You can also read this same post on my website:
http://www.linxor.org/stuff/mobo_review.htm
A few weeks ago I started research to find the best board that I could find for my money without spending a fortune. I decided to go with the AMD Athlon64 3200+ (1MB L2 cache - Clawhammer) which is a socket 754 chip. This was the best chip at the time without jumping up to the next price range (a difference of $125 to get the 3400+).
Once I had the processor in mind, I started looking at motherboards. Since I wanted a higher quality mobo with lots of features, I narrowed down my selection to these boards:
ASUS K8N-E Deluxe, ASUS K8V SE Deluxe, MSI K8N Neo Platinum, MSI K8T Neo-FIS2R, and ABIT KV8-MAX3
Next I looked at the chipsets of these boards. There are 2 companies making *worthwhile* chipsets for the AMD socket-754 on retail boards right now: VIA K8T800, and nVidia nForce3-250GB. Looking through many reviews and forum postings, nVidia appears to be a better quality chipset and shows better overall performance in benchmark tests. Some other reasons why I pick nVidia over VIA: better memory compatibility, has better drivers, and richer in extra features (which you can find on various spec sheets around the internet).
That left me with the ASUS K8N-E Deluxe (http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=K8N-E Deluxe) and the MSI K8N Neo Platinum (http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K8N_Neo_Platinum&class=mb).
The ASUS board is too problematic for my likes. On most reviews that I've read, there are more Con's to this board than the MSI board. A lot of people in forums talk about their gripes with this board. The MSI board consistently outperforms the ASUS board in benchmark tests, and since I'm really trying to get the most bang for my buck, that was a deciding factor for me.
(One thing that I don't understand about the ASUS board is that the spec lists AGP 8X as 1.5V only. However, the AGP 3.0 standard says that 8X runs at .8v. Is this just a typo? What's the discrepancy? A lot of reviews make note of graphics related problems too.)
So, now on to talk about some things I like about the MSI K8N Neo Platinum. I'm not going to tell you about motherboard features, since those are all listed on specs pages and reviews. Instead I just want to mention a few reasons why I prefer this board over others in its class.
Benchmarks:
I personally have done very little benchmark testing on my computers, so I'm not that familiar with them. However, there are a lot of reviews that show numbers and bar graphs for everything from gaming to encoding to ethernet to overall processor performance, and the numbers from most of these reviews seem to show that this board ranks near or at the top among its peers.
SATA:
The built in "any raid" functions like a champ, it lets you build an array using ANY combo of sata or ata HD's. The only complaints about this is that SATA 1 and 2 connectors are in a very awkward place, right next to the AGP slot, which could give you wiring headaches and possibly conflict with your AGP graphics card's cooling capabilities (or frying the SATA wire? not sure on that).
GB Ethernet:
This board has one of the fastest transfer rates with the lowest CPU usage, only outdone by Intel's CSA technology (http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20040430/index.html). I consistently move large files (over 100 MB) between computers on my network, so the faster the better.
General Overclocking:
Some people seem to have overclocking problems with this board. It could be that they're trying to push the board too hard too fast, but I'm not sure. Then there are lots of other people who have had no problem at all. Forum posts seem to indicate a hit-or-miss for problems like this which might point to bad quality control on MSI's part. The MCP (co-processor) chip is passively cooled, so if you intend to overclock, a better cooling solution is a *must*, both for the CPU *and* the MCP.
PCI/AGP and Memory Overclocking:
One of the main problems that the VIA based boards have is the lack of a functioning PCI/AGP lock. This is fixed in the VIA K8T800 Pro chipset, but there aren't many boards that offer that chipset yet for the 754 socket, so that's a moot point. The nVidia chipset has a solid PCI/AGP lock which is definately a determining factor for most computer enthusiasts that want to get the most out of their hardware. Memory locks are also an important factor in case your ram is unable to handle the speed boost, and the MSI board has good memory locking capabilities.
Here are some misc. problems you could run into with the board that other people have complained about:
"The onboard sound is picking up crosstalk interference from the USB and SATA drives. This shows up as a low level buzz when the mouse is moved across the screen, when you manipulate window controls or you do something that works the disk particularly hard. A possible fix for this is to use shielded cables inside of your case."
"I had a problem getting the USB headers to work, but it's easily fixable by clipping one of the wires in the USB headers."
"Install the newest BIOS update from MSI otherwise your CPU temperature will read too high."
"The computer crashes when coppying files from an IDE harddrive to a SATA drive."
"Had to download the newest raid driver from MSI to get the RAID array to read as one drive when installing the OS."
"The Mic-in port apparently doesn't give the best quality sound."
Side Note:
Definately download the newest nForce motherboard drivers from nVidia to replace the MSI ones and update BIOS when you get this board! This will fix a lot of the issues that people have complained about.
Here are a couple of very informative reviews about the MSI K8N Neo Platinum board so you can read for yourself:
http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20040420/index.html
http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/cpu_mobo/msi/amd/nvidia/k8n/index.shtml
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjA3LDE=
I looked at a lot of forums to get people's reactions to various motherboards and chipsets. These are just a couple:
http://forumz.tomshardware.com
http://forums.anandtech.com/
http://www.viperlair.com/forums/
MSI Forum - http://forum.msi.com.tw/
NewEgg's Customer Review for the MSI K8N Neo Platinum -
http://secure.newegg.com/app/CustratingReview.asp?DEPA=0&item=13-130-457
I am extremely impressed with this board. I will definately end up buying one soon. NewEgg has them for pretty cheap compared to other sites:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-130-457
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~ Digital Cowboy Extraordinaire ~
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