MSI P965 Platinum
 

My initial impression of the board - other than the DIMM socket coloring - was highly favorable. The MSI P965 Platinum has a nice clean layout, was easy to install, is completely passively cooled, and had an excellent BIOS featuring MSI's "Cell Menu" for overclockers. Performance at stock speeds is also quite impressive. Considering the P965 is the "poor man's 975X" this board was pretty much neck to neck against the more expensive boards we tested