MSI - MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum Socket-939 nForce3 250Gb Motherboard Review

MSI had a solid board in their K8N Neo and we’re glad to see that not much has changed with the K8N Neo2. As we’ve seen in the past, the nForce 3 250Gb was a solid chipset, and not too much has changed thankfully with the Socket-939 implementation. One change is the addition of the secondary NIC. The Realtek NIC adds an additional Gigabit port to the rear IO panel, and as we’ve seen, performs quite well. The dual NICs and hardware NVIDIA FireWall makes the K8N Neo2 an interesting choice if you’re looking to build a home or small business router/FireWall. The other change is the obvious one, and that’s the move to the Socket-939 platform.

We’ve had very few problems with the board throughout testing. The K8N Neo2 was very stable during testing, and outside of overclocking past 216FSB, we did not experience any lockups or any other odd behavior. We did initially have some problems with online video games not being able to connect, but this was corrected by configuring the onboard FireWall. All of the onboard peripherals are of decent quality, and they should be sufficient for most people’s needs. The storage options are decent, but I would have liked to have seen an additional controller in case there are users who need more RAID options. Omitting this does cut down on the overall cost of the board though, and if you do need an additional controller, you can always add a PCI card.

Pros: Excellent stability, great performance, NVIDIA Firewall, PCI/AGP locks.
Cons: Decent but not great OC experiences. Poor CMOS reset position.
Bottom Line: The Socket-939 is a step in the right direction for AMD, and the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum would make a fine choice if that is the path you’re looking to take. Whether the FX or non-FX version of the Athlon 64 is your cup of tea, this motherboard can swing both ways.
Viper Lair Recommended Award

MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum @ Viper Lair