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MSI K9NU Neo

31 Jul 2006

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HWZ's Overall Rating: 9.0

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			<h2 class="header-green">MSI K9NU Neo (ULi M1697 - Socket AM2)</h2>
		<span class="byline">Reviewed by Zachary Chan on Monday, 31 Jul 2006</span>
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		 		<h2 class="page-title">Introduction</h2>
		 		<h3 class="page_title">Introduction</h3>
<p>In the month following the launch of AMD's AM2 processors, MSI still has yet to officially unveil their ultra high-end K9N Diamond model at the top end. However, they've been very generous with the rest of their Socket AM2 line-up. Last month, we reviewed the K9N Platinum, an excellent mid-range motherboard based on NVIDIA's nForce 570 Ultra. The K9N Platinum was able to deliver a solid all-round performance without so much as a hitch going off throughout our testing and was priced well within its intended market range. This time, we decided to shoot lower to see if MSI can deliver a similar level of quality with their budget V-Class series.</p>
<p>Our pick of the litter - the ULi M1697 based MSI K9NU Neo, your typical entry level, no frills motherboard in the same vein as the recently reviewed ASRock AM2V890-VSTA. Like ASRock's board, the K9NU Neo is designed with an older chipset to bring costs down, but with ULi's track record (in our own experiences) for delivering high-performance Socket 939 chipsets, it will be very interesting to see how the K9NU Neo performs with the new Socket AM2 processors.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><img height="361" width="500" src="/files/images/K9NU_top.jpg" title="The MSI K9NU Neo motherboard." alt="" /></p>
<p class="rteleft">As usual, we'll start of our review with a breakdown of the motherboard bundle:-</p>
<ul>
    <li>1 x SATA data cable</li>
    <li>1 x SATA power converter cable</li>
    <li>1 x 80-conductor Ultra ATA data cable</li>
    <li>1 x floppy drive data cable</li>
    <li>I/O shield</li>
    <li>Driver CDs</li>
    <li>User's guide</li>
</ul>
<p class="rtecenter"><img height="174" width="500" src="/files/images/K9NU_rear.jpg" title="A legacy friendly rear I/O panel with PS/2, parallel and two serial ports mixed in with USB 2.0, RJ45 and analog surround audio jacks." alt="" /></p>			</div>
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