nForce4 SLI Roundup: Painful and Rewarding
by Wesley Fink on February 28, 2005 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
MSI K8N Neo4/SLI Platinum: Features and Layout
| Specification | MSI K8N Neo4/SLI Platinum |
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | nForce4 SLI (single chip) |
| BUS Speeds | 190MHz, 200MHz to 400MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Asynchronous (Fixed) |
| PCI Speeds | 100MHz to 145MHz in 1MHz increments |
| Dynamic Overclocking | Auto Overclocking Disable, 1%, 3%, 5%, 7%, 9%, 11% |
| Core Voltage | Auto, 0.825V to 1.55V in 0.025V increments (Normal) PLUS CPU VID 3.3%, 5%, 8.3% (to 1.68V) |
| DRAM Voltage | Auto, 2.55V to 2.85V in 0.05V increments |
| Chipset Voltage | 1.5V to 1.85V in 0.05V increments |
| Hyper Transport Ratios | Auto, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 |
| LDT Bus Transfer | 16/16, 16/8, 8/16, 8/8 |
| CPU Ratios | Auto, 4x to 25x in 0.5x increments |
| Aggressive Timings | Enable, Disable |
| SSE/SSE2 Instructions | Enable, Disable |
| DRAM Speeds | Auto, 100, 133, 166, 200 |
| Memory Command Rate | Auto, 1T, 2T |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR Dual-Channel Slots Unbuffered ECC or non-ECC Memory to 4GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 2 x16 PCIe Slots 1 x4 PCIe 1 x1 PCIe 2 PCI Slots |
| SLI Setup | Movable PCB Card |
| Onboard SATA | 4-Drive SATA 2 by nF4 PLUS 2-Drive PCIe SATA 2 by Sil3132 |
| Onboard IDE | Two Standard nVidia ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) |
| SATA/IDE RAID | 4-Drive SATA 2 PLUS 4-Drive IDE (8 total) Can be combined in RAID 0, 1 PLUS 2-Drive SATA 2 by Sil3132 Raid 0, 1 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 10 USB 2.0 ports supported nF4 2 1394A FireWire ports by VIA VT6307 |
| Onboard LAN | Dual Gigabit PCIe Ethernet PCIe by Marvel 88E1111 PHY PCIe by Marvel 88E8053 |
| Onboard Audio | Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit Hardware 8-Channel with Dolby Digital encoder, 6 audio jacks, CD-in, front audio, and both optical and coaxial SPDIF Out |
| BIOS | Award 3.0B1 |
As Asus has most often been the performance leader for boards for Intel processors, MSI has been the leader of late in the performance of their Athlon 64 motherboards. The whole K8N series from Socket 754 through Socket 939 has provided some of the best performance available for Athlon 64, and provided several Editors Choices along the way. Past performance has set high expectations as we took a closer look at the nForce4 Neo4/SLI.
MSI is the only SLI board in the roundup to provide a SATA 2 add-on controller instead of the SATA 1 Sil3114 used on all the other SLI boards. The Sil 3132 only supports 2 additional ports (added to the 4 SATA 2 provided by nForce 4), but the 2 ports are 3Gb/sec. All of the SLI boards provide dual Gigabit LAN, but MSI provides two PCIe LAN ports, assuring top performance whichever port you use. The biggest standout here was MSI's decision to use the Creative SoundBlaster Live! 24-bit audio chip on the K8N Neo4/SLI instead of the cheaper codec that others used. MSI claims that the Creative chip is a hardware audio solution, and not just a CPU-hogging software solution such as you would normally see on motherboards. Our CPU utilization tests support MSI's claims with very low CPU overhead. The Audio also fully supports Dolby Digital encoding, which will matter a great deal to some users.
Except for the missing PCIe ports, layout of the MSI is really excellent. Ports and power connectors are where they should be, and even the floppy port, which many no longer use, is in a location where full tower owners can use a regular floppy cable for their connection.
Our only complaint is the finicky and flimsy lock for the SLI card. We doubt that the lock will last through many changes from normal to SLI and back. In addition, once the pin is turned to unlock the SLI selection card, it is extremely difficult to lock the SLI card again once you have switched the mode. Someone in MSI design needs to take a look at this little plastic part and improve it before MSI gets a raft of RMAs because users can't secure the SLI card with a broken "lock pin".
Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI: Overclocking and Stress Testing
MSI K8N Neo4/SLI Platinum: Overclocking and Stress Testing
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Gholam - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
I'm curious, where can I find benchmarks of SiI3114 with a 3 or 4 drive RAID5 setup? Read/write speed, access time, CPU utilization (especially important since it's essentially a software hack), general stability impressions, etc.I'm finally replacing my aging Duron 1200 soon, and looking at A8N-SLI Deluxe (no other NF4 board has a layout suitable for passive/quiet chipset cooling due to video card interference), and I plan to eventually build a ~700GB redundant storage array as home media server on it. However, I can't find benchmarks of SiI3114 RAID5 function anywhere.
Slaimus - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
About the audio CPU utilization tests. Is that with the nForce Audio or Realtek driver?Wesley Fink - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
#15,#18 and others - the 3DMark2003 SLI scores were an incorrect duplicate of 3DMark05. The 3DMark03 SLI scores have now been corrected and should make sense now. I apologize for the error.#4 - I saw none of the heat and instability issues with the DFI that were described at [H]. I discussed this with Editors from several other websites who also had no problems with this board. I would agree that the 5V jumper for very high memory voltages can get everything on the board real hot real fast, but this is a feature unique to the DFI and one that only the hardcore with more advanced cooling would attempt to use anyway.
#5,#20 - Any x16 PCIe slot can be used for x1 or x4 or any other flavor of PCIe. MSI does NOT have an extra x1 slot, but they tell us video slot 2 can be used for an x1 device. You still can't use SLI and another PCIe device at the same time on the MSI, but you can use single video with an additional PCIe device in video slot 2.
Wesley Fink - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
#4 - Abit has just shipped the Fatal1ty Ultra board to AnandTech. We haven't even received it yet. It will be included in a later Ultra roundup, bu the Ultra boards will have the same performance in single video as the similar SLI board from the same manufacturer. We met with Abit this weekend and they told us it would still be several weeks until their SLI would be available for review - and the SLI is NOT a Fatal!ty board.L3p3rM355i4h - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
318fsb 1:1? Jeezus Christ!ChineseDemocracyGNR - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
"but on the Asus board you also have to connect another 4-pin Molex for additional video card power. Asus says that this is required for "stable SLI operation", but the other 3 SLI designs do fine and are quite stable without the 5th power connector."The gold-winner DFI also has the same connector, though it wasn't mentioned in the review. And even though it wasn't necessary in your testings (with an OCZ 520W PSU), other people (like tbreak.com) could only find a stable SLI setup with the ASUS board, probably because of it.
I also don't think its location is important, the fact it's close to the PCI-E x16 slots is probably a smart engineering decision.
For future reviews it would be nice if you could show results with "Maximum FSB" where it actually means "Maximum FSB", that is, you remove memory overclocking from the table. It's great to see DDR600 and beyond, but I'm the kind of guy who spends $130 for quality 1GB of RAM, but still want a board that can take a 3000+ to 9*300.
It's not really a 1:1 ratio as you're always using a divider for memory speeds (from the CPU clock).
Looking forward to reviews of the mainstream PCI-E boards (K8T890, nF4 Ultra, etc).
ceefka - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
oops typoIt's a shame that there are non nF4 Ultra boards with HD Audio.
I meant
It's a shame that there are none nF4 Ultra boards with HD Audio.
ceefka - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
Jeez, Wesley, that must have been a hell of a job. Thanx.It's a shame that there are non nF4 Ultra boards with HD Audio.
#12 Right, I am contemplating the Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9 (the Ultra, not the SLI) and wonder if the Yesico FL-420ATX will do. Have you searched http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/m... or http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Prod... ? Look for manuals (Gigabyte) and compatability tables (MSI).
I wish though these manufacturers would clearly state if its ATX 1.3 or 2.0 etc + minimum V/A requirements. That would be much easier than scrolling through their website.
Just one silly question, because this has not been clear since the introduction of SLI-boards. Can you use a one of the 16xPCI-e slots on a SLI-board for something else than a second graphics card (in the future)? Maybe a (hefty) soundcard in the future?
neologan - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
btw, excellent review, one of the best i've read in a long time!blckgrffn - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
Yeah, what is with the 3dmark03 scores? The SLI seems really low..more like a repeat of the 05 scores....Glad to see more indepth mobo reviews! I for one was getting tired of looking at the BIOS as a way to differentiate!