Reviews for MSI Neo2 P35 Neo2-FR Desktop Motherboard - Intel P35 Chipset - Socket T LGA-775

Neo2-FR - solid board

Strengths: loaded with features. Heat pipes. Overclocking options

Weakness: None

This board makes my first ever DIY PC build very easy. I did a lot of research looking for a cheap p35 chipset motherboard before buying it. It has almost every feature that I wanted to have in my rig. Built-in Raid is an added bonus for storage of precious pictures and video clips. And all the components I purchase for the build fit nicely on the board. I'm using a dual core e2180 with this board and hit 3.0GHz effortlessly. I hope it can last.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Good basic board with most of the features I would...

Strengths: Good overclock options. Nice heat pipes. Lots of USB and SATA ports including e-SATA

Weakness: Wish it had another PCI slot and another IDE controller. Now I've got to use one of the PCI slots for my PCI IDE controller leaving little room for expansion.

Good board. Came pre-loaded with BIOS v1.6. Latest on MSI support site was v1.7. But since I'm not having any problems, I won't bother to flash yet.

Was able to OC my E2160 CPU to 2700 using stock cooling by changing the FSB to 300. Tried going a little higher, but my system became unstable. May try again later if I get better cooling. I don't usually like mixing memory brands, but it did work using various combinations of OCZ (PC6400), HP (PC5300), and Crucial (PC5300) memory.

I doubt I'll use the RAID. But it's a nice option. I'll definitely be using the e-SATA ports in the future.

0% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Great P35 Mobo with useful features

Strengths: Passive heatpipe cooling, dual esata ports, plenty of onboard sata ports, matrix raid capability, good overclocking options

Weakness: lack of parallel or serial ports, also no firewire, only one PATA connector

I think this motherboard is one of the best 775 boards for under a hundred bucks. You get one of the newest chipsets and most of the features that people actually use. The overclocking options while maybe not the best, are very good good. You get the ICHXR southbridge which means a plethora of sata ports as well as the ability to use the ultra fast matrix raid with them. The only thing I don't like its POST process after you've made a bios change. It'll power off, then power on, then power off, and for a second there, you're not sure if it'll come back, but then it finally powers on again. I'm sure its just writing to the bios chip in the best or most safe way it can, but it still is nerve wracking.

That said, I highly recommend this "budget" board.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Sophisticated Basic P35 motherboard

Strengths: Heatpipe chipset cooling; diagnostic led lights

Weakness: Not all the extras -- no firewire

This has all the value of a basic P35 board, but with some extras. The heatpipe technology will allow me to push the board a bit more than one with just heatsinks. Comes with separate VISTA drivers.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

So far so good

Strengths: clear layout, easy installation, better-than-average cooling of the south bridge

Weakness: None

I bought this mobo one month ago. Plug in a Q6600 and 4gb ballistix tracer and it's on the way! I did had a little problem installing the cpu cooler I had, but I guess it's more of a problem of the cooler itself. With a after rebate price < 100, you cannot go wrong. Just don't buy the refurbished ones.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Great Board! after BIOS Update

Strengths: Easy to overclock, huge heat sink for cooling, lots of Sata ports

Weakness: Only one IDE connector, needed to flash BIOS in order to get it to recognise my PC2-6400 RAM, double-boot gets annoying

In the beginning, it was difficult to set up because the system would not POST. I RMAed one of them because I thought it was a bad board. When I got a replacement the same thing happened. I later found out that it had an old BIOS on it which doesn't support 800 MHz RAM. I had to go borrow someone's 667 RAM just to get it to boot so I could flash the BIOS. After that, it worked great!

The other annoying thing was the double boot. When you change any of the hardware, the system would boot up for a few seconds and shut down on its own. Then it would boot up again normally. I read online that this was normal.

Other than that, this motherboard has been great to me. I have it set up with an E4500 and it's extremely easy to overclock. Overall, I'm happy with this board.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Great motherboard for the price.

Strengths: Overclocks well, runs cool thanks to the heat pipe design, good layout. Lots of BIOS options for voltages and timings. Supports new 45nm chips.

Weakness: Software is absolute garbage. MSI isn't my favorite company to deal with as they have a habit of heavily censoring their forums. Could use a few more RAM dividers in the BIOS.

Like others, I bought this board to overclock an e2180. It had all the basic features I wanted, overclocked well in reviews, and was inexpensive, so it was an easy pick.

I had no problems booting it up with some G.Skill 2GBNQ ram I had lying around (I actually filled all four slots and it booted without any issues). It runs cool, and has been completely stable, even at it's lowest voltage settings. Whenever I failed an overclock attempt it was always because of my e2180, not the board.
--
As mentioned above, the included software and update tools are complete and utter garbage. I'm sure most of us are used to getting bloated, ugly, unintuitive programs with our motherboards, but MSI couldn't even do that. None of their tools worked, which I don't care about for the most part, but their BIOS utility didn't work either. I updated my BIOS through dos which I usually do anyway, but still, I think out of all the programs a motherboard manufacturer has, their BIOS updater is by far the most important.
--
In addition to having horrible software, I'm not especially fond of MSI's customer service. On more then one occasion I've seen them delete posts on their forums which were asking for help, simply because it caused some MSI products to look bad.
--
Other – I don't have a RAID setup, and I don't use the onboard audio, so I can't comment on how well they work. I use a Thermalright Ultra-120 cooler which fit on the board without any problems, although it was a tight squeeze in some areas.
--
Bottomline – Great board, not so great support. If you need an inexpensive board for overclocking and you want to have some future upgrade paths available to you, this is an excellent choice. Just don't expect MSI to help you, you'll have much better luck asking on other site forums.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

MSI P35 Neo2-FR Review

Strengths: Stable Keeps cool Good Overclocker

Weakness: Vista included ethernet driver unstable

I just recently purchased this board to go with a new Geforce 8800GT and have been very impressed with it.
After the first double boot (Although unnerving the manual states that on the first boot the board will post, power down, then fully boot) Vista installed with no issues.

Vista even had an ethernet driver for this board by default which made getting all the latest drivers from MSI a snap. Because Vista came with a compatible network driver I did not immediatly install the new one on MSI's website. The default driver later caused a blue screen while gaming but after installing the new driver from MSI I've had no problems.

I got an easy 20% overclock out of my Core2Duo E6400 without any voltage increase and the heatpipe kept the northbridge cool to the touch.

Even though I've only had the board for a few days now I have been very impressed with its stability. I've slammed through stress tests, played tons of games, and overclocked. Through it all, nothing has fazed it. In my opinion, it easily earns five stars.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

MSI Does it right at the right price.

Strengths: Phenomenal price/performance, great for overclockers.

Weakness: Dual Channel Memory Color-Coordinating is not what it should be.

This board is a great enthusiast level board for overclocking, coming in at under $100 after rebate. With the CMOS reset button onboard, huge heatpipe, and external SATA ports, it delivers a lot of great features that more expensive boards have in a well-rounded package. I am very excited to finish out my build when the E8400 arrives later this year.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

MSI P35 Neo2-FR

Testseek.com has collected 4 expert reviews for MSI P35 Neo2-FR and the average expert rating is 100 of 100. The average score reflects the expert community’s view on this product. Click below and use Testseek.com to see all ratings, product awards and conclusions.

Read Full Review