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I was quite pleased to have the opportunity to play with the MSI P35 Platinum motherboard. It's solidly built, with a good host of extra features and neat little surprises. Yes, that Circua-Pipe cooling system is kinda crazy, but it cools so well that it can be forgiven for looking a little bit odd. I was a tad disappointed with the bundled hardware, but can't complain too much as I have seen worse bundles. The BIOS wasn't half bad, although (and this is probably my greatest concern) I didn't like the Memory/FSB Ratio overclocking. I would have greatly preferred that the end user be able to adjust FSB and memory speeds independently of one another. And that jumper overclocking thing; so ten years ago and so totally useless.

As for the basic performance of the MSI P35 Platinum, I was impressed. But (and I will reiterate this point again and again) there is something astray with the memory controller and how it is configured in the BIOS or something like that. The latencies however are quite good and can pretty much be attributed to achieving a really fast FSB.

So where do I stand with this board?

To start, it's decently priced at about $180 bucks USD. Now compare that to an equivalent in expansion (but somewhat lesser in performance) NVIDIA 650i chipset based motherboard. Yes, you'll get economy SLI with the 650i chipset, but you'll get roughly the same in graphics expansion from the MSI P35 Platinum. Consider as well that the Intel P35 chipset is an absolute overclocker's dream. And consider even further that the NVIDIA 650i chipset is equivalent to a small space heater.

If I haven't made myself abundantly clear as of yet, the Intel P35 chipset is great, and the MSI P35 Platinum uses it pretty well. But there are a couple places where MSI could improve the board: