A Motherboard for Performance and the Future!
Written: Jun 06 '05 (Updated Jul 06 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: One of the BEST motherboards for the 939-pin Athlon processors!
Cons: The Quick User's Guide could have had more details!
The Bottom Line: If you want an Athlon 939-pin motherboard for performance, reliability and future upgrades then this motherboard will be a winner for you!
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| surferdude7's Full Review: MSI K8N NEO4 Platinum Motherboard |
The MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum is made for the socket 939-pin AMD Athlon 64 and FX processors. This motherboard has the power and performance the gamers want, made for the powerful FX processors and 64-bit processors. Not only does the Neo4 Platinum have power, but it is built for the most up to date components out on the market and for future expansion of new products yet to come. The motherboard supports 939-pin 3000+, 3200+, 3500+, 3800+, 4000+, FX53 and FX55 processors.
Memory
The Neo4 Platinum supports dual channel memory for performance in DDR 266/333/400, using four 184-pin DDR DIMMs. It supports 2.5 volts DDR SDRSM DIMM with a maximum memory size up to 4GB.
The dual-channel DDR works ONLY in the 3 combinations and the manual shows you the combinations; other combinations let the memory run only as single channels. The easiest way to have dual channel is if all the DDR chips are the same speed, amount of storage and the same manufacturer. The motherboard can use only one DDR chip, but after that they have to be in pairs; you can not use three memory chips, only 1, 2 or 4. They are also colored coded if you have different sizes like me, I run two identical 512 MB chips in the purple slots and two identical 256 MB chips in the green slots; all seem to run fine together.
Chipset
MSI uses the NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra Chipset for the HyperTransport link to the AMD Athlon 64/Athlon 64FX CPU supporting speed up to 1GHz. (2000MT/s)
The chipset supports the newer PCI Express X16/X4/X1 interface slots, two independent SATA controllers, for four drives, IEEE 802.3 NVIDIA MAC for 1000BASE-T and Dual Fast ATA-133 IDE controllers.
PCI Express
New I/O Bus technology is the PCIe X16 (PCI Express), which is expected to replace the old PCI and AGP video slots. PCIe has increased bandwidth and other advanced features not found in the other video slots. The X16 link, will provide a bandwidth of 4 GB per second in each direction. This is what the future of video for the computer is going to.
The motherboard also has two smaller slots, a PCIe X1 and a PCIe X4; what these two are for, I don’t know, but I am sure I will run across something very soon.
Besides the PCIe slots there are four regular PCI slots.
Other Specifications
*** Please Note These Other Specifications are directly from MSI ***
On-Board IDE/SATA
• An IDE controller on the nVIDIA nForce4 Ultra chipset provides IDE HDD/CD-ROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA133/100/66 operation modes.
- Can connect up to 4 IDE devices
• NV RAID supports 4 SATA ports (SATA1-4). Transfer rate is up to 300MB/s.
• NV RAID (Software)
- Supports up to 4 SATA plus 2 ATA 133 Hard drives
- RAID 0 or 1, 0+1, JBOD is supported
- RAID function work w/ ATA 133 + SATA H/D or 2 SATA H/D
• Silicon Image's SATARAID5 supports another 4 SATA ports(SATA5-8). Transfer rate is up to 150MB/s
- RAID 0 or 1, RAID5, RAID10, and JBOD groups are supported
- Support up to 4 SATA devices connected to a single controller
BIOS
• The mainboard BIOS provides "Plug & Play" BIOS which detects the peripheral devices and expansion cards of the board automatically.
• The mainboard provides a Desktop Management Interface (DMI) function which records your mainboard specifications.
• Supports boot from LAN, USB Device 1.1 & 2.0 and SATA HDD
Audio
• 7.1 channel audio codec RealTek ALC850
- Compliance with AC97 v2.3 Spec.
- Meet PC2001 audio performance requirement.
