MSI P35 Neo2-FR: Platinum performance for under $100
by Gary Key on December 5, 2007 11:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Thoughts
MSI surprised us with the overall performance of the P35 Neo2-FR motherboard. We figured they would neuter the performance of the board so as not to cannibalize sales of the P35 Platinum series. Turns out, we were incorrect. Sure, the Platinum board has FireWire, S/PDIF Optical out, and a conversation generating roller coaster cooling system, but it also costs about $40 more. The performance between the two boards is almost identical making this purchasing decision easy in our opinion unless you need FireWire capabilities. If so, MSI offers the Neo2-FIR for about $10 more.
Our expectations of products in the sub $100 market for Intel have changed considerably over the past couple of months. We are testing the abit IP35-V, DFI Blood IronP35-T2RL, and Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L currently and have been especially impressed with the level of performance you can get at the $100 level. In fact, we would venture to say at this point, that the price to performance ratios of these boards could very well make their more expensive relatives obsolete, provided the feature lists match your needs.
We think MSI's decision to utilize the P35 Platinum board design as the basis for the Neo2 series is an excellent idea from both a manufacturing and marketing viewpoint. In our opinion, MSI actually improved the product family by changing the heatpipe system from the Platinum version. Gone is the roller coaster adventure series and in its place MSI installed a standard if visually conservative heatpipe system that not only has better aesthetics, but also cools just as well in our test conditions.
We do miss the FireWire support, but it is available on the FIR series; the problem with that is that we only found the FIR at a couple of resellers. Overall, this board performs very well but it does have a few quirks (Ed: what board doesn't?) when overclocking and utilizing the 4:5 memory ratios with 4GB installed. We were not always pleased with the board's two-step recovery from failed BIOS settings and the included utilities are just not up to par with abit's µGuru technology. However, MSI did a wonderful job with this board considering the cost targets required to compete in this market sector.
 |
Overall, this board certainly has more positives than negatives. Its negatives are generally minor and BIOS tuning will likely solve the few performance problems we encountered during overclocking. To be honest, it's the product quality, MSI's support, and price to performance advantages this board offers that really win us over. If MSI offered better utilities, the ability to control each fan header properly, and a BIOS fully tuned for 4GB overclocking then we would give the board our Gold award. As it stands, MSI has reset our expectations in this market space. Will any of the products from abit, DFI, and Gigabyte in this price bracket surpass MSI's offering? We will answer that question shortly.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
35 Comments
View All Comments
drebo - Friday, December 7, 2007 - link
I'll forgive your ignorant comment since you obviously do not work in retail computer sales. People aren't interested in buying adapters and add-on cards that they don't feel they should need because "their old computer had it." In a managed IT environment, yes, you can just give everyone converters and it works fine, but your average joe who walks into a computer shop with a 10-year-old dead computer and an ancient Epson parallel printer isn't ever going to understand why his old connections are going by the way-side.So, yes, legacy support in the retail market is important, even for most small business users. Not a day doesn't go by when I get a call or someone comes in needing a parallel card or serial card because the off-the-shelf computer they bought doesn't come with one. Most people don't need 16 USB ports, but I'll bet a good number do need a parallel port.
AssBall - Saturday, December 8, 2007 - link
"I'll forgive your ignorant comment since you obviously do not work in retail computer sales."Right... because a good retail computer salesperson would sell someone who is inexperienced enough to not RTFM a 10$ adapter instead of reccomending a better and higher profit margin 10 year newer replacement product for 150$ with built in factory support$
Salesman indeed...
kmmatney - Thursday, December 6, 2007 - link
Serial mice? Come-on! I used serial mice back in the day, but there is absolutely no need to get a USB mouse - I just bought a spare optical mouse for $3 at Microcenter - works great. You can get a USB-RS232 adapter for around $15 as well. Or you can buy a PCI add-on card, with RS232 and Parallel ports, for around the same price. I'd way rather have the extra USB and e-Sata ports instead of the legacy crap.I do a lot of RS-232 and RS-485 programming, and my main computer is a laptop, so I've been using USB-Serial converters for some time now.
theslug - Thursday, December 6, 2007 - link
They sell these:http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...iption=u...
OndrejSc - Thursday, December 6, 2007 - link
Cheer up! It does exist. :-)http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=proddesc&a...">http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func...=1342&am...
drebo - Thursday, December 6, 2007 - link
Hmmm, good news. I wonder when we'll have availability and what the pricing will be like.LoneWolf15 - Thursday, December 6, 2007 - link
"MSI also offers the Creative Lab's X-Fi audio codecs on their high-end boards as a nod to the gaming community."No...MSI puts the X-Fi XtremeAudio chip on the boards, which is a tweaked Audigy SE chip (note: the Audigy SE isn't even a true Audigy chip), not a true X-Fi. No hardware EAX or DirectSound3D acceleration, and the drivers, like the X-Fi XtremeAudio card, are completely different than the rest of the X-Fi line. So, serious gamers STILL need to buy a sound card.
I really like MSI and use their boards a lot, but this audio solution is really only slightly better than what is used on other boards --and those who don't like Creative might argue that the drivers actually make it worse. If MSI had used the real X-Fi chip, I'd be very impressed.
ultimatex - Thursday, December 6, 2007 - link
are u retarted ? serious gamers need to buy a seperate sound card? A real serious games would not be worrying about some sound options but more about performace of the board. I smell some Asus Gybabyte fan boys here on these forums.as long as boards have 5.1 sound U dont need no special features that dont do anything specialy for games. Serious games wear headphones.
these NERDS here are sounding like if a serious gamer has to have a sound card . Well ill tell u from a X-Cal P Css Player here. A videocard and Fps is the most important thing for a Hardcore gamer..
Etern205 - Friday, December 7, 2007 - link
Your the retarded one.If he's right and that the onboard X-FI does not have hardware accelerated audio, what it means it it uses the cpu to process the audio singal which leads to reduce FPS. Gamers needs to know where their enemies are and that's where the EAX comes in. Onboard will have EAX as well as mutli-channel speaker support (ie 5.1 surround sound) but without a higher version of EAX (ie EAX 5.0) all your hearing are just sounds coming at you with no sense of direction.
So if you got a 5.1 speaker setup but with a crappy onboard Audio or onboard X-FI with crappy EAX support then it won't help you as much as a dedicated sound card.
dazy - Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - link
Thanks for pointing out his utter ignorance before I had to, lol.[quote=ultimatex]serious gamers need to buy a seperate sound card?
as long as boards have 5.1 sound U dont need no special features that dont do anything specialy for games. Serious games wear headphones.
A videocard and Fps is the most important thing for a Hardcore gamer..[/quote]
The sheer number of stupid statements for a "gamer" in his post is outstanding. Maybe he thinks we are talking about his XBOX360? ;-)