MSI P35 Neo3 и Gigabyte EP35-DS4
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Date: 16.03.2008 |
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Layout and Features
While holding Gigabyte EP35-DS4 in your hands, you clearly see why its price is so high. It offers two PCI Express x16 slots, as well as a massive passive system for cooling the chipset and the power converter.
Besides, under the radiator of the south bridge there is the ICH9R chip which supports six SerialATA II links and allows setting up a RAID array. On the other hand, MSI P35 Neo3 looks like a typical "work-horse" with a single PCI Express x16 slot. On the board, there is an ICH9 chip without support for RAID functionality and having fewer SerialATA links.
Note that there are three power connectors on the Gigabyte's board. The main connector is on the bottom edge of the board, with a 4-pin Molex positioned also there. The additional 8-pin connector is in the upper-right corner and allows plugging in a 4-wire cable.
There are merely two connectors on the MSI's board: the main 24-pin connector on the bottom edge, with the additional 4-pin connector between the north bridge and the rear panel.
As we already mentioned regarding the cooling system of the Gigabyte's board, we found nothing to complain about.
As compared to it, the radiators of the MSI board seem weak. Nevertheless, even overclocked in the bus to more than 500 MHz and with a serious raise of voltage on the NB and VTT, the MSI board was running stably and with no signs of overheating.
Each motherboard have four 240-pin DIMM slots for DDR2 memory modules, with the overall supported memory capacity being 8 GB.
Now a few words on the connectors to plug in fans. On each of the boards, there is a mandatory 4-pin connector to plug in the CPU cooler.
Besides that, the Gigabyte's board uses three 3-pin connectors and one 4-pin connector. There are three 3-pin connectors on the MSI's board.
There are two Express x16 slots on EP35-DS4. However, because of the chipset's limitations, 16 lanes are allocated to the first slot (from the north bridge) and mere 4 for the second slot (all come from the south bridge, with three lanes via a switch). In the end, if the user intends to use the Crossfire, it will run in the slowest mode (16+4).
All is simple on P35 Neo3: one PCI Express x16 and 16 real lanes. Also, Gigabyte EP35-DS4 uses two PCI and three PCI Express x1 slots. On the MSI board, there are four(!) PCI and one PCI Express x1 slots.
Let's now examine the expansion potentials. There is the south bridge ICH9R on the Gigabyte's board. In the end, the board supports 6 SerialATA II links with the option of setting up a RAID array. On the MSI board, there is the ICH9: four SerialATA II lanes; no RAID support is provided.
Besides, both the boards use the additional ParallelATA/SerialATA/ RAID controller JMB363 made by JMicron.
In the end, you can plug in 10 hard disks (8 SATA + 2 PATA) to the Gigabyte's board, and 8 hard disks (6 SATA + 2 PATA) to the MSI board.
Then, the south bridge ICH9(R) offers support for 12 USB2.0 ports. On the Gigabyte's board, the eights are positioned on the rear panel, with four more plugged in with brackets (missing in the bundle, but in view of the great number of integrated ports, that is not a shortcoming). The MSI board is of a standard configuration: four ports on the rear panel, and eight additional (no brackets are available in the package bundle, which is not a shortcoming either, since the board is cheap).
Besides, the Gigabyte board offers support for the Firewire bus. For that, there is an additional controller made by Texas Instruments. That is the TSB43AB23 chip which supports 3 matching ports.
The configuration of the ports is the following: two ports on the rear panel, with one more plugged in with a bracket (missing in the package bundle). The MSI P35 Neo3 does not support the Firewire.
Now a few words on the High Definition Audio subsystem. The Gigabit board uses the ALC889A codec, with ALC888 on the MSI's.
Both the motherboards offer support for a high-speed network connection. They use the same RTL 8111B Gigabit controller:
The board's rear panel is of the following configuration:
The value-sector positioning of the MSI board explains the presence of one COM and one LPT port on the rear panel. Besides, the board supports the second COM port with a bracket (missing in the bundle). On the other hand, the Gigabyte's board is striving for the future: the rear panel has no outdated interfaces (we still think that PS/2 is in demand). EP35-DS4 also supports COM- and LPT-ports via brackets (missing in the bundle). On the other hand, note that there is an optical and coaxial SP-DIF-output, eight (!) USB 2.0 and two (!) Firewire ports onboard.
The boards' components layout diagram:
Now on to the BIOS settings.
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