nForce4 SLI Roundup: Painful and Rewarding
by Wesley Fink on February 28, 2005 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
MSI K8N Neo4/SLI Platinum: Overclocking and Stress Testing
FSB Overclocking Results
| Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed | |
| MSI K8N-Neo4/SLI | |
| Processor: | Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4GHz, 1MB Cache) |
| CPU Voltage: | 1.55V (default 1.50V) |
| Cooling: | Thermaltake Silent Boost K8 Heat sink/Fan |
| Power Supply: | OCZ Power Stream 520W |
| Memory: | OCZ PC3200 EL Platinum Rev. 2 (Samsung TCCD Memory Chips) |
| Hard Drive: | Seagate 120GB 7200RPM SATA 8MB Cache |
| Maximum OC: (Standard Ratio) |
235x12 (Auto HT, 2-3-2-7, 1T, 2.85V) 2820MHz (+18%) |
| Maximum FSB: (Lower Ratio) |
312x9 (2808MHz) (Auto HT, 2.5-4-3-7, 2.85V) (1:1 Memory, 1T, 2 DIMMs in DC mode) (+56% Bus Overclock) |
MSI has a much more limited range of overclocking controls than the top-performing DFI, but that doesn't seem to limit much the overclocking abilities of the SLI. The K8N Neo4/SLI continued the MSI tradition of top Athlon 64 overclocking by reaching a CPU speed of 312 (DDR624), just slightly short of the DFI record of 318. We would likely have been able to push the MSI even higher were it not for the limitation of a 2.85 top memory voltage, compared to 4.0V on the DFI.
At stock multipliers, MSI was also an excellent overclocker, reaching 235. This is just shy of the 238 reached by the DFI. All-in-all, the MSI was a great performer and extremely so in our testing. The MSI K8N Neo4/SLI was much easier to overclock than the K8N Neo2, which is a recent Editor's Choice among Socket 939 motherboards.
Memory Stress Test Results:
Our memory stress test measures the ability of the MSI to operate at its officially supported memory frequency (400MHz DDR), at the lowest memory timings that OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 modules will support. All DIMMs used for stress testing were 512MB double-sided (or double-bank) memory. To make sure that memory performed properly in Dual-Channel mode, memory was only tested using either one dual-channel (2 DIMMs) or 2 dual-channels (4 DIMMs).| Stable DDR400 Timings - One Dual-Channel (2/4 DIMMs populated) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 7T |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | 1T |
Using two DIMMs in Dual-Channel 128-bit mode, the memory performed in all benchmarks at the fastest 2-2-2-7 timings, at default 2.6V voltage.
Tests with 4 DS DIMMs on an AMD Athlon 64 system are more demanding, since AMD specifies DDR333 for this combination. However, most AMD Athlon 64 motherboards combined with recent AMD processors (the memory controller is on the AMD CPU) have been able to handle 4 DIMMs at DDR400.
| Stable DDR400 Timings - 4 DIMMs (4/4 DIMMs populated) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 7T |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | 2T |
Tests with all four DIMM slots populated on the MSI K8N Neo4/SLI board required a 2T Command Rate with 4 DS DIMMs in two dual channels. This is the pattern seen on other top-performing Socket 939 boards, and is a limitation of the AMD on-chip memory controller. Additional voltage did not help and DDR400 with 4DS DIMMs still required a 2T Command Rate as we have seen on other nF4 boards. We are hopeful that the upcoming Rev. E Athlon 64 chips will at least allow a 1T Command Rate with 4 DS DIMMs.
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TigerFlash - Monday, July 4, 2005 - link
I thought this link would be rather important to see:http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=82427.0
TigerFlash - Monday, July 4, 2005 - link
NightCrawler - Thursday, May 5, 2005 - link
You make a big deal out of the fact that the DFI can hit 318 but they both do the same 2.8 ghz, users won't see much difference, if any.Asus: Maximum OC:
(Standard Ratio) 234x12 (Auto HT, 2-3-3-7, 1T, 2.8V)
2808MHz (+17%)
Maximum FSB:
(Lower Ratio) 255x11 (2805MHz) (4X HT, 2.5-3-3-7, 2.7V)
(1:1 Memory, 1T, 2 DIMMs in DC mode)
(+28% Bus Overclock)
DFI: Maximum OC:
(Standard Ratio) 238x12 (Auto HT, 2-3-2-7, 1T, 2.9V)
2856MHz (+19%)
Maximum FSB:
(Lower Ratio) 318x9 (2862MHz) (Auto HT, 2.5-4-3-7, 2.9V)
(1:1 Memory, 1T, 2 DIMMs in DC mode)
(+59% Bus Overclock)
DeanO - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
Don't know if anyone's noticed yet, but I just took a trip over to MSI's website, and guess what? Only the SLI mobo has the Creative chip. The Neo4 (i.e. nF4 Ultra chipset) mobo uses the Realtek ALC850. I for one was disappointed...That makes for an interesting decision: the SLI board is still cheaper than the Ultra board plus a Creative 24-bit sound card. Hmmm...
