X-bit labs

Experience the Roller Coaster: MSI P35 Platinum Mainboard Review (page 3)

Category: Mainboards

by Doors4ever

[ 07/06/2007 | 04:52 PM ]

PCB Layout and Functionality

I believe that the first thing that will catch everybody’s eye when they first see MSI P35 Platinum mainboard will be its extraordinary chipset cooling system. Let’s start with it as well.

The chipset cooling system consists of four heatsinks connected with heatpipes: two running at the lower level and two at the upper level. This whole system looks very much like a typical roller coaster from Magic Mountain:

The first heatpipe from the lower level has been flattened out in order to increase the heat dissipating surface area. It starts at the base of a small heatsink on the chipset South Bridge.

The heatpipe is twisted in a very sophisticated manner between electronic components so that the retention holes on the mainboard PCB stayed easily accessible. It leads to the base of the chipset North Bridge heatsink. This time it is not flattened out, but lies in a special round groove in the heatsink base. It comes out of the heatsink on the other end of it and curves in a semi-ring shape:

The second lower level heatpipe begins with the same semi-ring above the chipset North Bridge heatsink. It also goes through the heatsink base, next to the first one and leads to a heatsink installed onto some MOSFET transistors of the four-phase processor voltage regulator circuitry. Another two heatpipes, those of the upper level, come out of this heatsink.

One of them connects the transistor heatsink with the North Bridge heatsink. The other one goes through the North Bridge heatsink and leads to the heatsink installed next to the memory modules.

It is interesting to see that this latter heatsink has two threaded holes, as if they wanted to be able to upgrade the cooling system, by providing additional airflow for the memory, for instance.

The heatpipes have very good contact with the heatsink plates: they are not only pressed against the heatpipes, but soldered to them. As a result, the cooling system turned out not only original but also very efficient.

The cooling system leaves a lot of free space around the processor socket for large CPU coolers. For example, a relatively large Zalman CNPC9700 LED cooler fit easily onto this board. Although not all the coolers can get installed that simply. Tuniq Tower 120 cooler will also fit perfectly well onto MSI P35 Platinum mainboard, but you will not be able to fasten it, as only two side screws will be within reach. We all know that a fan installed onto some tower coolers may often hit against the memory modules. On MSI P35 Platinum there is a heatsink between the memory and processor socket that will inevitably be in the way of a fan like that.