Advantages: Easy to install, reliable and cheap for such a high quality product. Disadvantages: Oddly placed FDD header
The MSIK9NNeo-F
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I've never written a motherboard review before so I hope I cover everything you need to know.
AVAILABILITY:
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This item should be in the £40-£50 price range.
It is I would consider a higher mid range board.
Specs:
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ATX
This is an ATX sized motherboard. It will fit in midi or full sized tower cases. It will not fit in mini ATX cases.
Processor = SOCKET AM2
This is a Socket AM2 motherboard.
For: AMD ATHLON 64's, Semprons And Athlon dual cores aka X2's.
RAM = DDR2
This board supports the 240 pin DDR 2 standard. It will take PC4200 PC5300 & PC6400 sticks of ram.
PCIE Graphics.
This will take a PCIE x16 Graphics card. It will not work with AGP cards. PCIE is the more recent technology.
Chipset ...
Advantages: Well planned layout, good spec Disadvantages: none really
When I burnt my other mainboard out (an aging p2 MSI variant) I needed something urgently to replace it - being mid program.
So, off I went to my usual websites, and spotted this. It seemed to have reasonable reviews, so i purchased one not thinking it'd be hugely special, just reliable and simple.
Boy, was I suprised!
First off, its well laid out - everything is accessable, labelled and well explained in the manual.
Second of all, its thoughtfully spec'd. rather than clutter the board with the aging IDE ports, they've put a bank of SATA connectors, and only one IDE for a floppy drive (should you install one!).
Furthermore, the onboard chipset is cooled quietly, wires don't need a huge stretch to fit into the appropriate port, and the colour coding is clear, rather than all the same boring beige.
In use, the board is, quite ...
Advantages: Cheap Mid range motherboard Disadvantages: No software included
Dont know where to start with this motherboard really its a half decent motherboard if you have £60 or less to spend but if you can go an extra £15 / £20 more I would go for the platinum its a much better motherboard.
Audio quality is good from the onboard sound but if you are an audiophile I would pay out the extra money to buy stand alone card.
I also found as with most motherboards that when a graphics card is in it is very awkward to add and remove ram.
It was easy to set up and install all the drivers however when I upgraded to vista I had to search th eweb to get the new vista drivers.
In the BIOS there is also a Cell menu which allows you to overclock you CPU and RAM etc. etc. Also there wasnt really much bundled with the motherboard a few cables SATA, 4 pin powercables, also a SLI bridge.
Cheap and cheerfull. ...
Product Information for "MSI K9N Neo-F V3 - motherboard - ATX - nForce 560" »
Audio
Audio Output
Sound card
Audio Codec
Realtek ALC888
Sound Output Mode
7.1 channel surround
Compliant Standards
High Definition Audio
Telecom / networking
Networking
Network adapter - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet
Features
BIOS Features
DMI support, MSI Dynamic Overclocking Technology (D.O.T.), RAID support
Hardware Features
AMD Cool 'n' Quiet Technology
Manufacturer's product description
MSI, Micro-Star International, keeps the principle of "award-winning product quality and outstanding customer service". "Quality Products Create Faithful Customers" is a motto that guides all that MSI does. MSI's talented team carries out its work with the latest research equipment, continuing to raise the bar on product quality and innovative product features.
Related tags for MSI K9N Neo-F V3 - motherboard - ATX - nForce 560 »
