MSI - MSI K8N Neo Platinum Edition nForce3 250Gb Motherboard Review

Arguably, the nForce2 is the best chipset for the 32-bit generation of AMD Athlon processors with excellent performance and features like a dual-channel memory mode, an AGP/PCI lock, Firewire and SoundStorm technology. For this particular reason, the nForce3 was disappointing on its debut. It didn’t feature new technologies like Serial-ATA or Gigabit LAN and lacked the performance due to its 8-bit/600MHz HyperTransport bus implementation. nVidia defended itself by announcing that the nF3-150 chipset should be considered as an interim chipset and we should wait for the nForce3-250 before writing it off. That time has come and over the next few weeks, we shall see motherboards based on the nForce3-250 chipset popping up on retail shelves. We take a look at one of the first such boards- the MSI K8N Neo Platinum Edition and that shouldn’t come as a big surprise as MSI is one of the biggest nVidia customers.

…Performance-wise, the nForce3-250Gb in its current form doesn’t really bring anything to the table. We’ll have to wait for the dual channel version of the chipset to probably see some notable improvement in that area. With that said, the nForce3-250Gb does brings a lot more otherwise. The MSI K8T Neo based on this chipset is loaded with features like Gigabit LAN and SATA/RAID supported by the chipset. Overclocking is also pretty good although we feel MSI could’ve added some more options in that department. Lastly, Stability was not an issue at all with the K8N Neo Platinum- we didn’t meet a single crash or reboot.

t-break Score: 87/100 - Recommended Product

MSI K8N Neo Platinum Edition @ t-break