MSI K8N Neo Platinum, Aka MS-7030, Continued
Now they have everything : from the coaxial to the optical digital output, this board also offers FireWire ports on the back panel.
However, our first test runs with the standard DIMMs from Corsair were enough to sober us up : Memory timings faster than CL2.0-3-3-6 rendered the system unstable. MSI took the defect reported by us (the memory modules used are available everywhere at any good specialty store) very seriously and within a few days sent us the BIOS version 1.13, which to date still can’t be found for download on the MSI web site. This eliminated our problem and allowed operation with the ideal timings of CL2.0-2-2-5.
However, these values are very theoretical, because memory chips that can be operated at such a high speed are no longer produced. Just for this test we got the almost nine-month-old XMS3502 Rev. 1.1, which is based on Winbond components.
The board’s performance values are finally comparable to those of the K8T800 from VIA.
The board included the usual package.
