MSI P45 Platinum and ASUS P5Q Deluxe (Intel P45)
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Date: 30.07.2008 |
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Layout and Features
From the first glance it becomes clear that both the boards are aiming at the premium class - they offer massive cooling systems, more than one PCI Express x16 slot, impressive expansion options, as well as efficient power converters for the CPU, memory, and the north bridge.
With this rich PCB design, some inconveniences to the assembly operator become less important. There are almost none of these inconveniences: the main power connectors are positioned over the boards' edges. However, it is somehow inconvenient to plug in a cable to the Molex connector on the MSI board.
Besides, it is almost impossible to plug in a fan to the SYSFAN4 connector with a video card installed in the first PCI Express x16 slot. There is such an issue on the ASUS board as well, but on that board there are issues when plugging in a SerialATA cable to the SATA6 port. We also note that on the ASUS board with the first video card installed it is possible to remove or fit memory modules, which can't be done on the MSI board.
Coming back to the cooling system, we note that the MSI board uses three heat pipes, and merely two on the ASUS board. At the same time, on the MSI board all the radiators are interconnected, whereas on the ASUS board one of the PWM radiators is standalone. From the viewpoint of nicety, the MSI board takes a lead:
However, the package bundle of the ASUS board includes an additional fan, so we rate the cooling systems as equal.
The motherboards each have four 240-pin DIMM slots for DDR2 memory modules, with the overall supported memory capacity being 16 GB.
Now let's take a closer look at the expansion slots. The north bridge of Intel P45 allows arranging 2 PCI Express x16 ver.2.0 slots, with 8 bus lanes allocated to each.
That is just the way engineers at MSI followed, and at ASUS they went even further and installed the third PCI Express x16 slot to which 4 lanes are allocated. Besides, the developers have allocated two PCI Express x1 slots and two "regular" PCI slots on each.
Also, PCI Express lanes were used to plug in Gigabit LAN controllers. The ASUS' board uses two such controllers: Marvell 88E8056 and Marvell 88E8001, but only 88E8056 uses the PCI-E ?1 bus (88E8001 is plugged in to the PCI bus).
The MSI board uses only one Gigabit Ethernet controller - Realtek 8111? - which uses only one PCI Express bus lane.
Both the motherboards use the ICH10R south bridge with a radiator. Therefore, both the boards offer support for six SerialATA II ports located near the south bridge.
Besides, the boards use additional controllers to support ParallelATA and SerialATA II. In particular, the ASUS board uses the two chips: Marvell 88SE6121 (1 PATA; 1 SATA II - on the rear panel), and Sil 5723 made by Silicon Image (2 SATA II).
The MSI board uses one JMicron JMB363 and one JMB362 chips:
The first controller supports two links, with the respective ports positioned near the south bridge. The second controller also supports two SATA links, but on our board only one is implemented, with an external eSATA on the rear panel. Originally, we even did not suspect of its existence since JMB362 is not mentioned in the documentation, and the chip itself is hidden under the radiator of the cooling system.
Therefore, the user can plug 11 hard disks (9 SATA II + 2 PATA) to the MSI board, and 12 disks (10 SATA II + 2 PATA) to the ASUS board.
Then, one and the same south bridge ICH10R supports 12 USB2.0 ports. On the MSI board, 6 ports are positioned on the rear panel with 6 more plugged in with brackets (there is one bracket for two ports in the bundle). The ASUS board has a different configuration of ports: 6 on the rear panel, with 4 additional (the board comes bundled with 1 bracket for 2 ports). Therefore, the ASUS board supports merely 10 ports. The thing is, the PCB design provides for installation of a WiFi module which uses two USB2.0 ports. However, it is not installed on our board.
Besides, the boards support the Firewire bus. For that, there is an additional controller. On the ASUS board, that is the L-FW3227 chip made by LSI, and on the MSI board - the JMicron JMB381 chip.
Despite the different chips, the motherboards support two ports each, with their layout being similar: one mounted on the rear panel, with the other one connected with a bracket (available in the package bundle of both the boards).
The motherboards implement the Intel High Definition Audio subsystem: ASUS P5Q Deluxe uses the ADI AD2000B chip, and MSI P45 Platinum - the ALC888 chip.
The board's rear panel is of the following configuration:
The ASUS board supports optical and coaxial SP-DIF outputs, while the MSI - only optical. Also, on the rear panel of both the motherboards, there is a Firewire port and a SATAII port. You can also notice a complete lack of LPT and COM ports. However, each of the boards support one serial port (COM) but implemented with a bracket (missing in the bundles of both the boards). There is an interesting trait in the ASUS board - there engineers have left merely one PS/2 port, to which you can plug in either a keyboard or a mouse. About a year ago, ASUS ceased installing the PS/2 connector for plugging in a mouse, which caused complaints among some users. And only now the company has come to a compromise.
As you can see, part of the rear panel on the MSI board is left to the radiator of the cooling system, and under the radiator there is a button to clear the CMOS. Besides, MSI P45 Platinum uses a couple of buttons to start up and reset the system. The same buttons are there on the ASUS board, and they are much more convenient and have an illumination.
Here is a schematical drawing of the motherboards:
There is a couple of important jumpers on the MSI board: JB1 and JB2 which are meant for forced installation of the FSB starting frequency and are located near the PCI Express x1 slots. For all the LGA775 processors, except 1600 (QPB) MHz, there is no need to touch these jumpers - the motherboard recognizes the CPU and sets the required frequency. But if you have CPU with the 1600 MHz bus, then the starting frequency can be set from within the BIOS and also without these jumpers.
Now on to the BIOS settings.
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