MSI K8N Neo Platinum: First nForce3-250Gb
by Wesley Fink on April 26, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Words
Since the MSI K8N Neo is the first shipping board with the nVidia nForce3 chipset, we don't know whether it is the harbinger of the great things to come, or whether the K8N Neo Platinum is just a unique and stunning motherboard. There are many other nF3-250 boards on the way, and we should be able to answer that question more definitively in the near future.What we do know is that MSI chose to use the top nForce3-250Gb chipset on an extremely well-conceived motherboard. MSI included all the breakthrough features of nF3-250, like on-chip Gigabit LAN, 8 "any-drive" RAID, and nVidia Firewall. MSI then added 3 firewire ports driven by a VIA chip, 7.1 channel audio with the newest Realtek ALC850 codec, and a complete set of audio IO for both analog and digital audio. Even additional brackets for extra rear USB ports, diagnostic LEDs, and a bracket for 2 more rear Firewire ports are included. With all these ports and options, there are still a couple of spare USB for those with front USB ports on the case. Nothing seems to be missing from this board, unless you really expect built-in Audigy 2 sound.
On top of that, the K8N Neo positively has a working AGP lock. It reaches the highest overclock at default settings that we have ever achieved with the Athlon 64. It has been very frustrating in the early A64 chipsets to see such mediocre overclocks when so much more could be done in overclocking with a Pentium 4 still hampered by locked ratios, or even a Socket A Athlon XP. The frustration was the incredible, but unrealized, promise of pushing the Athlon 64. It looks as if those days are finally starting to end, as chips and boards are both making giant leaps. This is only likely to accelerate even more with the pending introduction of Socket 939 and Dual-Channel unbuffered memory with the Athlon 64. The upcoming 64-bit Operating Systems just sweeten that pie even further.
As much as we are impressed with the MSI K8N Neo Platinum, there is still room for improvement. The location of the floppy and SATA 1/2 connectors could definitely be improved. As much as the option to 300FSB improved the board, we now see 350 or even more would be even better. We might wish for a higher range of memory voltages to get the best performance from recent high-speed memory that are warranted to 3.0 volts or more. The overclocking watch-dog functions are also a bit too aggressive on the K8N and it is likely that even higher overclocks, particularly with memory at 1:1, could be achieved with a little rework of a future BIOS. We would also strongly suggest that MSI replace the small passive nF3-250 cooler with a much larger passive heatsink or an active cooling solution. The current chipset sink gets far too hot for our liking. Consider these suggestions for improvements only because all-in-all, the K8N Neo is quite an impressive board.
Some will argue that with Socket 939 near, the K8N Neo will have a short life. We doubt that, simply because the K8N Neo is so good and Socket 754 will be around as a high-end socket now (and a value socket later) for at least another year. It also appears that MSI will have a very easy transition to a 939 design, since the Engineering is already done, and done very well, on the K8N Neo Platinum.
One thing is for sure, and that is you will not be disappointed with the MSI K8N Neo Platinum. If all the upcoming nForce3-250GB boards are this good, then it's a very good time to be running an Athlon 64 processor. It is not that the MSI stands out in performance in any one area; it is just that the overall balance, flexibility, and features of the K8N Neo are sure to please.
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kmmatney - Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - link
Ahhhhhh! A long spiel about how great the board is at overclocking....and then no overlocked benchmarks!! I want to see how much gain you get! How about a single game and encoding benchmark?Pumpkinierre - Monday, April 26, 2004 - link
I agree with #10, Wesley, you should include at least one synthetic with your overclocking tests because you have'nt done any good overclocking/high FSB tests on a64s as you havent had a mobo with good PCI/AGP lock or >250 FSB til now. It makes me wonder why because you are thorough with the p4/i875 and by your own admission the gigabyte and shuttle nF3-150 have PCI/AGP locks and ClockGen adjusts the FSB. The location of the a64 memory controller ondie means the memory sync/async tests results from intel systems cant be translated to the a64 ones. So, in my opinion, for conservative a64 overclockers, benchmark results at the same cpu speed but different FSB (clockspeed) sync or async and HT alteration would be of good use. I know you are just seeing the limits etc. but you must be running stability tests so it costs you nothing in time to throw in the sandra or Memtest86 bandwidths or even 3DMark2001/2003 results.And I agree there is merit in running cool and quiet with overclocked systems(if possible) as the windows software overclockers are still not perfect and only available on some brands.
