MSI K9N
Platinum
The package of the MSI K9N Platinum is still a simple
box, but the design is a bit more attractive than
the previous two. The bundle that MSI provides with
the K9N Platinum is again distinctly average. MSI
is the only company who provide rounded IDE and floppy
cables. There are also 4 SATA cables and two Molex
to SATA power converters. There are two back panels,
one for two extra USB ports and one for Firewire ports.
There is a typical drivers CD but no storage driver
floppy disks. The manual and the quick start guide
are well written and satisfactory.
MSI also used a black PCB for the K9N Platinum.
The K9N Platinum has two PCI-E VGA ports but cannot
support SLI. The MSI K9N Platinum SLI does support
SLI as the name suggests and also shares the same
layout and costs a bit more.
The
second PCI-E slot can be used only for dual display
here, if your second video card supports 1X mode.
The layout of the MSI K9N Platinum is not bad, but
it could be improved. The DIMM slots are not only
close to the CPU socket, which will create problems
if the slots next to the CPU socket are populated
(and you want to use a large cooler), but they are
also close to the PCI-E slot. In order to install
modules in the orange slots the video card will
probably have to be removed if the board is average
or larger.
The
IDE connector is also placed right next to the ATX/EPS
connector, towards the inside of the motherboard.
If the ATX connector was to the inside, it wouldn’t
be a problem at all, but with the IDE connector
being to the inside there will be a lot of unnecessary
cable clutter. Negatives aside, are also good things
with the K9N Platinum, such as the clear CMOS button.
You won’t have to switch any jumper in order
to clear the CMOS; just press this button and it’s
done. The K9N Platinum is cooled by a short but
long chipset cooler and a large single piece nickel
plated MOSFET cooler.
The
last PCI slot of the motherboard is orange and is
the only PCI slot which can accommodate the special
MSI dual PCI cards, but it can also take any common
PCI device as well. Finally, the back panel of the
motherboard is the richest one, with not only legacy
parallel and serial ports present, but even a Firewire
connector and both Coaxial and Optical sound outputs.
The BIOS of the MSI K9N Platinum is the simplest,
but we cannot consider it poor. The BIOS MSI built
for the K9N Platinum is the exact opposite of the
one Asus chose; it has very wide voltage ranges
but poor RAM tweak options. The RAM timings and
tweaks control is pretty basic, so the power hungry
enthusiast should look elsewhere.
The
CPU voltage can be set up to 1.7V which should be
adequate for most users, and the DDR-2 RAM voltage
can be set up to 2.45V. The PC health screen could
use some more work, as it displays only two basic
temperatures, two fan readings and only the 4 basic
voltage lines.
