MSI K9N SLI Platinum

Richard's Thoughts:

Don't be too overwhelmed by the features: some are, in my opinion, non-feature features. I wouldn't recommend the use of RAID5 on any motherboard unless I had a discrete solution because you will lose your RAID array if the motherboard dies. You cannot migrate your data should you upgrade either. Having said that though, the six native SATA ports are very useful, and the board still has an IDE connector for a couple of DVD drives. If you don't fancy using SLI then the second PCI-Express x16 slot can accommodate a high-quality PCI-Express RAID controller, for example.

I am a big fan of High-Definition audio as an on-board solution, so I am pleased to see that MSI has used the Realtek ALC883 codec on the K9N SLI Platinum. Although it isn't the all bells and whistles Dolby Master Studio version, it still has useful multichannel audio tools, but this standard version doesn't offer Dolby Digital or DTS features like the ALC883D and ALC883DTS respectively. Whilst I wouldn't use Gigabit Ethernet personally, and there are still few home routers able to buy with it on, more LAN parties are using Gigabit networking now so you can't sniff at having a couple of them to boot.

I'm also a big fan of the way MSI has made the K9N SLI Platinum look but there are annoying niggles with the layout. The cluster of power connectors between the CPU socket top PCI-Express x16 slot could cause problems if you are using a large aftermarket heatsink. Also, there are a line of capacitors that are very close to the CPU socket and could cause the same problems. Finally, the MCP heatsink also just irradiates heat into the graphics card heatsinks too, rather than removing heat away from the area via a heatpipe.

All in all, the K9N SLI Platinum is kitted out very well, considering it's around £100 from Dabs and $130 from Newegg plus delivery, you get a lot for your money. In comparison, the ECS KA3 MVP Extreme costs around the same price and comes with two full-bandwidth PCI-Express x16 slots. However, the SB600 southbridge only has four SATA 3Gbps ports and no support for RAID5 if an on-board solution is an attraction.

It's worth noting that the MSI K9N SLI Platinum is effectively as fast as the more expensive nForce 590 SLI boards in many of the scenarios we've tested. Having a set of full-bandwidth PCI-Express x16 lanes for SLI seems to make little noticeable difference in the real world, so why pay the extra for an NVIDIA 590 SLI or lose out on a couple of extra SATA ports and RAID5 if you buy an ATI RD580/SB600 combination? Well, NVIDIA claims that the nForce 570 SLI chipset isn't as overclockable as its flagship nForce 590 SLI chipset, so that may be something worth considering.

As this year has progressed, there has been a move to provide a lot more multi-GPU consumer choice within the budget performance market: providing a greater range of features at less cost to the consumer. The K9N SLI Platinum has a solid range of features, but is marred by the few layout issues and questionable MCP heatsink, so despite it being a fantastically performing board it’s going to make it that much harder for MSI in a highly competitive market.

Tim's Thoughts:

We had some problems right out of the blocks with the first MSI K9N SLI Platinum that we tested. The early board revision that we had did not allow us to set our memory timings anywhere near as aggressively as we have on other nForce 500-series motherboards - the best timings that we managed on the first board was 3.0-4-4-9-2T. Whether or not we forced a 1T command rate, CPU-Z 1.35 still reported a 2T command rate. However, unlike using the 2T timing, the board was very unstable when 1T was selected (whether or not it was running at 1T).

We spoke to MSI about these problems and it said that the problem may well be down to the board revision. As far as we are aware, there have been a total of seven board revisions on the K9N SLI Platinum - the second board that we tested was the latest board revision (v1.1 - 060).

Although we are not sure what has been changed between board revisions, the v1.1 board was much more receptive and there were no major problems to report when using the board at its default clock speeds - the difference was almost night and day. We were able to get the memory timings down to 3.0-3-3-9-1T at DDR2-800 - a feat that was impossible to achieve on the earlier revision.

Both boards were subjected to the bit-tech stress test at the default clock speeds with the tightest memory timings we were able to attain. The first board was stable, but we encountered an issue with IOMeter - the application crashed after around 20 hours. I ran a chkdsk on the drive to check that it was healthy and then restarted the stress period again.

The second time around, I didn't encounter such problems and the board successfully completed 24 hours of stress testing. When I got hold of the later board revision, I also subjected that to another 24-hour stress test - the board came through flawlessly with no problems to report. Based on the fact that I've put two different boards through three separate stress tests, I think that it is fair to say that the first failure can be put down to a freak incident - there could be any number of reasons why the board failed and I am not in the business of speculating.

Again, both boards were overclocked - I shot for 'Max HTT clock' and 'Max CPU clock' using the 600MHz (3.0x) HTT divider as we normally do. Neither board was particularly good at overclocking and I spent many-an-hour trying to get to the bottom of this one. Whenever I overclocked the two boards above a 234MHz HTT clock (this compares to the 280MHz HTT we achieved on the Foxconn and 350MHz HTT on the ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe WiFi Edition), the USB 2.0 would just stop working. I didn't understand why the mouse wasn't working at first, so I grabbed a second mouse out of the cupboard - it didn't work. I then tried a USB 2.0 key to no avail.

I tried both an Athlon 64 FX-62 and an Athlon 64 X2 5000+ in the board using the 8.0x, 9.0x, 10.0x and 13.0x CPU dividers. At 8.0x, 9.0x and 10.0x, I managed to get the board running at 234MHz HTT with working USB ports and 238MHz without any USB - anything above that resulted in either intermittent POSTs or a complete failure to POST. I tried shooting for 250MHz, 275MHz and 300MHz straight off without any luck too. With the 13.0x multiplier, I managed to reach a CPU clock of 3021MHz (13x232 set in BIOS) on the Athlon 64 FX-62, which is as high as we have seen. However, the high CPU clock isn't much use if you have not got a CPU with a high multiplier.

Rounding Up...

MSI has created an exceptionally fast and robust nForce 570 SLI motherboard with a good price if you are looking to run the board at stock speeds. However, there are some layout issues related to the positioning of power sockets and the MCP heatsink that may sway your buying decision. Budding overclockers should look elsewhere.

We will be looking at another nForce 570 SLI motherboard in the near future.