Which P6N?

[halo1mike]

I'm looking at the MSI P6N motherboards. The P6N SLI-FI is 113. The P6N SLI Platinum is 165. Is the platinum really worth the difference in price? If it helps any I plan to use this with a core 2 duo 6420.

 

[Spanki]

I'm looking at the MSI P6N motherboards. The P6N SLI-FI is 113. The P6N SLI Platinum is 165. Is the platinum really worth the difference in price? If it helps any I plan to use this with a core 2 duo 6420.

Platinum board is basically same as FI board, plus the following:

- 100% solid caps
- heat-pipe setup across NB, SB and MOSFET areas
- fan included for NB
- S/PDIF coaxial out (in addition to the optical out that they both have)
- eSATAII port on rear, provided by separate Sil3531 ic (supports RAID 0) making 5 SATAII ports total vs 4 on FI
- packaging differences... round floppy and IDE cables and a handfull of other additional cables

...you'll have to decide if those differences mean anything to you. I personally went with the Platinum, because I plan to keep this board for several years and the solid caps and extra cooling should help extend the life and the extra IO connections give more options for future expansion.

 

[halo1mike]

how much of an increase will the solid caps and the heatpipes give me? I plan on keeping this board about 2 years. Will the cheaper board last this long?

 

[Spanki]

Sure. The difference of having solid caps and better cooling is in more in the realm of "warm & fuzzy feeling" than anything else. My personal thoughts on it were that the extra $40-$50 was not a huge investment relative to the time I expected to use the board (maybe works out to $1.00 - $2.00 a month), but there's no reason the FI board wouldn't last that long.

For digital audio output (S/PDIF), one form is as good as another, but it doesn't hurt having different connector types. The NB fan is not really needed until/unless you start adding juice to the NB when overclocking. I'm also not using the eSATA port on the rear panel, but it's nice to have it available if my setup changes a year or two from now.

BTW, if you haven't been there yet, there's a lot of P6N owners (of both boards) in this thread, so you might get more opinions there.

 

[pinkparrot]

lol i was in the same situation you were at. the platinum is quad core compatible and i dont thing the FI is off the top of my head. have a 6600 at 3.2 ghz and its as stable as it gets with only 28c idle =)

but i'd personally just spend the extra 40, you wont be dissapointed =)