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The second DDR3-DDR2 cross-compatible motherboard we received was MSI's P35 Neo Combo. Unlike Gigabyte's entry, the Neo Combo hides fewer upscale-market surprises and is truly designed as a high-value path towards postponed DDR3 upgrades.
Features Overview
The only board in today's review to feature Intel's lower-cost ICH9 Southbridge, the P35 Neo Combo also does away with expensive solid capacitors for "non-critical" areas. The "mainstream" Southbridge has the added effect of reducing SATA support to four drives, but MSI adds a fifth port through its selection of Ultra ATA plus Serial ATA add-in controller.
The fifth SATA port becomes useless when super-sized graphics cards are used, but this is one of only three design deficits MSI employs: The other two are a floppy connector that seems nearly impossible to reach beneath the lowest PCI slot, and a Front Panel Audio connector in the lower rear corner, far away from any upper-bay front panel ports. The floppy drive connector might not be too much of a concern since this non-RAID chipset doesn't require adding a RAID driver during a Windows installation.
MSI provides only six of a possible seven slots on its P35 Neo Combo, but this is still more than adequate for most builds since the board only supports one PCI-Express x16 graphics card. Three of the remaining slots are PCI-Express x1 and only two are PCI, where an extra PCI slot might be more useful for upgraders.
Four-pin ATX12V, 24-pin ATX, and Ultra ATA connectors are all located in near-perfect positions for systems that have the power supply and optical drive(s) at the top.
| MSI P35 Neo Combo (Revision 1.0) | |
|---|---|
| Northbridge | Intel P35 GMCH |
| Southbridge | Intel ICH9 |
| Voltage Regulator | Three Phases |
| BIOS | 1.1B2 (5/28/2007) |
| 266.7 MHz (FSB1066) | 266.9 MHz (+0.1%) |
| Connectors and Interfaces | |
| Onboard | 1x PCIe x16
3x PCIe x1 2x PCI 4x USB 2.0 (2 ports per connector) 1x IEEE-1394 FireWire 1x Floppy 1x Ultra ATA 5x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s 1x Front Panel Audio 1x CD Audio In 1x S/P-DIF Out 1x Fan 4 pins (CPU) 2x Fan 3 pins (System) |
| IO panel | 2x PS2 (keyboard + mouse)
1x Serial COM Port 1x Parallel Port 1x RJ-45 Network 1x IEEE-1394 FireWire Port 4x USB 2.0 6x Analog Audio (7.1 Channel + Mic-In + Line-In) |
| Mass Storage Controllers | |
| Intel ICH9 | 4x SATA 3.0Gb/s (RAID 0,1,5,10 capable) |
| Marvell 88SE6111 | 1x Ultra ATA-100 (2-drives)
1x SATA 3.0Gb/s |
| Network | |
| Realtek RTL8111B | 1x Gigabit LAN Connection |
| Audio | |
| HDA (Azalia) Controller Interface | Realtek ALC888 8-Channel Codec |
| FireWire | |
| VIA VT6308P | 2x IEEE-1394 FireWire |
The big upgrades for MSI's P35 Neo Combo are a 2-port FireWire controller and upper-mainstream Realtek ALC888 8-channel audio codec.
An upgrade board needs to contain many legacy features to reach the widest possible market, and MSI obliges with PS/2 keyboard and mouse plus parallel and serial ports. An IEEE-1394 FireWire controller and the inclusion of all six required analog audio connectors put value in this low-cost board, while a single Network and four USB 2.0 ports address remaining connectivity needs.