Asus P7P55D PRO or MSI P55-GD65?

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Billious

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Dec 27, 2004
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Hello all

I'm going to be putting together an Intel i5 750 based system using my current 5850, PSU, case etc.

However, I would really appreciate some advice concerning my motherboard choice.

As for what I want to achieve as a minimum I'd be looking to OC the i5 by at least 1 GHz (though I'd obviously be aiming for more :D) and the main use for the PC would be gaming (MW2, Crysis, the latest AvP etc).

So which one should I choose or are they close enough in performance/ features that it doesn't really matter?

FWIW I've read the reviews and both the Asus and MSI boards get good ratings.

TIA
 
I don't think you can go wrong with either board. I myself went with the GD65 because I felt it was a better value. So far so good. I'm was hesitant at first with going with MSI since Asus has served me well in the past.
 
I can't speak to the MSI GD65 but I did just complete a build using the P7P55D PRO so I can share my experiences with that.

Important components of my build were: P7P55D PRO Motherboard, Core i5-750, Kingston 2x2GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM, BFG GTX 260 Video Card.

The P7P55D PRO has been very stable so far. I have been running it mostly at stock speeds, but I have overclocked it a few times just to see how it worked. The highest I went was 150MHz BCLK, which equates to a 3GHz base speed and a turbo boost speed of 3.15GHz with 3 or 4 cores and 3.6GHz with 1 or 2 cores active. I didn't go any higher because I didn't want to increase my voltages or turn of features such as turbo boost. With the configuration described above, I never experienced a crash or any other form of instability and I let Prime95 run for about 1 hour to test it.

A few unique features of the ASUS that I particularly enjoy are:

1) the RAM slots which only have clips on the right side, allowing you to add or remove RAM without taking out the video card (on most motherboards, the RAM clips on the left side will bump up against a video card as long as the GTX 260, making it difficult to add or remove memory).

2) The Q-LED feature, which lights up an LED next to each component (video, RAM, CPU, SATA) while performing POST. If any component fails, the LED next to that component stays lit, making it easy to troubleshoot. No more referring to the user manual to decipher cryptic beep codes or error numbers.

A few quirks of the P7P55D that I have observed:

1) If you are used to the layout of a typical Award BIOS (which I was), the ASUS BIOS will take some getting used to. Even though MSI uses AMI BIOS, it has been customized to use the traditional Award-style layout. Which is better is mostly a personal preference and once you get used to where the important settings are, it shouldn't really matter either way.

2) The temperature controller for the CPU fan is disabled by default in the BIOS, meaning that the CPU fan will spin at full RPM unless you enable the setting (ASUS Calls it Q-Fan control, and it's located on the HW Monitor screen).

3) The BIOS takes almost 15 seconds to POST before the video comes on. This seems like a long time to me, but everything works normally so maybe it is normal.

4) While the BIOS is positing, prior to the video being displayed, I hear a high-pitched squealing from the motherboard. After POST completes, I don't hear it anymore, and I have never heard it during normal operation of the computer.

5) On a few occasions, I have woken the computer from sleep and the mouse would not move. The mouse buttons worked (i.e., if I right clicked, the context menu would pop up), but the cursor would not move. Unplugging and plugging the mouse back into the USB port fixes the problem, as does putting the computer back to sleep via the keyboard and waking it again.

So that's my experience with the P7P55D Pro. Hope this helps. If you have any other questions let me know and I'll answer if I can.
 
Have the GD65 and I love it. It's rocksteady, I've run my CPU at 3.6ghz and it was dead on for 200 passes of Intel burn test set at high. Also of note, the MSI does NOT use a foxconn socket, I am unsure if the Asus does but it could be of concern as there seems to have been some/lots of issues with these sockets, at least in the past.
 
question about the gd65....

i have the gd65 and it's been good. but i want to add a raid card in there... would it be okay putting it in the second x16 slot? or is that for graphics only like i read some boards are
 
mistachewey said:
question about the gd65....

i have the gd65 and it's been good. but i want to add a raid card in there... would it be okay putting it in the second x16 slot? or is that for graphics only like i read some boards are
Click to expand...
You can put it in the second physical 16x slot, but it will drop both slots down to 8x speeds.
 
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