It seems that 1986 must have been a busy year for Taiwan startups, as MSI is the third company to add a 20th anniversary to its list of accomplishments this year.

Feature Overview

A surprising entry from MSI, the P965 Platinum presents itself as a mid-priced board with enhanced features, such as the dual PCI Express x16 graphics card slots (the second with x4 pathways) normally reserved for more expensive models. Other upscale features include an IEEE-1394 FireWire controller, and an enhanced 4-phase voltage regulator with three transistors and one choke each, which results in a total of 12 transistors.

MSI is quite proud of the value in its 12-transistor regulator, the same number typically found in 6-phase designs. Increased current capacity and decreased transistor temperature are key benefits, but at reduced expense compared to further-enhanced 6-phase designs.

The layout of the board is generally adequate, but with a few difficulties. Test fitting an X1950XTX into the lower slot confirmed that one Serial ATA port was blocked by the card's fan power plug. Greater annoyances include an 8-pin ATX12v connector positioned so that cables must pass over or around the CPU cooler, and a front-panel audio connector located in the hardest-to-reach bottom rear corner.

MSI uses the same method as Asus to deal with the P965 chipset's limited number of PCI Express pathways. Since two of the six unreserved pathways are dedicated to Gigabit Ethernet and Ultra ATA controllers, the remaining four can be divided across x1 slots and the second x16 slot as x1-x1-x2, or all four can be sent to the second x16 slot by disabling the x1 slots.

Rear panel ports include PS/2 keyboard and mouse, parallel, serial, FireWire and four USB 2.0. A single Gigabit network connection reminds us of the board's mid-priced aspirations. Coaxial and optical S/P-DIF connections serve digital audio needs, and five analog audio ports support 7.1 channel outputs plus one input device (line level or microphone).