Verdict: A great overclocker for just over a ton.

The P35 Platinum isn't the first MSI motherboard fitted with the over-the-top Circu-Pipe heatsink/heatpipe assembly that we've seen, but it's the first decent motherboard that's fitted with a Circu-Pipe.

As its name suggests, the Circu-Pipe is a combination of a heatsink and heatpipes arranged in a circular pattern that's used to cool the Northbridge, Southbridge and VRMs. It certainly looks impressive, in a completely over-the-top, Spinal Tap sort of way, although it also gets in the way when trying to fit the CPU HSF. The enormous height of the Circu-Pipe also means MSI has had to fit an extension block to the 8-pin EPS12V socket. Even so, it's hard to fit the cable into this socket, and even harder to remove it without leaving lots of skin on the sharp copper edges of the Circu-Pipe.

MSI uses the DDR2 version of the P35 chipset on the P35 Platinum and, although CrossFire is supported, the second full-length PCI-E slot only provides four PCI-E lanes. Therefore, CrossFire runs slower on this board than on a motherboard with two true 16x PCI-E slots.

Apart from the problems caused by the Circu-Pipe, the rest of the PCB layout is pretty straightforward, with two PCI slots and a pair of 1x PCI-E slots. Also along for the ride are four RAID-capable S-ATA II ports, a dozen USB 2 ports, a pair of FireWire ports plus Intel HD Audio, complete with an optical S/PDIF output.

The P35 Platinum was a solid performer in our benchmarks and an even better overclocker. By raising the Northbridge voltage to 1.45V and the FSB to 1.55V, we successfully benchmarked it with a stable FSB of 530MHz. This is an amazing achievement for a £100 motherboard, and a testament to the overall quality of the P35 chipset. However, we doubt that the P35 Platinum could be pushed much further, even with more exotic cooling, as the BIOS can't overvolt the CPU PLL, and the maximum Northbridge voltage is a mere 1.625V, a good 0.3V short of what the best Asus and Foxconn motherboards can provide.

The P35 Platinum is a good choice if you're limited to a budget of around £100. However, if you want to overclock, and can afford to spend more, then the Asus P5K Premium WiFi-AP and DFI Lanparty LP UT P35-T2R motherboards are even better choices.

• PSUs - 14th July 2008
• Multi-GPU graphics - 20th June 2008
• CPU water cooling - 17th June 2008
• Hard disks - 20th March 2008
• Audio hardware - 29th February 2008
• Graphics cards - 24th January 2008
• CPUs - 21st December 2007

• Cooler Master Cosmos S - Cases
• Lian Li PC-P60 Armorsuit - Cases
• Asus Rampage Formula - Motherboards
• Gigabyte GV-NX96T512H-B - Graphics cards
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 - Processors
• Akasa Vortexx Neo - Other cooling hardware
• Zerotherm Hurricane HC92-Cu 8800 - Other cooling hardware