Jeff7181 - Monday, April 26, 2004 - link
Wesley,It may not really fit in with a motherboard review, but seeing as how it seems overclocks on the nF3 150 and KT800 chipsets have been limited by the motherboard, it makes sense to test the overclocked performance to see if it's worth paying for a motherboard with lower performance at stock speeds that might provide a lot better performance once overclocked. For example, if the nF3 250 can only match KT800 performance after overclocking, it makes the choice much more clear.
cnq - Monday, April 26, 2004 - link
Wesley,Thanks for the quick response. Glad to hear you are considering mixing manual overclocking with cool'n'quiet in future tests.
You mention that "I am not convinced that it matters to most overclockers". I think that's just because c'n'q' is fairly new. If you tell them that c'n'q is just the thing to help prolong the life of their overworked system, they'll start paying attention. Only those who run 100% cpu utilization 24/7/365 won't care.
For the rest of us, mixing Cool'n'Quiet with overclocking makes perfect sense (throttle back the cpu when just web browsing; crank it up to overclocked when you need a burst of bower, which in my case is compiling. Note that I'm not counting MSI's CoreCell auto-overclocking because it's not powerful enough...)
I'd also claim that Cool'n'Quiet is *doubly* useful in a heavily overclocked system. Such systems are often on the ragged edge of overheating, and thus could benefit more than anyone from throttling at times of light or moderate load.
Naturally, when the load jumps back up, we'd want the fully overclocked manual settings to automatically kick back in. And that's the rub. Will that part work?
Has anyone tried running Cool'n'Quiet on a manually overclocked A64? Does it (a) work perfectly, (b) crash, (c) not crash but "forgets" your overclock settings, (d) other? I'm guessing it will crash, esp. if manual overclock settings included changing the CPU voltage or raising the HTT while lowering the CPU multiplier. Hoping to hear I'm wrong (for at least one A64 board) before making purchase...
Schnieds - Monday, April 26, 2004 - link
Do you have any idea when this motherboard will be available for purchase in retail outlets? From the review it sounds like this board is a release version and ready for retail, but no one seems to know when it will actually be available for purchase... Thanks for the great review.Wesley Fink - Monday, April 26, 2004 - link
#7 - nForce3 chipsets automatically control Bank Interleave and Command Rate - there are no manual options. Some VIA chipsets do allow interleave and command rate settings. We always specify the setting we used in the review - if those settings are available. If they are not an available option we state NA for Not Available in our Memory Stress Testing tables. We also always enable interleave if it is an option.#8 - I added Cool'n'Quiet to the Feature list at your suggestion. Most overclockers turn off auto features for overclocking, because frankly I can always out-tweak Auto settings on OC. I will consider doing more with Cool'n'Quiet in overclocking, but I am not convinced it matters much to most overclockers.
#9 - Corrected. Not to be defensive, but if you want to see how much AnandTech found with this board that other sites missed, read through K8N Neo reviews that others have posted.
#10 - What would it take to make you happy on OC results in board reviews? I have explored 1:1 vs aynch in memory reviews. Performance results at a full-range of OC and timings are always a part of memory reviews. What would you like to see in motherboard reviews?
Jeff7181 - Monday, April 26, 2004 - link
No overclocked comparisons? Awwww man... questions still unanswered...KillaKilla - Monday, April 26, 2004 - link
How well did the Albatron GeForce FX5950U work with those ATI Catalyst 4.4 drivers?Not to be sarcastic, but simply alerting those who can correct this to the typo.
cnq - Monday, April 26, 2004 - link
Wesley,You mentioned that you disabled Cool'n'Quiet to prevent possible interference with overclocking.
I wonder if it's even worse than "interference": is it even *possible* to run Cool'n'Quiet on a heavily overclocked system? (especially one with aggressive overclocking: significantly raised HTT with lowered CPU multiplier).
This is one of those things that should be a FAQ, yet no one seems to have tried. Cool'n'Quiet is the perfect complement to an aggressively overclocked system: prolonging its lifespan by giving it a "breather" when just (e.g.) web browsing. But are Cool'n'Quiet and overclocking compatible?
(Pls refer to my same question in your Aopen AK89 Max review for specific technical reasons why I think c'n'q and aggressive overclocking may not be compatible. I hope I'm wrong.)
Myrandex - Monday, April 26, 2004 - link
My K8T Neo supports cool and quiet completely, and toms hardware confirms this too with an older A64 mobo roundup. Looks like a hell of a board, but I am wondering why so many reviews at Atech are run w/ Bank interleave set to disabled. I remember back in the K6/2 days, this was a major bios tweak for memory. Does it not matter, or negatively effect performance now?Jason