Overclocking
Our particular Pentium 840XE CPU isn't the friendliest of overclockers. With the two Abit boards we've reviewed in October, we managed a solid 3.824GHz from 3.2GHz with a Koolance EXOS water-cooling kit. This equates to a 239FSB overclock which is a little higher than what we've been able to achieve in the past using the same cooler on other boards.
We were unable to reproduce the numbers, using the same testing components and cooling, on the MSI 975X Platinum. Still, the results were not bad, hitting 227FSB which is good enough for third place. The MSI 975X was rock solid during the overclock, as well as stock speed. We should point out that even by placing a small 60mm fan on top of the North Bridge cooler, we were able to get as high as 229FSB, but it was unstable. 228FSB booted up fine, but the minute we started any application, the mouse cursor would freeze.
Final Words
The 975X has shown itself to be quite resilient despite some newer chipsets on the market. Intel themselves must be fans since they repackaged it again for quad core support. While stability is something that should be a standard, this has not always been the case with many motherboards released. The MSI 975X Platinum V.2 is a solid "reboot" and was very reliable and consistent in our testing. Little things like this is important as it makes for a more enjoyable computing experience and also leaves us with more hair as we're less prone to getting frustrated and yanking it out.
The MSI 975X Platinum V.2 generally swapped between first to third place with the Abit 975 and 965 offerings. What this tells us is the gap between the board makers as well as the chipsets is very small. Without looking, you'd be hard pressed to tell which system was using what board considering how closely within one another they performed.
Comparing the MSI 975X to the Abit 975X, which are direct competitors, there are some differences in their market placement. The Abit board is geared towards the extreme enthusiast and bundles a lot of features. The MSI 975X also targets the enthusiast, but doesn't offer the audio riser card, has fewer storage options and features a single NIC as opposed to dual. It's not a bare board though as it does have all the Intel 975X features, including HD audio as well as CrossFire.
While overall the Abit board is more loaded, the extra features are not free. The MSI 975X Platinum V.2 is close to than Abit's offering. This is a significant savings when you consider the similarity in performance. The only real downside from a performance perspective was the overclocking was not as good as the Abit solution, but it wasn't bad nonetheless.
Anyone looking for a solid Conroe board for gaming, multimedia or other workstation needs should give the MSI 975X Platinum V.2 a close look. The stock speed performance, stability and relatively low price puts this board high on our recommended list.
If you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.
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