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The Board

Other than the funky heatsink, the MSI P45 Platinum looks pretty much like any other enthusiasts board - plenty of I/O connections and slots, lots of solid state capacitors and ferrite cores. The "Dr. MOS" branding is prominent on the second largest heatsink - the one that cools the VRM section of the board.

I am somewhat concerned that the oversize heatsinks and higher than usual heat pipes may interfere with the mounting of some of the larger third-party coolers. Fortunately our Noctua-12 mounted without any problems.

Here is another look at the funky cooler - looks like each heatpipe gets its own heatsink with its own fins.

Four ordinary DIMM slots for DDR2 memory.

Unlike some people, I don't like the 90 degree SATA and IDE connectors, I find working with them in a built-up case to be a pain in the posterior.

LOTS of slots - two PCIe 2.0 16x, two PCIe 2.0 1x, and two PCI - however if you use two GPU's with double slot coolers, you will lose access to one PCIe 1x and one PCI slot. Note the Molex four pin power connector next to the primary GPU slot.

The back panel has PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors, firewire, optical audio out, six USB 2.0 ports, an eSATA port, a CMOS reset switch, a Gigabit  ethernet port and six analog audio jacks. At first I did not like how four of the USB ports were mounted, purely due to the aesthetics, however once I remembered some oversize USB memory sticks and other attachments the spacing is most welcome.

The Stuff

Here are the cables and stuff packed with the board:

• Manual
• Quick Start Guide
• HDBackup User Guide
• Driver CD's (XP & Vista)
• HD Backup utlity CD
• Back I/O panel cover
• Quick jumper blocks
• CrossFire bridge
• 4 SATAII cables
• 2 Molex-to-SATA power cable adapters
• IDE cable
• floppy cable
• USB/fireware IO bracket