Socket 939 Roundup: Battle at the Top
by Wesley Fink on July 30, 2004 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
MSI K8T Neo2-FIR: Features and Layout
| MSI K8T Neo2-FIR Motherboard Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | VIA K8T800 PRO/VT8237 |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 280MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| CPU Ratios | 4 - 20x in 1x increments |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Default, 66, 76.4 |
| HyperTransport | 1x-5x (200MHz to 1GHz) |
| Core Voltage | CPU default to 1.85V in .05V increments |
| DRAM Voltage | Auto, 2.55V to 2.85V in .05V increments |
| AGP Voltage | Auto, 1.55V to 1.85V in.05V increments |
| HT Voltage | Auto, 1.26V, 1.32V, 1.38V |
| Dynamic Overclocking | 3.3%,5%, 6.6%, 8%, 10%, 11%, 15% |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Unbuffered Memory to 4GB |
| Expansion Slots | 1 AGP 8X Slot 5 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA/IDE RAID | 2 SATA 150 drives by VIA VT8237 Can be combined in RAID 0,1,JBOD plus 2 SATA 150 Promise 20579 |
| Onboard IDE | Two Standard VIA ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) PLUS 2 IDE by Promise 20579 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports supported by VT8237 3 IEEE 1394 FireWire Ports by VIA 6306 |
| Onboard LAN | Gigabit Ethernet by Realtek 8110S |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC850 8-Channel with SPDIF |
| Tested BIOS | 1.0 |
MSI seems to have had a lock on supplying Reference Boards for the Socket 939 launch. While the K8N Neo2 was the Reference board for the nVidia 939 launch, a special version of MSI K8T Neo2 was the Reference Board for the AMD Socket 939 launch. You can find more information on both MSI boards in our Socket 939 Chipset Launch article.
The K8T Neo2 retail board adds many adjustments and tweaking options to the basic K8T Neo2 that we reviewed at launch. MSI also supplied a board with a working PCI/AGP lock just prior to the completion of this roundup, but it took several boards to finally get there. We have been assured that shipping K8T Neo2 boards will have working PCI/AGP locks and we are passing this information to you. When we finally received a fully working board, the K8T Neo2 was a decent performer and certainly one of the best of the VIA K8T800 PRO chipset Socket 939 boards.
The K8T Neo2 is available in several versions with different options depending on price. Our test board was the top-line version, which added a Promise 20579 SATA/IDE RAID controller and VIA IEEE 1394A Firewire. Layout of the board is more conventional than the MSI K8N Neo2, with the 4 DIMM slots to the upper right, and the IDE/floppy and ATX connectors on the upper right. The 4-pin 12V connector is difficult to route as it sits almost in the center of the board. The additional IDE and SATA connections are all in areas that could potentially interfere with longer PCI cards, but the AGP 8X is clear of obstruction for a large top-end video card.
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum: Overclocking and Stress Testing
MSI K8T Neo2-FIR: Overclocking and Stress Testing
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harsaphes - Sunday, October 10, 2004 - link
just set up my a8v board. no go on firewire, will not see ipod or external firewire drive. any idea?...bad board maybe?kd4yum - Thursday, August 5, 2004 - link
Fender - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link
The first words in this review confirm that you should never buy a VIA product before they revised it! (KT266 to 400 saga anyone?)Also, it's oddly that Hyperions used here are 8 months old...
It could be interesting if you include, in your tests, any possible issue concerning OS installation or updating drivers (from the CD included in the box to the updated drivers from the manufacturer's site) because this is what happens to most buyers out there. Remember that you're testing a 64bit CPU with a 32bit OS, and drivers development will be a further support insurance.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, August 3, 2004 - link
#79 - Page 13 is corrected. That error slipped past 3 proofreaders. Thank you for alerting us.Sidewinder0010 - Tuesday, August 3, 2004 - link
the k8t neo2 overclocking page has a typo that was throwing me off"much lower than the 290 on the K8T Neo2"
That should be changed to k8n neo2
Compddd - Friday, July 30, 2004 - link
Wesley, did Asus say when the A8V Rev 2.0 will be hitting Retail Stores like Fry's, Best Buy, etc?thebluesgnr - Friday, July 30, 2004 - link
How does the lower bandwidth (4900Mb/s) affect real world performance?One more thing, perhaps the MSI K8T Neo2 Platinum references should be changed to MSI K8T Neo2-FIR? That's the name of this board on MSI's site, there's no mention of it being a Platinum board. And here's a link of all the boards in the Platinum series: http://www.msicomputer.com/pressrelease/platinum.a...
Off-Topic: Wesley, will there be reviews on AnandTech of Socket A mobos based on the nForce2 Ultra 400Gb and VIA KT880 chipsets? They offer the exact same features of the mobos on this roundup, and with the new Semprons and the good XP-Mobiles I suspect a lot of your readers are still interested in this socket.
Sorry for the off-topic.
Wesley Fink - Friday, July 30, 2004 - link
#75 - You are confusing boards as MSI had TWO boards in the roundup. We had no problems at all with the first or second K8N Neo2 (based on nForce3 Ultra) we tested, and that is the board that received the Gold Editors Choice. The MSI K8T Neo2, based on the VIA K8T800 PRO, was the problem board and we definitely did NOT give the K8T Neo2 an award.#74 - On page 5 we talk about the memory bandwidth differences in 1T and 2T command rates: "The best performance is at a Command Rate of 1T, and the Abit AV8 was completely stable at a 1T setting with 2 DIMMs. Standard memory bandwidth measured with SiSoft Sandra 2004 SP2 shows a 6000 MB/s bandwidth with 1T Command Rate compared to a 5000 MB/s bandwidth with a 2T setting." This is also mentioned on page 11: "While a full memory comparison of the nVidia and VIA chipsets is beyond the scope of this roundup, we did run several SiSoft Sandra 2004 SP2 runs of the memory test module. At default settings, and the aggressive 2-2-2-10 timings on the FX53, the nF3-250 Ultra showed memory bandwidth in the 6100 range for FPU and Float. The same test on the VIA K8T800 PRO boards showed memory bandwidth in the 6000 range. Performance of both chipsets at the 1T setting was very similar. 2T Command Rates, with everything else the same, generated bandwidths of 4900 to 5000Mb/second."
Z80 - Friday, July 30, 2004 - link
Considering your statement "Our concern is based on the fact that we went through 3 K8T Neo2 boards before we got one that really worked" I'm surprised that you went ahead and gave the MSI board your gold award. I see that MSI is being sued for intentionally using capacitors that were made with an improperly-formulated electrolyte solution. My personal experience with MSI quality assurance was never good at least back in the day it wan't but maybe they have changed like you say OCZ has? I'll stick with Asus and Abit, thank you.SignalPST - Friday, July 30, 2004 - link
quote from the article:"We even found that all six of the tested motherboards performed at the fastest timings available and a 2T Command Rate with 4 DIMMs on board, so even that is a non-issue."
Does that mean that if 4 sticks of ram are installed, there won't be a performance hit and it will work just as fast as 2 sticks installed?