Socket 775 Micro-ATX MSI motherboards review

Micro-ATX is a rather comfortable motherboard format. Characterized by its somewhat compact size, it usually is an ordinary motherboard with everything you need, and that at a lower price that its full ATX brethren. Today we'll review to such MSI motherboards, one with the Intel 945GC chipset and the other with the NVIDIA® MCP73U/PV/V chipset.

Our partners from Solytron kindly supplied us with two motherboards bearing the MSI logo, namely: 945GCM7 V2 and P6NGM. 945GCM7 V2 is a new model, based on the well known yet aging Intel 945GC chipset. On the other hand P6NGM is based on the NVIDIA MCP73U chipset. In the current review we'll check out the motherboards capabilities, and not only from the standard point of view, but from the modders perspective too (micro-ATX is rather useful format for minimalistic mods). Overclocking performance will be done also – use of latest generation processors, DDR2 memory and the presence of PCI-E x16 slot do amount to a promise of high end machine with small footprint. As for pricewise, things look like this: P6NGM will cost you 114 leva (~57 Euro), against 79 leva (~40 Euro) for 945GCM7 V2 (both end user prices, including tax).