MSI
K9AGM2:
Although
there are no decent product shots on the K9AGM2
box, MSI do provide a reasonable list of features.
On the front there is a note of the boards Vista
compatibility and silent operation. Also noted
is the inclusion of an HDMI socket. On the rear
of the box MSI have noted the main features, however
they don’t go into any great detail. Overall,
a rather uncompelling package and it’s a
shame in 2007 that MSI have adorned the box with
a corny spaceship image in the attempt to sell
the product.
The
bundle MSI provide is just the essentials. There
is a single SATA cable, single IDE cable, SATA
power converter, I/O shield, software CD and manuals.
The Manual is well written and clear however the
overall bundle really doesn’t do anything
for us.
If there is one thing which
can be said for the K9AGM2 it is that the board
is very cleanly designed and laid out. Despite
it being a Micro-ATX product the board layout
is not cramped. We have 2 PCI slots, 1 PCIe 16x
and a single 1x PCIe slot. A wise decision has
been made by MSI on the placement of the connectors
and if a dual slot graphics card is installed
the single 1x PCIe will not be blocked, very future
proof. Drive connectivity is via the floppy, single
IDE and 4 SATA ports. As with all IDE sockets
2 drives are supported (up to UDMA 133) and the
SB600 chipset allows for SATA 2 and raid 0,1 and
0+1. AM2 versions of AMD’s Athlon 64 X2,
Athlon 64, Athlon FX and Sempron are all compatible.
As
shown above the board features 2 memory slots,
dual channel enabled, which support speeds up
to DDR2-800 and users can install up to 4 GB in
these slots. Audio comes in the form of Realtek's
ALC888 HD chipset providing 7.1 audio out, all
very impressive however it’s the Northbridge,
and its graphics capabilities which make this
board stand out from competitors chipsets...
The
690G chipset used on the K9AGM2 uses a graphics
core derived from the Radeon X700; it is an 80nm
part and has 4 pixel pipelines with 2 vertex shaders
(In some places it is referred to as the X1250).
Although the chipset is Vista Premium certified
and does allow the use of Aero the X700 is not
a DirectX10 part, it is DX9. The big feature comes
in the video out department with the inclusion
of VGA port and onboard HDMI. This allows easy
connection to a HDTV and supports 1080p playback
as well as audio, the performance of which we
shall look at later in the review.
The
BIOS used by MSI is the American Megatrends version
and should be immediately familiar to most people.
Whilst most MSI products offer many configuration
options this board is particularly plain and clearly
isn’t meant for those who want to exploit
the over clocking potential of their components.
We do have options to change the memory timings,
but not voltage, and onboard graphics memory size
is configurable however other than monitoring
of the voltages and temperatures there really
won’t be any need for a user to enter the
bios more than once or twice.
