I just read the Tom's review on 655 ... I just acquired two weeks ago a MSI 655. I agree with many points but the final judgment on this card is very hard!
Not that I want to defend MSI because I bought it - but still I would like to add my experience on this.
- I wished to buy Gigabyte or Asus ... but they were impossible to find in the stores [and to take back to a website is not that easy] - for the 7205
- I tried the IWill P4GB - nice but not wonderful about perf and does not have ATA133, SATA, unstable about USB 2,
- So my choice went to 655 [better appreciation made by Anandtech that time ...] and again, Gigabyte, announced very good, was unavailable. I could get a MSI 655 - announced the fastest mobo [announced .. I know].
Why I like it?
- ATA 133, RAID - not on all 7205
- AGP 8X - not on i850 (i know perf today are same than 4X .. but why buy 4X when you can have 8X
)
- 3 Firewire, Output Digital Optic&Component, Bluetooth => not on 7205 mobo (for the price !!! they could !!)
- moreover, it supports DDR400 - which for me will be more useful in 6/12 months when Intel will support also DDR400 than the DDR266 for the 7205... MSI announced above DDR333 .. I cannot run mu DDR433 - only at 400Mhz, but it's ok.
- my config, std config, runs well at CAS2, 200MHz, with OCZ PC3500 Cas2 dual channel, no overclocking. I tried to overclock - it's hard with the MSI - I only get it stable and working well at FSB 150MHz, DDR400, CAS2, VCore 1.625, DRAM Timing Normal... as said in the review, the bios doesn't really help, no reboot, block or reinit without a word - the dual bios is surely welcome on other mobo... so hard to overclock.
So I choose 655 because I was disappointed by the 7205 - very good perf but with not all the modern i/o - More stuff ? Yes but when Gigabyte doesn't provide Firewire port ... I would prefer Firewire port than dual boot or dual power for nothing (for the price of this kind of good config, I wanna rip my camcorder DVs!!)
A last point - those machine are made for high performance - in that case, talk about SpecViewPerf with Ti4600 is medium, when you have ATI 9700Pro (9800 soon), NVidia Quadro4 - vcard at the size of 7205/850 and 655 ...
So I disagree with the so hard arguments on the 655 mobo - my point of view... they are, for me again, a better way to get latest things a little bit cheaper than 7205... and with More than respectful perf !!
(It could be good to have the 850 with modern features but...)
Mac88
P4 2.53 GHz\533 + ThermalTake 7+
1GB OCZ PC3500 EL Cas2 dual channel
Maxtor 120GB 8MB ATA133
NVidia Quadro4 980XGL
a lot of cool stuff around...
WXPSP1
<i><b><font color=green>When I think to know a lot of things, I begin to understand that I still have even more to learn...</font color=green></b></i>
Not that I want to defend MSI because I bought it - but still I would like to add my experience on this.
- I wished to buy Gigabyte or Asus ... but they were impossible to find in the stores [and to take back to a website is not that easy] - for the 7205
- I tried the IWill P4GB - nice but not wonderful about perf and does not have ATA133, SATA, unstable about USB 2,
- So my choice went to 655 [better appreciation made by Anandtech that time ...] and again, Gigabyte, announced very good, was unavailable. I could get a MSI 655 - announced the fastest mobo [announced .. I know].
Why I like it?
- ATA 133, RAID - not on all 7205
- AGP 8X - not on i850 (i know perf today are same than 4X .. but why buy 4X when you can have 8X
)- 3 Firewire, Output Digital Optic&Component, Bluetooth => not on 7205 mobo (for the price !!! they could !!)
- moreover, it supports DDR400 - which for me will be more useful in 6/12 months when Intel will support also DDR400 than the DDR266 for the 7205... MSI announced above DDR333 .. I cannot run mu DDR433 - only at 400Mhz, but it's ok.
- my config, std config, runs well at CAS2, 200MHz, with OCZ PC3500 Cas2 dual channel, no overclocking. I tried to overclock - it's hard with the MSI - I only get it stable and working well at FSB 150MHz, DDR400, CAS2, VCore 1.625, DRAM Timing Normal... as said in the review, the bios doesn't really help, no reboot, block or reinit without a word - the dual bios is surely welcome on other mobo... so hard to overclock.
So I choose 655 because I was disappointed by the 7205 - very good perf but with not all the modern i/o - More stuff ? Yes but when Gigabyte doesn't provide Firewire port ... I would prefer Firewire port than dual boot or dual power for nothing (for the price of this kind of good config, I wanna rip my camcorder DVs!!)
A last point - those machine are made for high performance - in that case, talk about SpecViewPerf with Ti4600 is medium, when you have ATI 9700Pro (9800 soon), NVidia Quadro4 - vcard at the size of 7205/850 and 655 ...
So I disagree with the so hard arguments on the 655 mobo - my point of view... they are, for me again, a better way to get latest things a little bit cheaper than 7205... and with More than respectful perf !!
(It could be good to have the 850 with modern features
but...)Mac88
P4 2.53 GHz\533 + ThermalTake 7+
1GB OCZ PC3500 EL Cas2 dual channel
Maxtor 120GB 8MB ATA133
NVidia Quadro4 980XGL
a lot of cool stuff around...
WXPSP1
<i><b><font color=green>When I think to know a lot of things, I begin to understand that I still have even more to learn...</font color=green></b></i>
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