MSI P67A-GD80 (B3) Motherboard Review - PAGE 11

Over the last few years MSI has really improved the quality of their products and the P67A-GD80 is a prime example of this. What they have done is take the standard motherboard design and improve upon it by adding features such as a high-quality 16-phase DrMos digital VRM, Hi-C Caps and Super Ferrite Core chokes. Through the use these features MSI has really started pushing ahead of its completion when it comes to overall quality and design. This allows their products to excel when it comes tol power efficiency and system stability. Also, the improved quality of their design can help increase the maximum overclocking ceiling, which translates into better performance via higher overclocked frequencies.

In our testing of the P67A-GD80 we were able to overclock our Intel 2600K to nearly 5GHz, without having to increase the voltage beyond 1.4V. This is actually an impressive feat, as most models require a substantial power increase to achieve a clock speed beyond 4.8GHz. This really shows that the MSI P67A-GD80 is a perfect motherboard for the overclocking community.

In addition, MSI includes an on-board OC Gene II button. Essentially, this feature gives users an option to bypass the traditional method of overclocking from within the BIOS and allowing the OC Genie to do all the work for you. Of course, you’re not going to get the same results you could be seeing if you did it yourself, but in our system it overclocked our 2600K by 800MHz without any additional effort.

Along with the strong performance and overclocking headroom, the MSI P67A-GD80 also includes high-end features such as 3-way SLI/CrossFireX support, uEFI BIOS,  support for THX TruStudio PRO audio, ten USB 3.0 ports and on-board voltage check-points. Most importantly however, this model uses the new B3 stepping, which eliminates the SATA 2.0 design flaw that plagued all the first edition P67 and H67 motherboards. So you can see this board really hits all the right notes both in terms of performance and included features.

The only real flaw with the MSI P67A-GD80 is that we found the inclusion of only two SATA 3.0 ports underwhelming for a motherboard of this caliber. Really, at over $200 we would have expected MSI to include additional SATA 3.0 ports, as many other manufactures have done with similarly priced motherboards. Also, it's our opinion that we would like to see a little more diversity in MSI's line-up. If you look at the LGA-1155 motherboards available from MSI, they all have the same style, color and heatsinks. The only real feature separating them is the available expansion slots and on-board features. This is okay for the majority of their products, but we really would have like to see something that makes their high-end boards more distinguishable from the other models.

Currently the MSI P67A-GD80 has an MSRP of $219, which puts this board squarely in the enthusiast market. At this price a product really has to deliver to be worth the asking price, and after spending some time with the board I can definitely say it is worth every penny.