MSI P67A-GD65 Sandybridge Motherboard Review

The MSI board has an overclock genie button which enables the system to automatically overclock the processor to stable ‘limits'.

In this case it was nowhere near the limits of the processor, but around 4.2ghz with a slight core voltage increase. Safe and a significant boost which will appease many people who have no idea (or interest) in bios overclocking.

Even with the latest bios we had some issues with overclocking, and while we aren't using a Noctua NH D14 today, we had expected around 4.8ghz. We did reach 4.8ghz, but we couldn't get it prime stable regardless of the voltage or settings we used in the bios.

4.7ghz was the best we could achieve with a voltage setting around 1.45.

The bios, while pretty and responsive does appear to have some bug related issues. For instance, our Kingston DDR2133mhz memory would fail to post if we manually selected 2133mhz from the pop down menu in the bios. It would get stuck in a post loop, requiring a press of the CMOS reset switch on the back of the board.

Manually selecting Profile 1 from the bios however meant it would post at 2133mhz. Very confusing indeed. We also noticed that if you manually selected the memory speed  to any setting, for example 1600mhz and then used the OC Genie tool it would get very confused and decide to try a 20ghz+ overclock.

It would be nice to say we managed to get the system stable at 28ghz, but sadly not even close.

Leaving the bios on automatic settings then using OC Genie achieved around 4.1-4.2ghz and with a little effort, 4.7ghz was possible. While we weren't using the Noctua NH D14, the CPU temperatures were well within limits, so we think this is more a limitation of the board, rather than the cooler.

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