In terms of what MSI tends to offer in the range of bundled hardware and extra goodies, it usually isn't very much. In fact, most every MSI board I have come across has the absolute minimal of hardware, the absolute basic essentials to get things up and running.
But we'll of course take a moment to see what was included, starting with the box.
Okay, I'm not completely certain what claws tearing through metal has to do with a motherboard, but it is a pretty cool graphic.
And the back f the box is just for the usual laundry list of features and selling points.
A user manual and some driver Cd's. Firstly, the manual is thick, boasts many nice pictures, and is very detailed as to the finer technical and operational aspects of the MSI P35 Platinum motherboard. Good documentation is always important.
On the CD we get . . .
DRIVERS
Intel INF Update (the chipset drivers)
Realtek Network Ethernet Driver
Realtek HD Audio Driver
MSI UTILITY
MSI Live Update 3 (to update the BIOS, but it doesn't work)
MSI Dual Core Center (for overclocking and system monitoring, but the overclocking doesn't work too well)
MSI Security Utility (plenty of other ones out there)
MSI PasswordKeeper (thats what my brain is for)
MSI SecureDoc (encrypt your files for secure keeping)
MSI LockBox
UTILITY
Microsoft DriectX 9.0C
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Yahoo Toolbar
WEBSite
Micro Star Int'l Site
Download VIA Drivers
Download nVIDIA VGA Drivers
Download Intel Drivers
Download Realtek Network Driver
ZDNet Software Library
Winsite Software Library
Shareware Software Library
World's Popular Entertainment
Free Personal Firewall
MANUAL
Contact Us (opens a web page to contact MSI)
About CD (lists all of the sofware and driver versions on the CD)
All quite the standard for MSI. Of course, the same can be found on the Windows Vista CD, but with those requisite Vista drivers instead. A game would have been nice, but MSI isn't much for bundling full version games with their hardware. On rare occasion, perhaps a demo CD.
MSI likes tossing in posters of their motherboards, mainly to assist the end user with the installation and assembly process.
Yeah, not the most useful piece of paper in the bunch, but a nice illustration of the P35 Platinum motherboard itself. It does make for quick and easy reference to what parts are what, and is especially handy for identifying all of those mystery pin headers.
Four SATA cables are included. Odd, since the P35 Platinum has five SATA ports. One more cable couldn't have been that much trouble.
A pair of SATA drive power adapters, for those of us with really old power supplies.
An IDE cable and a floppy cable whaich are both incredibly standard, but both of exceptional quality.
A rear FireWire bracket is nice, but I'd like to know where our rear USB2.0 brackets are? It never hurts to have extra ports, and a mini-FireWire port would have been tops.
The rear I/O shield; can I say anything else? Probably not.
And finally, a friendly reminder from MSI that we should take the time to register our product. Perhaps a good idea, just for sake of warranty purposes and such.
Needless to say that this bundle is pretty meager when compared to some of the fruit that other manufacturers toss in with their motherboards. Yeah, more would be nice, but we do get the basics. I would hope as well that such a slim bundle would help to keep the final price of the P35 Platinum motherboard at some reasonable dollar figure (fancy toys and cool games do cost more).
Time for the BIOS now.
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