LAN
• Suppor LAN jacks
- 1 LAN supports 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet by Marvell 88E1111 PHY
- 1 LAN supports 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet by Marvel 88E8053
IEEE1394
• VIA 6306 chipset
- Supports up to 2 x 1394 ports
- Transfer rate is up to 400Mbps
On-Board Peripherals
- 1 floppy port supports 1 FDD with 360K, 720K, 1.2M, 1.44M and 2.88Mbytes
- 1 serial port
- 1 parallel port supports SPP/EPP/ECP mode
- 1 audio jack (5-in-1), coaxial/fibre SPDIF out
- 10 USB 2.0 ports (Rear x 4 / Front x 6)
- 2 RJ45 LAN jack
- 2 IEEE 1394 a connectors (Rear x 1/ Front x 1)
Dimension
11.96 in (L) x 9.61 in(W) ATX Form Factor
*** End of Other Specifications directly from MSI ***
What comes in the Box!
4 - SATA data cables
2 - SATA power converter cable (dual plugs)
1 - rounded 80-conductor Ultra ATA data cable; this is much better than the old flat ribbon cables.
1 - rounded floppy drive data cable; this is much better than the old flat ribbon cables.
USB 2.0 bracket (2 ports) with D-Bracket
I/O shield
Driver CD with software for the motherboard
2 - SATA driver diskettes
Quick user's guide, which is basic, a little more added would have been nice, but it is adequate for installation.
Colorful detailed poster of the motherboard
MSI test report
My Final Thoughts!
It was time for me to upgrade my personal computer. I decided on the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum motherboard, the AMD Athlon 64 3800+ processor, a Thermaltake heat-sink with fan, a 600 watt power supply and a ATI Radeon X700 Pro PCIe video card.
The motherboard is great and easy to install and setup. One thing you have to remember about this motherboard is it doesn’t have an AGP video slot; instead it uses a PCIe x16 slot. (PCI express) When connecting an ATX power supply you will notice that the motherboard has a 24 pin connection, while some older ATX power supplies use only a 20 pin connection. A 20 pin connection plugs in it only one way and works fine with the motherboard; I elected to go to a 600 watt power supply with a 24 pin connector after I had the system together first using my old 400 watt power supply with a 20 pin connector. Your power supply must also have a 4 pin ATX power supply which powers the processor; yes, two connections from the power supply for this motherboard.
The ten USB 2.0 connections on the motherboard is what is needed; there are four USB ports in the back and it comes with a D-bracket that has two more USB slots that go in the back. My case had two USB ports in the front, so I still have two more ports for future use. The D-bracket comes with two connectors on it, one for the two USB connections and the other is a connection that helps analyze any problems that may accrue with the computer. There are 4 LEDs on the bracket that show you the condition of the computer; all four will be green after the computer boots up without any problems. If any of the LEDs are red, it indicated a problem and the manual shows graphic details about the LEDs for you to easily understand. The LEDs are a great feature as well as the reset button on the motherboard to easily set your BIOS back to the factory settings. With my old motherboard I always had to take the battery out of the motherboard and make some jumper setting before I placed the battery back in to set the BIOS to factory settings. If you don’t mess with your BIOS you will probably never have to reset it; I like to experiment with mine once in a while.
This motherboard is made for overclocking to get the most out of your processor and DDR memory. I generally don’t mess with overclocking, but the software that comes with this motherboard lets you overclock your processor and memory in the Windows environment so easily through the software they call CORE CENTER. It seems fairly safe, because if you overclock it too much it will reboot the system or lock it up; if this happens just turn off the power, hit the reset button on the motherboard and it will run just like it did before you started the overclocking. ”WARNING” overclocking is easy with their software, a little overclocking will not hurt it at all, but you have to make sure the processor does not over heat.
The motherboard is loaded with so many features that as of right now I probably use less than half of what is has to offer. The motherboard is detailed in various colors to highlight different connections, which makes it easy to understand. The only complaint I have is that the quick user’s guide should have had more details especially with the PCIe slots and use, but there is plenty of details for easy installation.
I love the 7.1 sound system built into the motherboard; the sound is rich and clear. The included software lets you set up the sound to your specific taste plus some. The built-in Ethernet cards are performing excellent with my broadband connection; very fast and smooth!
Overall I am very happy with this motherboard on performance and upgradeability! I had no problems with setting it up. This motherboard is recommended for at least a 400 watt power supply, but I personally would recommend a 500 watt power supply or larger, especially if you use any of the FX processors.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 139.00
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