P45 head-to-head: MSI P45 Platinum and Asus Maximus II Formula

Motherboards/Intel S775 by massman @ 2008-07-16

In this article we´ll focus on what the MSI P45 Platinum and Asus Maximus II Formula can bring us in terms of performance, overclocking and the performance gained from overclocking. We´ll be giving you basic pointers for obtaining better results and will spend a little time on the energy-saving technology used on these boards.

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MSI P45 Platinum in front of the camera

Box Lay-out

Undressing the package, we start with the box itself; continue by looking at the extras added to the mainboard and end with the mainboard itself.

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Accessories

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  • Quickguide
  • Manual
  • Driver CD for Windows XP
  • Driver CD for Windows Vista
  • Efinity extra

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  • 1 x Pata HDD cable
  • 1 x Floppy cable
  • 1 x Crossfire link cable
  • 1 x I/o backpanel
  • 1 x Molex to 2 x sata connector
  • 4 x Sata cable
  • 1 x USB + IEEE1394 bracket
  • 1 x M-Connectors

    Motherboard

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    Flashy lights all over the board; these four green ones tell me the system is running.

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    Officially, DrMos stands for:

  • GreenPower: less wasted energy
  • XpressCool: cooler surface temperatures
  • RapidBoost: better overclockability

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    The socket area is quite open; insulating the motherboard for extreme overclocking shouldn't be a big problem.

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  • 1 x Clear CMOS button
  • 1 x PS/2 Keyboard
  • 1 x PS/2 Mouse
  • 1 x eSATA port
  • 1 x IEEE1394 port (optional)
  • 6 x USB 2.0 ports
  • 1 x RJ45 LAN Jack
  • 1 x 6 in 1 audio jack
  • 1 x Optical SPDIF-out

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  • 2 x PCI Express x16 slots (1 x16 or 2 x8)
  • 2 x PCI Express x1 slots
  • 2 x PCI slots

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  • 1 x CPU / System x 5 FAN connectors
  • 1 x CD-in connector
  • 1 x Front panel audio connector
  • 1 x Front panel connector
  • 1 x chasis intrusion connector
  • 1 x serial port pinheader
  • 3 x USB 2.0 connectors
  • 1 x Floppy disk drive connector
  • 8 x Serial ATAII connectors
  • 1 x ATA133 connector
  • 1 x SPDIF-Out connector
  • 1 x Clear CMOS Jumper
  • 1 x IEEE1394 connector support additional 1 port (optional)
  • 2 x HW-OC FSB jumpers
  • 1 x GreenPower Genie connector (optional)
  • 1 x Reset Button
  • 1 x Power Button
  • 1 x TPM module connector (optional)

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    The hardware-OC FSB jumpers.

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    Madshrimps (c) 2-phase Power on Memory/Northbridge

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    Bling-bling cooling unit, the CircuPipe2!
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    Comment from jmke @ 2008/08/03
    Hey Massman, in your MSI bios shots you have the H/W monitor showing this:



    in the system I set up here I get more values:



    any idea why I get ICore Pout and Efficiency in the BIOS with the MSI P45?
    Comment from Massman @ 2008/08/03
    Newer bios version.
    Comment from jmke @ 2008/08/03
    flashed to latest beta (thanks MM) and now those ICore/Pout/Efficiency values have moved to another submenu "GreenPower"

     

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