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Socket 939 Roundup: Battle at the Top

 by Wesley Fink on July 30, 2004 8:00 AM EST
83 Comments | Add A Comment
83 Comments

MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum: Overclocking and Stress Testing

FSB Overclocking Results

Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed
Processor: Athlon 64 FX53 Socket 939
2.4GHz
CPU Voltage: 1.5V (default)
Cooling: Thermaltake Silent Boost K8
Power Supply: Antec TruePower 430W
Maximum OC:
(Standard Ratios)		 204FSBx13
2652MHz (+10.5%)
Maximum FSB:
(Lower Ratio)		 290FSB x 9 (2610) at 1:1 Memory (+10%)

The K8N Neo2 allowed our DDR550 memory to reach the highest 1:1 performance that we have tested on any motherboard - P4 or A64. 290 Frequency (1160 FSB/HT) was the limit of our memory and the K8N reached it rather easily. By reducing the memory ratio a bit, we were right at the board limit of 300, and we could likely reach even higher OC levels with a wider range of frequency choices. The MSI K8N Neo2 was clearly the best overclocker of this roundup.

Memory Stress Test Results:

The memory stress test simply checks the ability of the K8N Neo2 to operate at its officially supported memory frequency (400MHz DDR), at the best performing memory timings that our Mushkin PC3500 Level 2 or OCZ PC3500 Platinum Ltd Modules will support. Memory stress testing was conducted by running RAM at 400MHz with 2 DIMM slots filled.

Stable DDR400 Timings - 2 DIMMs
(2/4 DIMMs - 1 Dual-Channel Bank)
Clock Speed: 200MHz
Timing Mode: N/A
CAS Latency: 2.0
Bank Interleave: N/A
RAS to CAS Delay: 2T
RAS Precharge: 10T*
Precharge Delay: 2T
Command Rate: 1T
*Several memory tests have shown that memory performs fastest on the nVidia nForce and VIA K8T800 chipsets at a TRas (RAS Precharge) setting in the 9 to 13 range. We ran our own Memory Bandwidth tests with memtest86, with TRas settings from 5 to 15 at a wide range of different memory speeds. The best bandwidth was consistently at 9 to 11 at every speed, with TRas 10 always in the best range at every speed. The memory bandwidth improvement at TRas 10 was only 2% to 4% over TRas 5 and 6 depending on the speed, but the performance advantage was consistent across all tests. Since best performance was achieved at 2-2-2-10 timings, all Athlon 64 benchmarks were run at a TRas setting of 10.


Like the other 939 motherboards in this roundup, the K8N Neo2 was completely stable with 2 DIMMs at the best performing settings of 2-2-2-10 at default speed and 2.6V default voltage. While a full memory comparison of the nVidia and VIA chipsets is beyond the scope of this roundup, we did run several SiSoft Sandra 2004 SP2 runs of the memory test module. At default settings, and the aggressive 2-2-2-10 timings on the FX53, the nF3-250 Ultra showed memory bandwidth in the 6100 range for FPU and Float. The same test on the VIA K8T800 PRO boards showed memory bandwidth in the 6000 range. Performance of both chipsets at the 1T setting was very similar. 2T Command Rates, with everything else the same, generated bandwidths of 4900 to 5000Mb/second.

Filling all four available memory slots is more strenuous on the memory subsystem than testing 2 DIMMs on a motherboard.

Stable DDR400 Timings - 4 DIMMs
(4/4 DIMMs - 2 Dual-Channel Banks)
Clock Speed: 200MHz
Timing Mode: N/A
CAS Latency: 2.0
Bank Interleave: N/A
RAS to CAS Delay: 2T
RAS Precharge: 10T*
Precharge Delay: 2T
Command Rate: 2T

The MSI K8N Neo2 was able to run with all 4 DIMM slots at the same aggressive 2-2-2-10 settings used for 2 DIMMs. However, as we have seen on the other 939 boards running all 4 DIMMs, Command Rate must be reduced to 2T when filling both Dual Channels.

MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum: Features and Layout MSI K8T Neo2-FIR: Features and Layout
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  • RyanVM - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link

    Also, networking benches would have been nice (throughput and CPU utilization). It would be interesting to see what kind of impact Gigabyte going with a 3rd party ethernet controller has in comparison to the MSI board using the NF3's controller.

    On a somewhat related note, when will the Neo2 actually be available for purchase?

  • Marlin1975 - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link

    How about telling board makers to use better Sound for their boards.

    I got my board as it came with a VIA Envy soundcard. When I see RealTek sound that tells me they don;t care about quality, but about what they can say comes with the board.
    Even C-Media has a new full (non-ac97) soundchip out now that can;t be that much more then a realtek 850/650/655 chip.

  • Wesley Fink - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link

    #7,8,9 - Corrected. Since ECS did use a SiS chip on their VIA board for secondary RAID, I got confused and spread the chipsets around :-)

  • Stefpet - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link

    ...but when will we see K8T890 or nforce4 motherboards?

    I don't want to be forced to replace the motherboard with a new one to get that top performing PCI Express card later...

  • Crassus - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link

    Final words, somewhere in the middle of the page:
    "The ECS is a remarkable step forward for ECS"
    :c)

    Great work, though.

  • RyanVM - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link

    Silly me, I meant ECS, not Epox.

  • RyanVM - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link

    "8 USB 2.0 ports supported by nF3-250" for the K8T800PRO-based Epox KV2?

  • Wesley Fink - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link

    #4 - Corrected. With more than 9000 words a number typo seems inevitable.

  • BLHealthy4life - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link

    Still can't find the MSI K8n Neo2 mobo for sale anywhere.

    Been waiting and waiting....and waiting some more...

  • AkumaX - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link

    Our FX53 topped out at about 2.59 GHz on the ECS KV2, which is slightly below the 3.6+ achieved on the top 939 boards
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