Socket 939 Motherboard Roundup: ABIT, MSI, Gigabyte

Name: Socket 939 Motherboard Roundup: ABIT, MSI, Gigabyte - Page 10
Brand: Socket

by Marco Chiappetta — Thursday, September 09, 2004, 05:00 PM EDT

Like the ABIT AV8 and Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939, the K8N Neo2's BIOS is a Phoenix / Award derivative that's been customized for the particular application. The standard menus look very much like the others we've already shown you in this review...

The BIOS: MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum

Good Stuff

Browsing through the standard BIOS menus doesn't reveal anything revolutionary, but all of the common options for tweaking / enabling / disabling the K8N integrated peripherals are there. The K8N Neo2 Platinum's BIOS is very complete and easy to navigate. And MSI also does a good job of explaining some of the more obscure options in the right margin. It's in the Cell Menu where the real fun begins...

Overclocking Tools: MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum

Lots Of Tinkering!

The Cell Menu is home to all of the K8N Neo2 Platinum's overclocking and memory configuration options. Like ABIT's uGuru processor, MSI's Core Cell chip monitors fan speeds, voltages, and temperatures. Using the data being monitors by the Core Cell chip, the K8N can dynamically overclock a processor, but we left that option disabled in the name of fair play. Obviously, users can also overclock their processors manually using some of the other options available in the Cell Menu. Processor bus speeds can be set to any speed up to 300MHz, in 1MHz increments (the latest BIOS increases this number to 350MHz), and the AGP clock can be configured to operate at any speed between 66MHz and 100MHz, also in 1MHz increments. CPU, memory, and AGP voltage adjustments are available, as well. CPU voltages range from 1.55v -1.85v, memory voltages range from 2.5v - 2.85v, and AGP voltages range from 1.5v - 1.85v, all in .05v increments. Noticeably absent are chipset and HyperTransport voltage options, but we suspect they're dialed in at optimal levels by MSI at the company's manufacturing facility, as this board had no trouble in the overclocking department.

CPU-Z
Max OC=263MHz

To overclock with the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, we followed the same procedure that we outlined earlier. We increased the CPU core voltage to 1.7v, dropped the multiplier, dialed down the HT speed, increased the memory voltage to 2.8v, and slowly raised the bus speed until the system was no longer stable. The MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum ended up hitting the highest bus speed of the bunch. The maximum stable bus speed we were able to attain was an impressive 263MHz.

And, like the other motherboards in this round-up, the K8N Neo2 Platinum didn't have any trouble overclocking our CPU to over 2.6GHz.

Tags: MSI, Gigabyte, Motherboard, MS, SoC, socket, Abit, board, AR, K

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com