phusg - Friday, March 4, 2005 - link
New PCI card with C-Media DDL chip: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&a... ge=20&pagenumber=1Currently only available via ebay apparantly:
http://search.ebay.com/HDA-Digital-X-Mystique-7-1-...
If it has the same performance as Soundstorm remains to be seen. Reading the thread the EAX support is just as dodgy as it was on Soundstorm.
ElFenix - Thursday, March 3, 2005 - link
What chipsets did your USB and firewire drives have?thanks for the great review!
bjorn44 - Thursday, March 3, 2005 - link
Anyone know how they did the memory benchmark with memtest86 3.2? I can't find any option for testing bandwidth.Thanks,
Bjorn
giz02 - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
Well if it's any consolation, PCSTATS have updated thier site review of the MSI Neo4 Plat SLI (and will probably make two more updates to it)- now states 96Khz
- will modify DICE statement
- they are indicating that the sil3132 can do raid5, but I'm not sure that it can...
Wow Roomraider, that's quite the system you have there.
Roomraider - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
#82 u r absolutely correct sir. I have the top SB card available(Audigy 4 Pro)& the only way i get DTS or Dolby Digital of any form is SPDIF out Via Coax or Fiber optic cable with settings for (Passthrough) to my Yamaha 7.1 Amp.MOBO Gigabyte Ga-K8NXP-SLI
CPU AMD Athlon 64 FX-55
Cooler Gigabyte 3D CoolBlue Ultra Gt
PSU Thermaltake Purepower 650 Watt
MEMORY 4xCorsair 512Mb 3200XMS PRO Tracer Ram/Dual channel 2-2-2-5
Video 2xBFG 6800GT OC PCIE W/Serials in order
HDD 2xWD-74 GB Raptor HDD/Raid(0)configged
2xMaxtor 300 GB SATA HDD
OPTICAL 2xPlextor PX716SA-SATA 16xDual Layer+-DVDRW-48xCDR
CASE Lian-Li P60 W/clear side panel
MODS 4 Blu 80mm/1 Blu 92mm(roof/exh)& 4 Blu Cold Cathode Lite Strips
MONITOR Sony SDM-P234 23" 1920x1200 native
SOUND Creative Audigy-4 Pro,YamahaDSP-A3090 7.1ch amp/Boston Micro90 spks/Bose AM-5 W/Sub
ADD-ON MSI TV@nywhere Personal Cinema FX5200 TV/FM tuner
Tatunkhamon - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
I admit this is slightly OT, but as I first got excited about the possible DD-encoding feature on the MSI-mobo and then let down by the obvious lack of it, I was happy to find these news:http://news.designtechnica.com/article6709.html
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000683034067/
I know many of us don't like the DRM/HDCP-features of HDMI, but HDMI certainly is the way to transmit high-definition, multichannel audio *without the need* to compress ie. encode to DD. And live content, such as games, would not probably have the copyprotection flags on, anyway. Of course, getting enough coverage for HDMI in both h/w and s/w will take time, but I bet this is the way it's ment to be played in the near future.
For example, think about combining this with s/w generated mc-audio and Intel HDA. No need for badly implemented codec/DAC in this model. Of this combined with discreete graphics card and the audio generated with the help of vector processing on the card.. I just hope Intel/Nvidia/ATI/whoever would start a strong enough, open standard to compete with EAX. Then Creative would either have to run, fast, or join their forces.
Meanwhile, because there is not much HDMI-support (except for the earlier, non- multichannel-high-def-audio-supported HDMI-standard, for mainly graphics) some solution providing DD-encoding to be sent over standard S/PDIF would still be very, very desired for many of us.
I end this thread-hijacking attempt here and apologize if being OT. Now back to our regular programming... :)
Wbr, Tatu