Features: MSI

MSI backplate

Color-coded case connectors

We’ll start off this shootout article by comparing both boards on the basis of feature set. As we just mentioned, both motherboards do very well in this category, with enough features to please just about any hardcore gamer or hardware enthusiast.

For instance, MSI includes round IDE and floppy cables in the packaging of their K8N Neo2 Platinum. The ends of the IDE cable are even clearly labeled “Master”, “Slave”, and “System”, so you know where to plug in the cables. We like this, as even though Serial ATA hard drives are becoming increasingly popular, you can always go back and install the round cables MSI includes with their motherboards on older systems you may have lying around the house.

MSI continues to provide diagnostic LEDs on their D-Bracket 2. MSI’s D-Bracket 2 serves two functions, one is USB header, the D-Bracket 2 has 2 USB headers built into it. Second is its diagnostic LED display. A bank of four LEDs will shine in certain light combinations during system boot-up. Each combination is unique and can be looked up in the motherboard’s manual. So if your motherboard fails to boot-up during memory initialization, the LEDs will shine appropriately and you’ll know instantly what’s wrong – your memory isn’t installed correctly.

Core Cell, Firewire, and BIOS chips

Realtek LAN

Southern end of the MSI board

The K8N Neo2 Platinum sports dual LAN controllers, Marvell’s 88E1111 serves as the physical layer to NVIDIA’s MAC. Remember, NVIDIA’s Gigabit Ethernet Media Access Control (MAC) sports a dedicated 2Gbps bi-directional link (1.25Gbps actual each way to compensate for Ethernet overhead/1.0Gbps effective), so you’re getting true GigE performance from NVIDIA’s nForce3 chipset. The second Gigabit LAN controller comes from Realtek (the 8110S).

For storage connectivity, MSI’s K8N Neo2 Platinum supports up to four Serial ATA hard drives and/or four ATA133 devices. Meanwhile, VIA’s VT6306 provides Firewire support. VT6306 supports up to three devices, but unfortunately, only one port is provided out-of-the-box (on the board’s backplate).

On the audio side, Realtek’s ALC850 is used. ALC850 is one of the better audio CODECs on the market, with jack-sensing technology, and supports HRTF 3D positional audio, but it won’t be competing with any of the better external 8-channel audio cards anytime soon.