MSI P55-GD65 - Mid-Range P55 for the Masses
by Gary Key on October 10, 2009 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Overclocking
The P55-GD65 offers a very good overclocking experience. Some additional BIOS tuning would make this a great motherboard for most enthusiasts.
Core i5/750 8GB Results
Our maximum stable overclock on air-cooling with the Core i5/750 resulted in a 4.2GHz clock speed at a respectable 210MHz Bclk with a variety of 8GB DDR3-2000+ kits. The primary voltages settings were 1.3625V VCore, 1.38V VTT, 1.83V PLL, and 1.65V VDimm. The VCore setting is deceiving. We had to run the board with Load Line Calibration (Low Vdroop) enabled for stability. This meant setting our voltage manually to 1.3625V with load rates rising to 1.3975V.
We could not stably run our memory above DDR3-2000 with 8GB loaded and the i5/750. We scaled back to DDR3-1683 at C7 timings which offered the same performance, if not better, than DDR3-2050 C9.
Core i7/860 8GB Results
Our i7/860 fared better clocking wise than the i5/750, with a 21x205 setting for 4.3GHz. Memory was set at DDR3-2055 with 9-9-9-24 1T timings at 1.65V.
VTT is set to 1.39V, PLL at 1.85V, VDimm at 1.65V, and VCore at 1.350V with LLC (Low Vdroop) enabled. Under load conditions VCore was +.015V~+.02V with low Vdroop enabled and -.04V~-.05V with it disabled. Our Core i7/870 clocks matched these exactly.
Core i7/860 4GB DDR3-2400 Results
MSI advertised up to DDR3-2400 speeds so we decided to verify their claim. Unfortunately, the board had serious problem running our DDR3-2400 Blade kit at 2400 with the stock 9-10-9-24 1T settings on 1.65V. We just could not dial in that memory speed. We had to settle for DDR3-2055 8-8-8-24 1T timings at 1.65V. The primary problem being that the board strictly utilizes the SPD under auto settings and the board tried setting the base 7-7-7-20 SPD settings at 2400. Even manually tuning each individual setting still resulted in a limit around DDR3-2100. Of course, our final settings is more than fast enough for application usage and let’s face it, nobody will be buying this board thinking they are going to break world records.
Thoughts
The overclocking results are very solid and certainly 4.2GHz~4.3GHz speeds are fast enough for most users. We have no concerns recommending the MSI P55-GD65 board for 24/7 overclocking use. When overclocked, the board is extremely stable. Our only concern is that S3 resume did not work properly with the Bclk set above 190.
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MadMan007 - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
er *video performance test. Whatever, not the place I'd expect to read about motherboard features or stuff that I'd epect to find in, ya know, regular motherboard reviews.vlado08 - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link
Gary, give us the POST time ot the boards. Not the OS load time but the POST time. And Sata to be in AHCI mode.Sunburn74 - Saturday, October 10, 2009 - link
This really was a great review. You tell the end user pretty much everything he needs to know. I love how you tested S3 resume. Its very frustrating to buy a board said to have great overclocking and find that you can only overclock 300mhz before S3 sleep goes haywire. If this board can be pushed to 190blck before S3 goes awry that is amazingly good. Gigabyte boards give you about 600mhz of head room before they start failing in that regard. I don't know about you, but I don't like having to to weigh the value of keeping a 4ghz processor vs being able to have a computer that sleeps.Also what gives with the floppy and the ide ports? Who still uses floppies?
Great review. I'll definitely keep this board in sight for when I build my p55 rig.
lopri - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link
Gary now writes practically critic-proof reviews.Zaitsev - Saturday, October 10, 2009 - link
Who still uses floppies? I still use floppies. I was pretty perturbed when I realized my P55 Asus board didn't have floppy support. Call me old school, but its compatible and works when you need sata drivers.MadMan007 - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link
Well I can see how floppy is deprecated unless you need drivers for XP (old now, although WHS needs a floppy for F6 drivers) or an alternative OS (not sure about the latter) but I'm with you on IDE. If they're going to have a JMicron controller on the board might as well include the IDE connector, it probably adds almost nothing more to the cost.There are particular instances where having an IDE optical drive is beneficial. I set up my SATA drives as AHCI and some bootable ISOs do not play well with AHCI (or RAID) setting. I do have a SATA optical but having an IDE optical for booting such ISOs without having to mess around in the BIOS is nice and it guarantees compatability. I guess you could use a SATA optical on the JMicron set to IDE but I had the IDE drive so...
I think it's funny that someone would 'look down on' a board for having an IDE connector..wtf? It's not hurting anything being there, just ignore it.
Makaveli - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link
Who still uses Floopies I do!! I won't do a bios flash on my motherboard from windows or flashing a videocard bios!!!However there are these really great devices called USB thumb drives which you can make bootable and guess what goodbye floppy!!
The only valid reason to keep using them is if your board doesn't allow booting from USB!
Welcome to 2009!
stmok - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link
Floppy disk for SATA drivers?Can't you slipstream them in a customised Windows install CD via nLite/vLite? (I've only seen it done to a WinXP install CD.)
MadMan007 - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link
Good luck running nLite or vLite without an OS installed! ;) That's what second computers are for but still...tony montana - Saturday, October 10, 2009 - link
I old school too. The same on IDE. why I have to spend some bucks on a new DVD burner for 4 or 5 burns a year?This board has at least these ports at the right place for me, not on the bottom like others.
thanks for review, is one of the two mobos I have in mind to purchase and I have seen some tips I haven´t see in others reviews