MSI P67A-GD55 P67 LGA1155 Sandy Bridge SLI Motherboard Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
1,171 words · ~5 min read
0:00
Today on Linus Tech Tips, we're going to be unboxing the MSI P67A
0:05
GD55. As you can see from the front of the box, there's a few things that MSI has
0:10
to say for themselves about this board right off the bat. First of all,
0:13
military class 2. This is a hugely important concept for MSI on their
0:17
motherboards as well as on their video cards. So military class means they're
0:22
using very high quality components on the board in order to enable a 10 plus
0:26
year lifetime as well as excellent power delivery to your CPU which is one of the
0:31
most important features for the P67A chipset boards. It also has a three-year
0:36
warranty in the US, Canada, and Mexico.
0:40
It features their OCG2 oneb button overclocking which is convenient if you
0:44
want a uh like a quick and dirty overclock versus tuning it yourself.
0:48
Although you will get more out of tuning it yourself. We have four USB 3.0 ports,
0:53
two SATA 6 Gbit per second ports, support for NVIDIA SLI technology, as
0:57
well as well, they're calling it ATI Crossfire X, but I guess it's AMD
1:02
Crossfire X these days. Um, not a whole lot to speak of on the back. They have
1:06
their Winky 3 um BIOS utility for going
1:11
online. We actually tried it. It's a Firefox browser in case you're
1:14
wondering. And then there's uh also their UEFI BIOS. So that is a graphical
1:20
BIOS interface for this board versus the older uh like a W style BIOS with just
1:25
you know arrows and enter and plus minus to change all of your options. We have a
1:29
drivers and utilities DVD. Throw it away. We have a quick installation
1:33
guide. We have a user guide for the software applications. We have a full
1:39
user guide for the motherboard itself. This is the Europe version, so I'm
1:43
assuming that includes English somewhere along the line. Okay, we also have an
1:47
SLI bridge. Remember, if you do need a Crossfire bridge, it should come with
1:51
your graphics card. We have an IO shield, which is black, which I like.
1:56
Like everything to be sort of, you know, black and sleek looking. We have four
2:00
SATA cables included, two right angle and two straight. And then we also have
2:04
a Molex to SATA power adapter just in case you have an older power supply that
2:09
only has a single harness with SATA power connectors on it. We have their
2:12
convenient M connector which allows you to plug in all your front panel connectors to that and then plug the
2:17
whole brick into your motherboard at one time for easier installation.
2:24
Here is the board itself, the P67A GD55.
2:28
So the D in the name means that this is part of their gaming series. Uh, from
2:32
what I've seen so far, the G series boards, what differentiates them from
2:37
the C series P67 boards is that they do
2:40
have support for their dual 16x PCI
2:43
Express slots to run in 8X 8X mode for SLI and Crossfire. So, I'm going to go
2:48
ahead and remove this sticker. And we're going to start in the middle of the
2:51
board where the LGA 1155 socket is.
2:55
Around the edge of the board, you're going to see we have a 6 + one phase
2:59
power design on this particular military class board. Up in the top left, we've
3:03
got our 8 pin power connector in its ideal location because most cases have
3:08
uh routing option, well, most high-end cases have routing options for that cable to come up this way. We've got our
3:13
CPU power connector. And then we've got four DDR3
3:18
module slots supporting dual channel. We
3:21
have Oh, look at this. This is interesting. No, come up here and have a
3:24
look at this. So, we have um it looks like we have voltage read points, but we
3:29
don't have the convenient uh interface soldered onto it that you would see on
3:34
the higherend GD65 board. So, you can
3:37
probably still like put a multimeter on there. I'm just not quite sure if
3:41
that'll work. All right. So, we've got a 24 pin power connector in its ideal
3:44
location on the right hand edge of the board. And then we have our SATA ports.
3:48
So, here we have all supported off of the Intel chipset. two SATA 6 gigbit per
3:54
second ports and four SATA 3 Gbit per
3:57
second ports. We have uh what is a very
4:00
lowprofile chipset cooler. And then moving down the board, we have our OC
4:05
Genie button. Remember that is a toggle switch, so on off. We have our reset and
4:10
power buttons. And then we have support for front USB, front fire wire, and
4:15
front USB 3.0. So that's a pretty cool
4:18
thing to have. Our slot layout is the same as the GD65 version.
4:24
Just going to move that. We have two PCI slots, two PCIe 16X physical slots, so
4:30
those are going to run in either 16x mode or 8x8x mode if you're running
4:34
both. And three PCI 1x slots. So, if you're using two dual slot graphics
4:38
cards, which is sort of the most likely configuration for Crossfire SLI, you're
4:42
going to be left with one two PCIe1X slots and one PCI slot for any
4:47
additional expansion that you want to do. So, now let's have a look at the IO
4:52
shield on the back. The This is one of my favorite things. You got that combo
4:55
mouse, keyboard, PS2 port. You have 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 eight USB 2.0 ports, a clear
5:01
SIMO switch, which I love. I love this feature. Although I have yet to need to
5:05
clear the SIMOS on a P67 board, we have
5:09
support for digital audio in both optical and coaxial flavors, FireWire,
5:14
gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports on
5:17
the back panel, as well as 7.1 audio
5:20
out. Cameraman wants to have a look at the cooling solution on the MOSFETs,
5:25
which is actually pretty slick looking. I really like it. Once you peel off the
5:28
plastic, there's actually quite a shiny, glossy finish to the blue that is on
5:33
those. And I really like the overall color scheme of this board. Although it
5:36
seems trivial, I am a shallow person.
5:39
What can I say? The back of the board looks like the back of pretty much any
5:44
LG 1155 or 1156 board. Don't forget if
5:47
you are buying a CPU for this motherboard, make sure you're buying a
5:51
Core i3, i5, or i7 with 1,155
5:57
contact points on the back, not 1156. It
6:01
only supports LG1 1155 CPUs. Thank you
6:04
for checking out my unboxing and don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews, and other
6:09
tech computer videos.