Board Layout

In following with MSI tradition, the K7N2G-ILSR sports a red PCB. In fact, not only is the board itself red, so is the AGP slot. This gives the board a snazzier look than the tan or green motherboards we’re used to seeing, and really looks good when paired with a red ATI or MSI card. If you really want to get your color coordination on, you can go with Muskin’s high performance PC3200 memory, which utilizes a red heat spreader.

Capacitors close to the CPU socket, ATX power connectors

Actve cooling on the nForce2 IGP

Aesthetics aside, we also see that the board ships with an additional ATX12V power connector. MSI is the only nForce2 motherboard manufacturer that we’re aware of that provides the additional power connector, which should provide the CPU with additional power if it needs it. The location of power connectors is on the left side of the CPU interface, which means that the power cord must lurk very close to the fan blades of the CPU cooler. Besides this danger, there’s also the problem of constricted airflow near the CPU.

Unfortunately, this is a dilemma that we’ve noticed on many nForce2 motherboards, so the K7N2G-ILSR is not unique, but at the very least we would preferred to see the ATX power connector on the other side of the CPU socket. Preferably MSI should have placed the connector on the right edge of the motherboard, behind the DIMM sockets.

Looking around the CPU interface itself, you can see a bank of capacitors that reside very close to the CPU socket. Fortunately, there’s just enough room to install larger heatsinks, and we also see that MSI has placed heatsinks on its voltage regulators. This is an added bonus that you don’t see on many motherboards and should come in handy when the system is under additional load, say for instance when overclocking.

Plenty of space between the DIMMs and AGP

AGP retention mechanism

MSI has also implemented an active cooling solution on the nForce2 IGP, keeping temperatures in check around the upper portion of the motherboard. With even the SPP variant of the nForce2 chipset getting fairly hot under load, we can only imagine how much hotter the IGP chip gets with its integrated graphics controller. With a hot device like the CPU right next to it, and the graphics card (another hot component) beneath, the active cooler on the IGP is a very good feature for MSI to include on the K7N2G-ILSR.

Unfortunately, MSI only includes two fan headers on the K7N2G-ILSR board, and one of those headers is used for the aforementioned fan on the nForce2 IGP. This leaves end users with one fan header, which must be used for the CPU cooler. As a result, this board effectively ships without any additional cooling support.

Fortunately, MSI provides a wealth of space between the DIMM sockets and the AGP slot. In comparison to other motherboards we’ve seen, you could taxi a 747 between the devices. MSI has placed the IDE connectors across from the last three PCI slots, which means you will have to stretch your IDE cables a little more than normal.