MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum

The Socket 939 Athlon 64 processor is a fairly new technology, and has been available for about six months now. Many people are reluctant to upgrade, either because they have a good enough system already, or they cannot afford the jump to 939 pin technology. The MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum is a motherboard which supports 939 pin Athlon processors. I bought it about 2 months ago for £90, and you can get it now for about £80. The following review will explain every detail of this motherboard, to make it more understandable by you. There will also be a brief explanation of what '939 pin' is.

[FEATURES]

The K8N is full of features, and I will try my best to explain them in detail for you.

[Chipset]: nForce3 Ultra

The Chipset of a motherboard is a set of main features manufactured by a seperate company, in this case, nVidia, who manufacture the nForce chipsets.

One of the main features in the nForce3 Ultra is 'NVRaid'. This can be used to mix-and-match both IDE and Serial-ATA hard drives (two different interfaces of Hard-drive, the latter has a faster transfer rate and smaller cable). IDE and SATA hard drives can be used together in RAID configurations too. RAID is an array of hard drives, configured for a certain function. NVRaid allows the following 'levels' of arrays:

Raid Level 0: This Raid level spreads performance (data blocks) over multiple drives, thereby increasing performance.

Raid Level 1: Data is 'mirrored' over two drives, so one drive is an exact copy of the other. This provides fault protection, so if one drive fails, the other drive can be used.

Raid Level 0+1: Simply a combination of the above levels.

The nForce3 Ultra also uses the AGP 8x standard of graphics cards, and does not use PCI-express.

[Audio]: 7.1 Channel RealTek ALC850

The K8N Neo2 includes full 7.1 channel audio support, with optical-out also supported, and an SPDIF socket. Audio quality is good, as is control. However, I have disabled the onboard audio in favor of my Creative Audigy 2 ZS sound card, which is situated in a PCI slot.

[Ethernet]: Dual Gigabit LAN

A main feature of this motherboard is the presence of Dual Gigabit LAN. The K8N Neo2 Platinum has two LAN ports, one controlled by the nVidia chipset, the other controlled by a Realtek LAN controller. The nVidia LAN provides a hardware-level firewall, controlled by software on the computer, which is very useful and secure. The Gigabit LAN provides speeds of '1000 MB/s', but of course that is never reachable. Still, as long as both devices that are connected via LAN cable support gigabit transfer speeds, you can take advantage of it.

[Peripherals]

On the nForce3 Ultra chipset, there are also eight USB 2.0 ports. This comprises of four ports on the back "I/O" panel, and four ports for connection by a seperate provided expansion panel.

Other peripherals include the standard ports such as Parallel, serial, and three Firewire connectors (IEEE 1394), one of which is on the back panel.

[Memory]: Up to Dual DDR 400 supported

The K8N Neo2 supports up to 4GB of DDR RAM. It natively supports DDR 400, which is otherwise known as PC3200 RAM. For those of you who do not understand, most RAM nowdays exists as DDR, and various speeds exist. The most common are PC2100, 2700 and 3200. The higher this number, the faster the transfer rate between the mainboard and the RAM.

The K8N Neo2 also supports Dual channel RAM, which gives a small boost in performance. For Dual channel to work, both RAM chips must be identical. There are 4 RAM sockets for you to place the RAM. Sockets 1 and 2 are dual-channel paired, and sockets 3 and 4 are paired together as well for dual-channel mode.

[Processor]: 939 Pin Athlon 64

The K8N Neo2 supports a 939 pin Athlon 64 processor. The most common of these that exists is the 'Winchester' variety of Athlon 64-bit processors.

To simplify this, Athlon 64-bit processors exist in two major forms - 754 pin and the newer 939 pin. Most 939 pin processors have a better manufacture process, which enables the transistors to be produced smaller, therefore more transistors can be fitted into the processor, enabling faster performance. This also means that the processor will run slightly cooler, thereby increasing overclocking potential. Also, the 939 pin processors have a lower clock speed than their 745-pin variants. This is due to the technology within them, and they can reach equivalent performance at a lower clock speed, thereby running on less power.

There is also an expensive processor called the Athlon FX. This is supported in this motherboard, but the processor alone will set you back about £500, so many users may not be willing to afford this.

