** Official MSI P6N SLI-FI & Platinum NF650i Owners Thread**

I haven't quite bought my system yet as I'm waiting (like nearly forever now!) for the MSI P6N Platinum to be released in the UK. While the MSI P6N SLI-FI has been out for a while, I think the heatpiping is worth the wait and the extra £25. No other Nvidia 650i chipset motherboard is (currently) of such high quality!

I was hoping to start a discussion on these MSI motherboards as so far it's been lacking in these forums. Other 650i chipset motherboards are well represented in these threads:


Asus P5N-E: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17668494 Cost: ~£75

So far, it would appear to be the best 650i motherboard for the money. Reaches high overclocks (> 500 FSB) though needs extra NB cooling, suffers from vdroop but there is a pencil mod and of course has been out since before Christmas, though it has issues with compatibility and has "quirks". It also has no SB heatsink though with good case ventilation, this doesn't appear to be a problem.


Abit Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17699083 Cost: ~£75

A lot of people seem disappointed with this board. It doesn't overclock as well as the Asus (< 400 FSB) probably due to the smaller NB heatsink and poor thermal contact. It has BIOS issues, POST issues, cooling issues, vdroop issues and other problems. Right now, the Asus is a better buy according to most people. This might change with BIOS revisions.


ECS NF650iSLIT-A: nourl Cost: ~£75

This board slightly resembles what we think the Gigabyte will look like in terms of slots, but comes with a fan on a small NB heatsink and hardwired x8 PCIe slots (so you can't choose one to be x16). Despite the NB fan still has trouble getting above 380 FSB. The Asus is probably still a better buy for this price - bigger NB heatsink for one.


Gigabyte N650SLI-DS4: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17696941 Cost: ~£105

This hasn't hit retail in the UK yet, so no one really knows why this board is so expensive when it appears to only offer an extra PCIe 1x over its competitors (both it and the Abit has solid caps). Current lead time is still in the two week region for this motherboard, whereas the P6N Platinum is available globally except for the UK


Finally, the motherboards of this post:

MSI P6N SLI-FI: Cost ~£75



MSI P6N SLI Platinum: Cost ~£100



The SLI-FI has been in retail for some time, and seems to have the same low FSB overclocks (< 400 FSB) and overheating problems without extra NB cooling that all the aforementioned 650i motherboards have.

The Platinum is still yet to become available in the UK though it's been available in the US and Europe for some time now. It has extra heatpiping which according to this review:

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=6&id=2191

... allowed a 440Mhz FSB WITHOUT increasing the NB voltage (which current BIOS revisions hang the machine if you increase above the stock 1.25v).

It seems to me that for the extra £25, this is THE 650i motherboard to get. With the NB voltage problem fixed, it should sail well into the 500's and no need for extra fans, vdroop mods, hacked NB heatsinks or anything else. Well worth £25, and also you get an extra PCI 2.0 slot which for legacy users (eg; me who really needs the two IDE connectors for his old hard drives) is very useful.

I should mention that there is one UK retailer claiming to have the P6N Platinum in stock (hence I know the price). I'm not sure if you're allowed reference competitors to ocuk here though.

So thoughts anyone?

In particular, any links to user experiences with the SLI-FI welcome. It's an identical motherboard, just with extra heatpiping, solid caps and a eSATA port.

I'll be posting my experiences with the Platinum here as soon as it becomes available here in the UK.

Cheers,
Niall

More info

Found a forum topic on hardforum about the SLI-FI and Platinum:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1030719821

Apparently the SLI-FI can reach ~380 FSB and the Platinum ~440 FSB as per the review. Oh and apparently the Platinum comes with an extra NB fan which you can optionally fit!

One MUST disable C1E in the BIOS to get anywhere at all. This is buried in the BIOS options.

Cheers,
Niall

What's the things next to battery that seems to say Duel core cell?

BIOS

how can additional "heatpiping" allow higher oc's at lower voltage?

are we saying that ALL 650i boards are contrained by NB heat issues? and that given good cooling they should all hit 400FSB?

or are we saying some boards are simply built BETTER than others and have better cooling which allows them to hit higher FSB's?

Nickg said:

how can additional "heatpiping" allow higher oc's at lower voltage?

are we saying that ALL 650i boards are contrained by NB heat issues? and that given good cooling they should all hit 400FSB?

or are we saying some boards are simply built BETTER than others and have better cooling which allows them to hit higher FSB's?

Click to expand...

Actually all Northbridges (any chipset) are constrained by heat issues. The size of the heatsink on the NB obviously affects heat dissipation, and a heatpipe will be many, many times better than plain metal at conducting away heat.

There is a reason that 680i motherboards overclock so well, and I think it's because they all have heatpiping.

Cheers,
Niall

but that doesnt explain why 1 board needs 1.2V NB to get 400FSB and why another needs 1.5v+ to obtain the same clock?

surely something massively different there - much more than just cooling.

New Rig Ordered!

The MSI P6N Platinum finally hit UK retail today, so here's what I have ordered. Note that I am upgrading an existing dual 1700 athlon rig which has served me very well since 2001, so I already have some components. All prices are including VAT, and I shopped around so they are indeed low.

I chose the following components after a very great deal of research. Others may find this list useful when building their own (budget) rig.

