MSI P35 Neo2-FR: Platinum performance for under $100
by Gary Key on December 5, 2007 11:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
MSI P35 Neo2-FR Specifications
| MSI P35 Neo2-FR | |
| Market Segment | Budget Performance - $88.99 after Rebate |
| CPU Interface | Socket T (Socket 775) |
| CPU Support | LGA775-based Pentium 4, Celeron D, Pentium D, Pentium EE, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Quad |
| Chipset | Intel P35 MCH and Intel ICH9R |
| Bus Speeds | Auto, 133 ~ 600 in 1MHz increments |
| DDR2 Memory Speed | Auto,1:1, 1:1.2, 1:2, 1:1.25, 1:1.6, 1:1.5 |
| PCIe Speeds | Auto, 100MHz~200MHz in 1MHz Increments |
| CPU Voltage | Auto, Base CPU - +0.7875V in 0.0125V increments |
| SB Voltage | 1.05V, 1.15V |
| SB I/O Voltage | 1.50V ~1.80V in .05V increments |
| CPU Clock Multiplier | Auto, 6x-50x in 1X increments if CPU is unlocked, downwards unlocked, Core 2 Duo/Quad/Extreme |
| DDR2 DRAM Voltage | Auto, 1.80V ~ 2.60V in .05V or .10V increments |
| DRAM Timing Control | Enabled SPD, Disabled, 9 DRAM Timing Options |
| NB Voltage | Auto, 1.250V ~ 1.650V in .025V increments |
| VTT Voltage | Auto, 1.175V ~ 1.550V in .025V increments |
| Memory Slots | Four 240-pin DDR2
DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 8GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 2 - PCIe X16
(1x16, 1x4 electrical for CrossFire or Multi-GPU) 2 - PCIe x1 2 - PCI Slot 2.2 |
| Onboard SATA/RAID | 4 SATA 3Gbps Ports
- ICH9R (RAID 0,1, 10, 5) 2 eSATA 3Gbps Port - ICH9R 1 SATA 3Gbps Port - Marvell 88SE6111 |
| Onboard IDE | 1 ATA133/100/66 Port (2 drives) - Marvell 88SE6111 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 12 USB 2.0 Ports -
6 I/O Panel - 6 via Headers 2 Firewire 400 Ports by VIA VT6308 - Requires FIR board |
| Onboard LAN | Realtek RTL8111B PCIe Gigabit Ethernet controller |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC888T - 8-channel HD audio codec |
| Power Connectors | ATX 24-pin, 8-pin EATX 12V, 4-pin Molex connector |
| I/O Panel | 1 x PS/2
Keyboard 1 x PS/2 Mouse 2 x eSATA 1 x IEEE 1394a - Requires FIR board 1 x Audio Panel 1 x RJ45 6x USB 2.0/1.1 |
| BIOS Revision | v1.6 |
| Board Revision | v1.0 |
MSI designed the P35 Neo2-FR for the enthusiast user on a budget. The BIOS options available are extensive for a board in this price category and place an emphasis on overclocking. MSI provides the standard laundry list of board options such as the Marvell 88SE6111 for eSATA and IDE support, optional IEEE 1394 support from VIA on the FIR board, decent onboard audio support from the Realtek ALC888T, 12 USB ports, Intel Matrix RAID, and Gigabit LAN support from the ubiquitous Realtek RTL8111B chipset.
The board offers a very good mix of expansion slots. Utilizing a CrossFire setup will create the physical loss of a PCI and PCI Express slot with dual-slot cards, but we still recommend utilizing the 975X or X38 chipsets for CrossFire operation. We ran a few early tests with a QX9650 Yorkfield CPU and the board operated fine. MSI has not finished fully tuning the BIOS for Yorkfield, but they should in the near future. Speaking of the BIOS, its design has not changed from the P35 Platinum, nor have the options - something we dearly wish that MSI would address in their next product release. It's not that bad, but the layout could be better and additional auto settings would be welcome in the memory timing section.
MSI includes several Windows utility programs, with Dual Core Center and Live Update being the two major applications. Just like the majority of utility programs from most manufacturers, they are somewhat interesting to look at for a few minutes, but we quickly removed them from our system to utilize third party programs for tuning and measurements. We also had a problem updating our BIOS from 1.3 to 1.6 with the Live Update program. The BIOS update completed normally and our system rebooted as planned. However, it would not POST correctly after several on/off episodes. Thinking the board might be dead, we decided to try a couple of options before contacting MSI. We switched out our processor to the E2160 and the board booted fine. We set the BIOS to defaults, shutdown, inserted the Q6600, and it started right back up.
Attempting to replicate the problem, we tried the Live Update procedure on an MSI P35 Platinum board when upgrading from the engineering BIOS to an early public release. We did not have a problem there, but we did when upgrading to the latest BIOS. This time, we set the FSB jumpers on the board to 200 and it went straight through the POST routine. The only thing we can think of is that the FSB rates are not being set correctly after the flash routine. However, we did not have a single problem flashing with the DOS utility.
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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? ;-)