If you do not understand all of this, dont worry. It is a bit confusing to those who do not understand computer jargon.

[Fans]: NorthBridge Fan, SmartFan Control

Another feature about the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum is that it has a fan on its NorthBridge controller (if you dont know what this is, don't worry. It's basically another chip that controls many aspects of the board). Many motherboards only supply a heatsink (a large, metal block with many prongs designed to dissipate heat), but it seems as if this motherboard needs more. This extra fan is small and does not add much to the noise level, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. It is abnormally close to the AGP slot however, so you may experience some difficulty when pushing down the lock on the AGP slot.

This motherboard also has an option in the BIOS for 'SmartFan control'. You may set this to either 40 C, 50 C, 60 C or Disabled. This setting will attempt to keep the Processor temperature at the specified temperature, by increasing or decreasing the speed of the Processor Fan when necessary. If you have a hot system, this is a useful control that can cool down your processor. Alternatively, if you have a system that fluctuates in temperature a lot, this will help to regulate it, and reduce noise at the same time.

[MSI Features]: D.O.T., Cool'n'quiet, CoreCenter, DigiCell, LiveUpdate

MSI have included 'D.O.T.' which means Dynamic Overclocking Technology. This is enabled from the BIOS and allows the BIOS to automatically control overclocking of the processor, depending on load. However, I have found the computer to be very unstable with D.O.T, so I have disabled it.

Cool'n'quiet is natively supported in Windows XP and enables the fans to be adjusted automatically to accomodate for processor load. This makes the computer quieter at idle and low-usage times.

CoreCenter is MSI software used to monitor temperatures and fan speeds from Windows, and also enables overclocking to take place within the operating system. This is a very useful tool.

'Digicell' is another piece of software provided from MSI that 'integrates' and allows you to monitor the network, schedule computer on/off times [more about this in the following section of this review], and enables you to quickly run other MSI applications such as CoreCenter and LiveUpdate. It also gives you some control over the Audio. I personally have not found a useful purpose for this application apart from the scheduled on/off times, but some users may find the other functions useful.

LiveUpdate, another program supplied by MSI is very useful, and allows you to easily keep your computer up-to-date. It searches the MSI database for updates to MSI programs, your MSI Bios, your Video Card, your Optical Drive firmware and your MSI Motherboard drivers. It also gives you the option to download this new version and install it. It even allows you to update/flash your BIOS from windows, prompting you to create a rescue disk of course. A very useful program.

[Extras]: SATA and Power Cable, Floppy Disk Cable, IDE Cable

The above are the extra cables supplied with the K8N Neo2. The power cable is an adapter for SATA hard drives, and MSI have made an effort to keep all cables small and compact, so they do not take up much room.

Another nifty feature is the case-alarm feature. If your computer case supports this, you can set an alarm that activates when the case is opened. This is activated from the BIOS. Another similar feature included in the board, that can be activated with MSI's 'Digicell' software is it can be scheduled to turn on or off at a specific time. This is a cool and handy feature, and lets you specify the exact time you wish for the computer to turn on or off.

[PERSONAL EXPERIENCE]

Other than the experiences noted in the points above, I have found the computer to be very stable, although I do not overclock much. I keep D.O.T. off, as it causes the computer to become unstable, although this may be due to a conflicting option in the BIOS which I have enabled. I have also been recommended to turn off 'Cool'n'quiet' when overclocking. Please be warned that overclocking the processor does void its warranty, so take this into consideration when performing this process!

[CONCLUSION]

If anyone is wishing to have a major ugprade of their system, or wishes to convert to Athlon-64, i would highly recommend a 939-pin processor, although a bit more expensive, you will reap the benefits in the long-run. This motherboard, in my opinion, is one of the best motherboards that supports 939-pin processors, for its price, and is well worth the money. One down-side about this motherboard as explained earlier is that it does not support the PCI-express standard, which is becoming popular with the latest graphics cards. Aside from this, I would highly recommend this board, especially if you are planning to build a new machine!

Thankyou very much for taking the time to read my review. Please rate it appropriately and I appreciate any comments you wish to make. I apologise for any complicated language some of you may not understand.