Summary and Conclusion
We found the MSI 655 Max to be an excellent motherboard, rich with features and looks. Intel’s Granite Bay chipset has been about for a couple of months now and it is great that it now has some worthy competition in the SIS 655 chipset.
There is no doubt that dual channel DDR memory improves system performance, particularly on Pentium 4 based motherboards where the processor can utilise the memory bandwidth. More competition will fuel development and hopefully mean faster systems for us to utilise in the future.
The MSI 655 Max has some great design ideas which are compromised by some other silly failings. More importantly we found its performance to be less than expected. The Asus P4G8X Deluxe is still best performing Pentium 4 motherboard we have tested.
Add the serious overclocking limitations experienced by lack of CPU voltage adjustment to the stock performance and the Asus moves into a much bigger lead.
The SIS 655 chip set did not prove to be faster than the Granite Bay in our experience despite reports to the contrary from other review sites.
Pros
- Impressive Looks
- Good, Fast Performance
- Good Featureset
- Good Manual and Bundle
Cons
- Slower than the Asus P4G8X deluxe
- Strange ATX Power connector location
- Relatively poor overclocking ability
