MSI P965 Platinum Motherboard Review

Overall Performance

We measured the overall performance of this motherboard using SYSmark2004, which is a program that simulates the use of real-world applications. Thus, we consider this the best software to measure, in practical terms, the system performance.

The benchmarks are divided into two groups:

• Internet Content Creation: Simulates the authoring of a website containing text, images, videos and animations. The following programs are used: Adobe After Effects 5.5, Adobe Photoshop 7.01, Adobe Premiere 6.5, Discreet 3ds Max 5.1, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, Macromedia Flash MX, Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9, McAfee VirusScan 7.0 and Winzip 8.1.
• Office Productivity: Simulates the use of an office suite, i.e., simulates sending e-mails, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. The following programs are used: Adobe Acrobat 5.05, Microsoft Office XP SP2, Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1, NaturallySpeaking 6, McAfee VirusScan 7.0 and Winzip 8.1.

The software delivers specific results for each batch and also an overall performance result, all in a specific SYSmark2004 unit.

We compared the reviewed board to Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3, ASUS P5B, Intel D975XBX and Intel D975XBX2. These two motherboards from Intel are based on Intel 975X chipset, while the other boards are based on Intel P965. Since we were using DDR2-1066/PC2-8500 memories, we ran all programs under two scenarios. First with the memory configured at 1,066 MHz when the motherboard supported this speed and then with the memory configured at 800 MHz.

You can see the results on the charts below.

All motherboards based on Intel P965 chipset achieved a similar performance on SYSmark2004 overall score. MSI P965 Platinum was 4.28% faster than Intel D975XBX and Intel D975XBX2 motherboards when our memories were set to 800 MHz and 6.12% faster than these two boards when the memories were set to 1,066 MHz (on Intel motherboards the memories were always running at 800 MHz; it is also important to note that Intel 975X chipset does not officially support DDR2-800).

On Internet Content Creation all motherboards based on Intel P965 chipset achieved a similar performance as well. MSI P965 Platinum was 5.25% faster than Intel D975XBX and Intel D975XBX2 motherboards when our memories were set to 800 MHz and 5.97% faster than these two boards when the memories were set to 1,066 MHz (on Intel motherboards the memories were always running at 800 MHz; it is also important to note that Intel 975X chipset does not officially support DDR2-800).

On Office Productivity we saw a little performance difference between MSI P965 Platinum and Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 when we used DDR2-1066 memories: MSI’s motherboard was 3.06% faster. When we configured our memories to run at 800 MHz, however, all motherboards achieved the same performance level. The reviewed board from MSI was 3.53% faster than the two motherboards from Intel when the memories were set to 800 MHz and 6.27% faster than these two boards when the memories were set to 1,066 MHz (on Intel motherboards the memories were always running at 800 MHz; it is also important to note that Intel 975X chipset does not officially support DDR2-800).