MSI P6N SLI Platinum NF650i motherboard £98
Intel E4300 Retail £100
Geil Value DDR2 2GB PC6400 Dual Channel Kit 800MHz (5-5-5-15) £106
Seagate Barracude 7200.10 320Gb NCQ £60
Club 3D ATI Radeon X1300PRO Silent Heatpipe 256MB £47
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU cooler £16.50
Corsair HX Series 520W Modular PSU £67.50

I ordered off three separate vendors because none had all the items in stock and I can only be in the house on certain days of the week, so total P&P came to £7 + £7 + £6 = £20. This annoyed me, but OTOH I got the E4300 and X1300 pro card for a particularly low price so I actually spent effectively only a tenner on total P&P.

Therefore, total cost has come to £515. I had an original budget of £500 to be exceeded no matter what, but I felt the Artic Cooling CPU cooler was too worth it over the stock Intel cooler. In theory, this rig above should overclock the 1.8Ghz E4300 to 3.2Ghz without issue (this runs the memory at its full 800Mhz as it's an FSB 1600 and therefore CPU x8) and if I'm lucky with the part I get, I may even get to 3.6Ghz.

All that said, I have deliberately chosen the parts for a silent PC eg; the Arctic Cooling and PSU will completely stop its fans if it can. I am planning to seriously undervolt the E4300 for much of its usage - my current dual athlon 1700 sucks 228W 24/7 and that costs me around £220 a year with current electricity prices. I reckon I can drop that below 70W which means that this rig pays for itself within four years.

You might wonder about the choices. According to user reports, the Geil memory can be knocked up to 4-4-4-12 if you increase voltage to 2.1v. That wasn't my only reason though - that particular Geil memory is one of the few DDR2-800 memories on the officially tested MSI compatibility list.

The retail Intel was chosen over OEM because user reports off the web suggest that OEM chips are rotten overclockers. Retail currently are getting much better binning apparently.

A lot of people will seriously question my x1300 pro choice. Well, I'm not a gamer - in fact, the main purpose of this new PC is as a GPGPU rig and the x1300 pro is not a bad cheap CTM engine for batch maths processing. When the Nvidia G86 comes out, I'll be getting one of those too for about £50 and then I'll have full support for both ATI's and NVidia's CTM and CUDA GPGPU implementations. Also, this particular ATI card is heatpipe only and therefore is totally silent - this matters a lot to me, as the current dual 1700 athlon rig lives in my bedrom and while I'm used to the loud noise, any women who stay most certainly are not!

Delivery is estimated for next Tuesday or Wednesday. I'll get back to you here by the end of next week.

Cheers,
Niall

Nickg said:

but that doesnt explain why 1 board needs 1.2V NB to get 400FSB and why another needs 1.5v+ to obtain the same clock?

surely something massively different there - much more than just cooling.

Click to expand...

There are of course always different behaviours of different chips - hence chip binning. But I think such a large variance is down to one or more of these factors:

* Insufficient power on 12v rail. Even a very good PSU can struggle here.
* Bad air circulation inside case. You'd be surprised what tying up cables out of the way can do eg; my case is actually 5c cooler with the lid on than without - in fact without, my hard drives get very toasty.
* NB heatsink not in proper thermal contact with chip (often manufacturers fault)
* And lastly, poor quality NB heatsink

As an example of that last one, the NB heatsink on the SLI-FI in the picture above is a really nasty heatsink. In fact, shipping models in Europe at least have a far better NB heatsink (with a blue cover) than the one above. Nevertheless, the Asus P5N-E NB heatsink is a monster and I think one of the major reasons for such great overclocks (with additional cooling) from that motherboard.

In the end, the more metal there is in a heatsink, the more heat it can hold and therefore transfer out. That's the great thing about heatpipes - they break that requirement by thermochemically pumping the heat away without requiring simple metal conduction to do it.

This answer your question?

Cheers,
Niall

Hi ned14,

Could you email me or setup your trust as i have a few questions about the Platinum.

Thanks

Any overclocks yet?

WJA96 said:

Any overclocks yet?

Click to expand...

If you go to that Hardforum link Ned14 has provided there are some people starting to overclock the board on page 3.

Just seen an ECS 650i on a competitors site for £75 notes.

AFK_Matrix said:

Hi ned14,

Could you email me or setup your trust as i have a few questions about the Platinum.

Thanks

Click to expand...

What does trust do and why would I need to set it up?

Niall

Mista.Gee said:

Just seen an ECS 650i on a competitors site for £75 notes.

Click to expand...

There's a review for that board at http://www.ocworkbench.com/2007/ecs/NF650iSLIT-A/g1.htm.

While it seems to have better cooling (comes with an active fan on the NB), it still can't beat ~380Mhz FSB probably because with the fan they've made the NB heatsink much smaller. I'd tend to avoid it - the Asus or MSI SLI-FI is better, especially with the hardwired x8 PCIe.

Cheers,
Niall

SO anyone got this board yet? Are there anymore overclocking results, kind of need to order this or the asus come wednesday so any news would be good.

MSI P6N2 SLI-FI announced!

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=787

It would appear that this is a motherboard revision to the SLI-FI which uses an identical layout to the SLI Platinum. Comparing the two pictures, this new P6N2 appears to have less components onboard so it'll probably be cheaper. It certainly has a worse NB heatsink.

Niall

I have just ordered the MSI P6N SLI Platinum tonight to replace my Asus P5B Deluxe.
Nothing really wrong with the Asus, but a few things about it bugged me (double boots when overclocking, terrible sound drivers and whistling heatsink).

I am looking forward to my first MSI motherboard and should hopefully receive it towards the end of the week.

Just noticed Anandtech has a review of the MSI P6N SLI motherboard, havent read it yet myself.

But Anand usually have good reviews so if you are considering the MSI board it might be well worth a look.

had a quick scan through that review, looks like a decent board