MSI P55M-GD45 LGA 1156 Intel P55 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: DRMOS supposedly keeps PWM cooler and definitely is a lot less cluttered. Haven't tried OC yet to vouch for stability, but I don't really push my PCs anyways. Will push to 160 BCLK for DDR-1600 once I have spent some time learning the system's characteristics at stock speeds.

The BIOS fan control has a few more options than other boards (I'm a noise nut so this is important to me). PWM has 12.5% increments for base speed and a temp target, SYSFAN1/2 have ability to select 50/75/100% speeds.

On board sound is fantastic. I'm used to old mobos with noisy on-board and have been using an Audigy 2ZS for years because of it. On this board I hooked up my case front panel header and have been enjoying clear audio ever since. The auto-sensing jacks is a nice touch too. The sound drivers work with Win7 x64 and are quite well-polished. I'm very impressed, things have come a long way since I've built my last few rigs.

Cons: Haven't messed with OC too much but some of the memory settings might be a pain. Yes you get lots of configurability, but it might be overwhelming, and you have to adjust for each channel so memory OC might take a bit of work.

RAM latch clearance to a pre-installed video card is tight. I was only able to unlatch about 1/2 way, but this was sufficient to put the RAM in. Worse comes to worst you can install RAM w/ no card in but taking video card out to mess with the RAM might be a pain, esp. if you have a water cooling loop limiting video card mobility. You know what you're getting yourself into if you're that serious though.

On-board power switch gets a bit hidden down in the corner between the USB and front panel headers.

Only 2 SATA cables and I wanted to hook up 3 devices. Not really a big deal since I had several laying around.

Overall Review: I picked this up because I was happy with a previous MSI board I bought for a computer earlier this year. I was leaning towards a cheaper Gigabyte, especially with glowing reviews of it on review sites, but thought the MSI had a few more features fan-wise and the DRMOS might provide a bit more longevity or stability.

Worked fine with 8 GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR-1600 CL-9 1.5V (two 2x2GB kits).

Do we really need IDE, floppy, COM, and LPT headers these days? Maybe in rare cases but I'd say it's the exception rather than the norm.

Pros: Most likely a great motherboard at stock clock. Lots of USB Ports

Cons: OVERCLOCKERS: YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

Absolutely NO protection in the BIOS for over-current from mild overclocks. I overclocked my i7-860 to a petty 3.6 GHz. As soon as I put a load on all the cores, the CPU actually draws more watts than the motherboard is capable of delivering, regardless of PSU wattage used. So what does the BIOS do to prevent this and protect the motherboard? Absolutely NOTHING. Result? FIRE (FLAMES) SHOOTING out of the Dr.MOS Power Phase heatsink when trying to startup. A motherboard 4th of July show in April, ONLY when it was placed under a full CPU load.

Overall Review: This is a P55 budget board issue not isolated to just MSI budget P55 boards but others as well. It was however, corrected by ASRock in their P55 mATX board with a simple BIOS update. How do I know this? Toms Hardware site has an article about "The Perils of Overclocking a P55 Motherboard". I wish I would have read it sooner. LOL

Newegg rocks as usual.