PCB Design

Although the P6N SLI Platinum has a black PCB, its overall appearance is somewhat gaudy because the connectors and onboard headers are all painted different colors. It’s hard to tell if this makes it easier to assemble the system, but the mainboard has a very characteristic look indeed.

The cooling of the chipset and CPU voltage regulator is implemented in an interesting way. Heat pipes have long become a widespread solution and it’s no wonder we’ve got them on mainboards now. Following ASUS’ example, MSI has decided to cool all the hot elements of the mainboard by means of heatsinks connected with heat pipes.

A small Sough Bridge heatsink is connected on the P6N SLI Premium with a rather large North Bridge heatsink by means of one heat pipe. Then, two pipes go to the heatsink installed on the CPU voltage regulator MOSFETs. Thus, the heat generated by all these hot elements is evenly distributed among the system of three heatsinks to minimize the number of cooling fans. Note that the heatsinks are all made from aluminum notwithstanding their copper-like color.

As a result, the P6N SLI Platinum can normally work even without any fans. Installing the included 40mm fan onto the North Bridge heatsink is only recommended for the purpose of overclocking. This fan isn’t quiet, though, as its default rotation speed is as high as 8500rpm.

The CPU voltage regulator is a four-phase circuit with analog feedback. It utilizes highly reliable solid-state capacitors with a polymer electrolyte.

By the way, the reviewed mainboard does not use traditional capacitors at all. It employs more reliable polymer capacitors that have a twice longer service life and a wider range of operating temperatures. The manufacturer puts a stress on this feature as the one that makes the mainboard more reliable and stable at overclocking.