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NVIDIA nForce3 Ultra Shootout: Gigabyte vs MSI October 01, 2004 Brandon Sandman Bell |
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Summary: With the introduction of 939-pin Athlon 64 3000+ and 3200+ CPUs last month, AMD's Socket 939 interface has become attractive not only to the performance crowd, but those on a budget as well. With this in mind we've gathered the top two nForce3 Ultra motherboards on the market right now, Gigabyte's K8NSNXP-939 and MSI's K8N Neo2 Platinum. Both boards provide bus speeds in excess of 400MHz, support dynamic overclocking capability, and list dual LAN among their list of features, but which motherboard is right for you? Find out in this article!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 15 ) |
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Like other 939-pin processors, these chips feature a 128-bit (or dual-channel as AMD likes to call it) memory controller with 512KB of L2 cache and a 1GHz (2.0GHz effective) HyperTransport interface.
The 939-pin Athlon 64 3000+ is clocked at 1.8GHz, 200MHz slower than the 754-pin version, while the 939-pin Athlon 64 3200+ runs at 2.0GHz. Both chips officially sell for under $200, making them relatively inexpensive upgrade options.
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On the chipset front, VIA’s K8T800 Pro has gotten off to a buggy start. Early motherboards based on this chipset didn’t have a functional AGP/PCI lock, which is crucial for successful overclocking. On the other hand, NVIDIA’s nForce3 chipsets have had an AGP/PCI lock for some time; NVIDIA’s latest nForce3 Ultra is no exception. In addition, nForce3 Ultra supports additional features such as a true native Gigabit Ethernet solution with built-in Firewall support for added security, and NVIDIA’s more flexible IDE implementation, which includes cross-controller and spare drive support. Cross-controller support allows you to build a RAID array consisting of both parallel ATA and Serial ATA hard drives, while spare drive adds added backup capability in the case of RAID 1 or RAID 0+1 arrays.
These added features are important, as the Athlon 64’s integrated memory controller has largely removed one critical equation consumers have considered in the past when choosing a system chipset: performance. Thanks largely to its integrated dual-channel memory controller, nForce2 was able to consistently outperform all other Athlon XP chipsets. With Athlon 64, the performance delta between VIA and NVIDIA’s offerings has narrowed, features, stability/compatibility, and price have become more important.
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Therefore, we’ve decided to take two of the top nForce3 Ultra motherboards, MSI’s K8N Neo2 Platinum Edition, and Gigabyte’s GA-K8NSNXP-939 and pitch them against one another. Both of these motherboards are loaded with features, including dual LAN and 8-channel audio, making them popular upgrade choices among enthusiasts looking for the best. We’ll do our best to compare and contrast the differences between the two in this shootout article.
| Features: MSI | Page:: ( 2 / 15 ) |
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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.
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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.
| Gigabyte features | Page:: ( 3 / 15 ) |
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For instance, while both motherboards support Firewire, Gigabyte goes one step beyond MSI by supporting the newer IEEE-1394b standard. IEEE-1394a is limited to theoretical transfer rates of up to 400MB/sec, while IEEE-1394b peaks at up to 800MB/sec. The K8NSNXP-939 is the first Athlon 64 motherboard we’re aware of to support this feature. Gigabyte also doubles up on the number of Firewire ports with their K8NSNXP-939, providing both mini-1394 (for devices like camcorders) and a full-sized port. The K8NSNXP-939 also includes out-of-the-box support for up to eight USB devices, four on the board’s back plate, and four via external headers. MSI’s K8N Neo2 Platinum on the other hand is limited to six (four via back plate, and two on an external header).
Like MSI, Gigabyte also includes a few goodies with the K8NSNXP-939, although you don’t get round IDE and floppy cables. Instead, Gigabyte provides a two-port Serial ATA header inside the board’s packaging.
One of Serial ATA’s advantages is that it’s hot-swappable, meaning you can connect or disconnect Serial ATA drives without turning off your system. By providing an external Serial ATA header in the board’s packaging, K8NSNXP-939 owners can plug in and remove Serial ATA devices without having to reach inside their system case!
Since nForce3 only provides dual Serial ATA controllers (one device per controller), Silicon Image’s Sil 3512 controller is used to power two of the K8NSNXP-939’s four Serial ATA ports.
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Perhaps the feature Gigabyte is most famous for is DualBIOS. DualBIOS refers to the two BIOS chips Gigabyte includes on the K8NSNXP-939. In case the primary BIOS is damaged during an improper BIOS flash or corrupted by a malicious virus, the second BIOS kicks in, where it can be used to repair the original BIOS before going back to its backup role. This form of double security is unique to Gigabyte’s motherboards.
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Another additional feature that sets Gigabyte motherboards apart from others is their dual power supply system, more commonly known as DPS. By integrating a second power source on the motherboard, Gigabyte supplies the CPU with more power than other manufacturers. The built-in DPS Gold module on the K8NSNXP-939 makes it the only Athlon 64 motherboard on the market with a 6-Phase power solution. With faster processors consuming increasing amounts of power, this feature could potentially come in handy in the future.
