Intel platform – MSI P35 Platinum first look

[windwithme]

On Intel chipset product line schedule, they usually renew the whole
products series from half to one year.
The 975X chipset exist for a long time, the P965 also launched for almost a
year.
The upcoming Intel new generation processor will speed up to FSB1333MHz
and DDR3 architecture, then the P35 and X38 series chipsets will become the
new generation leader in second half 2007.


The board I got this time is P35 chipset based – MSI P35 Platinum – DDR2
The box design, this time they use different theme on cover, got another
better style




Inside packing, the cable color and wording is also enhanced from old design.
(CD driver not in photo)




The motherboard itself








Down left side
Even P35 have same design with 965P on single PCI-E x16 lane design.
But higher level boards will make them as dual VGA layout.
Audio chip use ALC888T, 7.1 channel HD audio with mant solid CAPs.




Down right side
5 SATAII and 1 IDE port.
Red bottom is for Clear CMOS function.




DRAM part
4DIMM DDRII




CPU PWM part use 4 phase design




IO shield
Except 1394, also support 2 extra eSATA ports




This time MSI have the brake through design on heatpipe design compare
with their old products. They have 4 special parts to high light.

The first part: up left on CPU socket.
The inscription with the pipe name “CIRCU-PIPE”, looks good.




Second part: Up right side on CPU socket.




Third part: North bridge pipe
It’s special design that I’ve never seen before. Comes with bigger surface to
spread the heat, seems better then other normal design.




Forth part: South bridge.
The copper and pipe is thick in heatsink.




The testing modules




On this coming P35 product, we see MSI comes with enough function and
better look hestsink with special design,
The special feature and outlook design is almost align to a higher standard
with the three big MB manufactors.
This time MSI coming very fast with well prepared, hope MSI can have more
brake through on overclock limited, then their P35 series will have good
reputation on P35 market soon.

[CedricFP]

Wow, those circular heatpipes look pretty nifty, but could interfere with some of the larger heatsinks around, perhaps even water.

Looking forward to your results

[Daveb2012]

Wow I love the heat pipe cooling on this! Will probably trade my Quad GT in for one of these as long the price is reasonable. Can I ask whats up with that little plastic jewel cat camera whore appearing in all the shots? Is that like some ones signature?

[theteamaqua]

r u gonna test it ?? like install windows and run benchies on it??

[nn_step]

first and foremost what the heck did MSI do with the Power connector placement? Also I hope they clean up that mess of heatsinks

[Hazzan]

run it !! I want to see performance from chipset P35 .......................

[nugzo]

OMG its a rollercoaster

[Peter949]

Nice mobo....kinda like the loop heat pipe design.

[Chewbenator]

Its a rollercoaster for electrons!

[SaFrOuT]

the upcoming mobos from GB, ASUS and MSI have very large NB heatsink that it will be a problem when the owner wants to install one of the high end huge aircooling solutions

[mezcal]

@nnstep what's wrong with the power connectors? Looks pretty standard to me-am I missing something?
+1 for leaving out the parallel and com ports.
Those heatpipes--they may work, I don't know. I do know I will never buy anything like that

And are you SURE those are cats?? I'm thinking that one is an owl

[nn_step]

Originally Posted by mezcal

@nnstep what's wrong with the power connectors? Looks pretty standard to me-am I missing something?
+1 for leaving out the parallel and com ports.
Those heatpipes--they may work, I don't know. I do know I will never buy anything like that

And are you SURE those are cats?? I'm thinking that one is an owl

The 8pin looks like a pain to plug in, I wish they had more of a DFI style layout which makes routing easier

[PotGoblin]

I am liking that shiny red button for clear cmos - no more jumper

[thecoldanddark]

I'll be honest, I don't like it. It looks like a decent motherboard if you are air cooling, but other than that it just looks like a nightmare. The 8pin is in a terrible spot and how are the heatpipes supposed to cool themselves off if you don't have air cooling on your processor? Add fans, to where (stupid bling covers)? The northbridge is funky (probably works pretty well, but to get a small fan on it... I have the
p965 MSI plat limited edition and I like the way the heatpipes are set up on it (besides the one on the southbridge ) It could be a great board, but it looks more bling then useful (like most of the copper bling filled boards).

Yes nn, I agree that 8 pin spot is scary.

[BobHarris]

Isn't it very difficult to mount the HSF with all those heatpipes in place?

Will those oversized sticks of RAM get in the way of an Infinity HSF?

[Nanometer]

Those heatpipes look ridiculous.

[Varsos]

And i thought Striker's heatpipes were ugly............Jesus.

[rozzyroz]

Originally Posted by nn_step

The 8pin looks like a pain to plug in, I wish they had more of a DFI style layout which makes routing easier

hmmm, cable management would suck on that. it would be nice to see the power connectors near the edge and at a 90 degree angled off away from the board. the 4 pin molex connector placement looks just as bad.

[PPInDaHouse]

nice circular heat-pipe

[berk]

Heat pipes are the devils work i tell you !!!
They always have been when it comes to mobo implementation.
And this is the worst ive seen so far...

Anyhoo's numbers please....

[dinos22]

terrible power connector placement and those heatpipes.........are they really necessary

we want FSB testing and also does it run 1066 strap all the way or not

[stealthbomber]

Is there even a single board with a heatpipe design that performs even adequately compared to stand alone copper heatsinks?

Waste of time if you ask me, they could have spent the money on beefing up other parts of the board, I'd keep the two upper parts of the pipe design near the CPU socket where the copper sinks cools the MOSFET's/ic though.

[Phosphate]

Originally Posted by PPInDaHouse

nice circular heat-pipe

I'm really interested in this set-up. Looks much better than the old methods. I wonder how well it will perform in the real world.

[K404]

Originally Posted by dinos22

terrible power connector placement and those heatpipes.........are they really necessary

we want FSB testing and also does it run 1066 strap all the way or not

If its for 1333 CPUs, I gotta say..I doubt it. Maybe a strap selection if we're lucky?

Am I right in saying theres more than 1 version of this board? Theres also one with a mix of DDR2/DDR3 slots.

[Soker]

Beautiful heatpipe cooling, nice fsb but what is this!?