Athlon64 Motherboards: First Look at Chaintech, FIC, and MSI

MSI K8T Neo: Packaging & Board Layout

MSI packages the K8T Neo in a foil box for the K8T Neo series, much like others we have recently seen from MSI. You’ll have no trouble finding it in person with the bight green color announcing that this is a board for AMD.

Basic layout of the board is good, with low profile DIMMs used near the Athlon64 “cage” to provide clearance for even massive heatsink/fans. There is a large passive heatsink on the VIA K8T800 Northbridge. The DIMM slots clear the AGP slot, so memory changes and upgrades are painless. The IDE and floppy slots are in our preferred location, right of the DIMM slots and above the midline of the board. So, there should be no problem with snaking cables in most case designs. As we often see with 3^rd IDE connectors, it is located near the bottom right of the board. Since this IDE connector will only be handling hard drive connections, this location is usually fine for HD only ports. The 4 SATA connectors are also at the lower right of the board. Our only complaint is the 4-pin 12V connector, which is located to the left of the CPU near middling. This means that you will need to route your 12V power connection around your CPU and down the board, while trying not to interfere with the CPU and HSF.

MSI includes their standard D bracket with extra USB ports and the 4 diagnostic LEDs.

The rear panel of the K8T Neo contains an amazing number of ports. Standard ports include the standard PS2 ports, parallel, and just 1 serial port. To this MSI adds 4 USB 2.0, Gigalan, both standard and mini Firewire, Coax SPDIF, Optical SPDIF, and 5 mini-plugs for connecting speakers, mic, and line.