We’ll now move in for a closer look at the different features found on GD65, starting with the socket area. This motherboard is of course designed to work with Intel’s 4th Generation of processors – Haswell. The socket is LGA1150 but has the mounting holes for LGA115X so if you have a cooler that has been used on another socket such as LGA1155 then it will work fine here too.

GD65 uses a 12-digital phase power design and has 8-pin EPS power for the CPU. MSI have placed a dual heatsink design over the MOSFETs which has a single copper heatpipe running through them. Those with an eye for motherboard design will notice that GD65 has different components compared to other vendors. GD65 features Military Class 4. In short this means that MSI have included military grade components throughout the motherboard design. Hi-c caps, super ferrite chokes and dark caps are all featured in and around the CPU socket to maintain excellent stability and durability, later in the review we will cover the Military Class 4 feature-set.

We are glad to see that MSI have included dual CPU fan headers neat the CPU socket for the latest dual fan air coolers and ALCs.



Moving over to the memory slot region there is support for dual channel DDR3. GD65 can accommodate up to 64GB capacity and DDR-3200(OC). Do bear in mind such capacity may not be available just yet, but two 32GB kits could be installed and by MSI showing compatibility for such hardware keeps things future-proofed.

Also in this region are two additional features worth mentioning. MSI have included V-Check points for advanced users to directly obtain voltage readings via the included Voltage Cables. Right beside the 24-pin ATX power there is a multi-BIOS switch so that users can change between different BIOS arrangements with the flick of a button.



Further along the motherboard are eight SATA 3 (6GB/s) ports. No longer do we have SATA 2, and since SATA 3 is backwards compatible older SATA 2 devices will work fine anyway, their speed will just be capped. Six of the ports are controlled via Intel Z87 and the other two are via ASMEDIA.

When the mSATA port (which is in the centre of the motherboard) is used port number 6 becomes redundant.

MSI have included a USB 3.0 front panel header beside the SATA ports for obtaining USB 3.0 functionality at the front of the computer case.



Just like the MSI Z77 gaming motherboards, MSI have used a large dragon heatsink to cover the chipset, though on the Z87 chip this is significantly larger. We are left in no doubt that this heatsink can sufficiently take care of cooling.



GD65 has support for many different options when we arrive at the PCI Express area. These include support for NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossfireX.

1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 slot (Running @x16)
1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots (Running @x8)
1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots (Running @x4)
4 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slot

If you want to use a single graphics card the then the best slot to use is the top PCI-E 3.0. Speed will drop depending on the amount of cards used on this motherboard, as per the specifications. It is noticeable that MSI have decided to leave legacy PCI support absent on GD65 and we think this is a worthwhile pursuit since PCI devices have now been superseded and few people use them nowadays.



Located at the bottom of the motherboard are the onboard power controls and other functionality. There are many differences of opinion for placement of these features but regardless, MSI have done a good job in cramming so much in such a little space.

Available are the following:

• LED Debug – fault diagnostics
• GO2Bios – click once and on next bootup BIOS loads automatically
• OC Switch – enables 10% or 14% overclock function for OC Genie
• OC Genie – apply pre-set overclock in 1 second
• Power/reset buttons – boot system and restart system

Having such functionality on GD65 is very useful. We especially like the OC Genie (which is now in its 4th instalment) and GO2Bios. Both of these controls just make life so much easier for general and advanced usage.

Also present in this region is the Audio Boost chip and support audio capacitors. The chip that MSI have used is ALC 1150 and the amplifier: OPA1652. This works in conjunction with the audio jacks and the Creative Sound Blaster suite included on the software CD. In short, by having Audio Boost users can make use of a studio level integrated 600Ω headphone amplifier and audio should be significantly better than typical onboard offerings.



Lastly we come to the rear IO section, here there are plenty of ports to take advantage of, including the following:

- 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port
- 1 x Clear CMOS button
- 1 x Coaxial S/PDIF-out port
- 1 x Optical S/PDIF-out port
- 2 x USB 2.0 ports
- 4 x USB 3.0 ports
- 1 x RJ45 LAN jack
- 6 OFC audio jacks
- 1 x VGA port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920x1200 @60Hz, 24bpp
- 1 x DVI-D port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920x1200 @60Hz, 24bpp
- 1 x HDMI port, supporting a maximum resolution of 4096x2160@24Hz, 24bpp/ 2560x1600@60Hz, 24bpp/ 1920x1080@60Hz, 36bpp

With Intel Haswell featuring an IGP there are outputs should the user require onboard graphics. Here there are three options to choose from, VGA, DVI and HDMI.

We should mention that the gigabit LAN port combines with the Killer E2200 chip to improve latency and ping during gaming sessions. MSI provide software to take full advantage of this feature.