Starting with the K8NSNXP-939, Gigabyte has integrated the DPS module directly on the motherboard. This change was made to improve airflow around the CPU. The fan on the DPS module is quiet, Gigabyte uses a ducted design to cool the VRM circuitry more effectively.
| Board layout | Page:: ( 4 / 15 ) |
While both motherboards are based on the same chipset, they vary wildly in board designs. Gigabyte uses a more traditional orientation, with the memory sockets flanking the right side of the motherboard, just behind the IDE/floppy connectors, with the CPU socket in the center, and their DPS module along the left side of the board, directly behind the back plate. MSI on the other hand places the DIMM sockets on the top of the board; with the CPU socket rotated 90 degrees off-axis in comparison to NVIDIA’s reference design. On both boards, the nForce3 chip is actively cooled with a small, quiet heatsink/fan unit.
One interesting enhancement Gigabyte has added to the K8NSNXP-939 is the orientation of the nForce3 Ultra chip. Rather than placing it perpendicular to the PCI slots, Gigabyte rotates it towards the AGP interface. This change frees up more room between the components. Gigabyte also uses an AGP retention mechanism that’s much easier to operate.
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On the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, the AGP interface and nForce3 chip are located so close to one another that removing the graphics card is a difficult procedure – there just isn’t enough room to get your finger between the components to press down on the AGP retention mechanism and release the graphics card. Two slot cards like GeForce FX 5900 Ultra and GeForce 6800 Ultra were even more difficult to remove. We found that the best workaround for the MSI board was to use a flat-head screwdriver to manipulate the AGP retention mechanism. Gigabyte refers to their unique design as EZ-Fix.
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Interestingly enough, both motherboards have Serial ATA ports located between the CPU interface and the AGP slot. This location isn’t exactly ideal, as you’d like to have a clear area for better airflow between both components – they are the hottest running components within your system after all. MSI one ups Gigabyte in the sense that their primary Serial ATA ports are located along the right edge of the motherboard (which is the more traditional location) whereas the primary nForce3-powered Serial ATA ports on the Gigabyte are right in between the graphics card and CPU.
Both manufacturers color code their case connectors, as well as the connectors for both Serial ATA and Firewire headers. This makes installation of these devices a breeze, especially for novices that are new to motherboard installation.
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CPU installation was trouble-free on both motherboards as well, although the Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 has a bank of capacitors directly above the CPU socket that some may feel is a little too close for comfort. We didn’t have any problems though.
All things considered, we have to give the board design edge to Gigabyte, mainly due to their EZ-Fix design. When you have to remove and install new components as often as we do, EZ-Fix makes a huge difference. Hopefully NVIDIA will incorporate a little more space between the chipset and the board’s expansion slots in future products, rotating the chipset isn’t a bad idea either.
| BIOS interface | Page:: ( 5 / 15 ) |
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As you probably know, the advanced chipset features menu is used to tweak memory timings. Lower memory timings yield better system performance, but if your components aren’t up to snuff, can lead to system instability, or prevent your system from booting up entirely. Because of this, Gigabyte apparently doesn’t want newbies digging around in this menu. Fortunately it can be brought up instantly by pressing “Ctrl F1”. This philosophy of limiting users access shows up in other areas of Gigabyte’s BIOS.
For instance, CPU voltages are limited to just 1.7V in increments of 0.05V. On the memory side, options of only 0.1V and 0.2V are present, while AGP and HyperTransport are limited to 0.1V, 0.2V, and 0.3V over default. This means you’re limited to just 2.7V for memory.
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In Gigabyte’s defense, the more voltage you add to these components, the more heat they generate, which over time can shorten their lifetime if the problem isn’t addressed appropriately. By limiting voltages, Gigabyte prevents this from occurring at the cost of you potentially overclocking your system even further. In essence, Gigabyte’s protecting you from yourself. This is probably a good thing if you’re an inexperienced overclocker, or your system is inadequately cooled, but experienced tweakers and overclockers probably don’t like this. Fortunately Gigabyte provides a ton of bus options, with settings ranging from 200-455MHz in 1MHz increments, so if you’re lucky and you happen to pick up a processor that scales to higher clock speeds without needing a lot of juice, the K8NSNXP-939 will suit you well. Gigabyte also provides AGP speeds of 66-100MHz in 1MHz increments.
For newbies or inexperienced overclockers, Gigabyte provides one additional setting “Top Performance”. We found that enabling this setting overclocks your processor 100MHz, so our Athlon 64 3800+ automatically became a 2.5GHz chip.
The hardcore crowd will feel right at home with MSI’s K8N Neo2 Platinum BIOS. In contrast to Gigabyte, this BIOS is built for tweaking. You’ve got the same bus speed options (provided you download the latest BIOS from MSI’s website), while the AGP interface can be configured to run between 66-100MHz in 1MHz increments.
Voltages are greater on the MSI board as well. CPU voltages range from 1.55V-1.85V in 0.05V increments, while memory voltages of up to 2.85V are available. For tweaking AGP voltage, settings from 1.5V-1.85V are present. HyperTransport voltage is notably absent, but that’s the only setting that isn’t available on the K8N Neo2 Platinum.
If manual tweaking isn’t for you, MSI also provides their Core Cell technology. MSI’s Core Cell chip monitors fan speeds, voltages, and temperatures. Based on this information, Core Cell can dynamically adjust the speed of your processor. Six presets for overclocking are available, offering levels of 1%, 3%, 5%, 7%, 9%, and 11%.
By providing more manual tweaking options for enthusiasts, and a more flexible implementation for less experienced users MSI gets the nod over Gigabyte in BIOS implementation.
| Test systems | Page:: ( 6 / 15 ) |
System Setup
AMD Athlon 64 3800+
Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
1GB OCZ EL DDR400 Platinum Edition Rev 2
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT reference card
Driver version 65.76
250GB Maxtor Hard Drive Maxline III SATA Hard Drive w/16MB Cache
Windows XP Professional SP1
DirectX 9.0c
Benchmarks
Lock On: Modern Air Combat (Mig-29 custom demo)
Unreal Tournament 2004 (T3 custom demo)
IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles (The Black Death track)
Splinter Cell (FS custom demo)
Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (Beyond3D custom demo)
Halo: Combat Evolved (stock benchmark)
Far Cry 1.2 (custom demo for mp_jungle, SM2.0b and SM3.0 paths used)
DOOM 3 (gameplay custom demo)
| IL-2 | Page:: ( 7 / 15 ) |
IL-2 Sturmovik: FB - OpenGL
| LOMAC | Page:: ( 8 / 15 ) |
Lock On: Modern Air Combat – Direct3D
| UT 2004 | Page:: ( 9 / 15 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2004
| Splinter Cell | Page:: ( 10 / 15 ) |
Splinter Cell – Direct3D
| Tomb Raider | Page:: ( 11 / 15 ) |
Tomb Raider – Direct3D
| Halo | Page:: ( 12 / 15 ) |
Halo – Direct3D
| Far Cry | Page:: ( 13 / 15 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| DOOM 3 | Page:: ( 14 / 15 ) |
DOOM 3 – OpenGL
| Conclusion | Page:: ( 15 / 15 ) |
Both of these motherboards are packed with features. MSI provides dual Gigabit LAN on their K8N Neo2 Platinum, but keep in mind that the second network controller is PCI-bound so you won’t come anywhere near its theoretical peaks, while the Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939’s second controller is 10/100. Gigabyte provides a more powerful Firewire implementation by adopting an IEEE-1394b controller from Texas Instruments, you’ve also got more USB ports available with the Gigabyte board. For these reasons, we gave the features edge to MSI, although we do like the fact that MSI continues to provide round cables with their motherboards.
The board layout of both motherboards is pretty good; you won’t find any deal breakers in the design of either board. MSI orients some of their components a bit differently, but we didn’t find these changes helped or hurt the motherboard when it comes to component installation (although we did like their Serial ATA port locations a bit better). Gigabyte’s EZ-Fix AGP slot design gave the K8NSNXP-939 an edge over the K8N Neo2 Platinum. Removing dual-slot graphics cards like the GeForce 6800 Ultra was a real pain on the MSI board. If you haven’t had a chance to look at our images of the 6800 Ultra installed on the MSI motherboard, you really should flip back to page four and take a look at them.
The real strength of the K8N Neo2 Platinum is its BIOS interface. Core Cell provides a nice variety of options for inexperienced users who want to know what all the fuss concerning overclocking is all about, while the Neo2 Platinum’s BIOS still provides a ton of settings for manual overclocking. In fact, it seems as if MSI adds more tweaking options with each BIOS release. Whether you’re a hardcore hardware enthusiast with tons of experience, or a newbie looking to get your feet wet, the BIOS MSI provides with the K8N Neo2 Platinum is likely to please you. Advantage: MSI.
This brings us to our final factor we take into consideration, price. Here, MSI comes out ahead.
Whereas K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboards can be found online at prices starting between $130-$140 from reputable vendors, the lowest prices we found for the Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 start at $180, and work all the way up to over $200. Take for instance Newegg and ZipZoomFly. The K8N Neo2 Platinum currently sells for $134 on Newegg, and $135 at ZipZoom. In comparison, the K8NSNXP-939 is priced at $205 on Newegg and $209 at ZipZoomFly!
For that $70, you could buy another 512MB CAS3 DDR400 memory, or put that money towards a better graphics upgrade. Sure, the faster Firewire, 2-port Serial ATA header, 6-phase power circuitry, and extra ports the Gigabyte motherboard provides are nice, but are they worth the extra money? For the consumer who wants the most feature-packed motherboard on the market, yes, the Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 is without equal.
But if you want an nForce3 Ultra motherboard that delivers solid performance with a good feature set and extensive BIOS, MSI’s K8N Neo2 Platinum is the clear winner, earning our choice for top pick in this shootout article.