MSI joins the rest of the party with their nForce 570 SLI based motherboard...

INTRODUCTION

Last month we've taken a look at MSI's socket-939 based motherboard... the K8N-SLI Platinum Plus. It proved to be a very capable motherboard with added extras such as the onboard SoundBlaster Audigy SE. Now with AMD's AM2 processors becoming widely available, it's MSI's prerogative to produce an AM2 motherboard. The K9N-SLI Platinum is MSI's answer. It utilises the nForce 570 SLI chipset from Nvidia and supports DDR2 ram as well as 2x8 PCIe in SLI mode.

In our last review ... we've already explained some of the differences between the nForce chipset 500 series ...

"According to Nvidia, there are several flavours in the 500 series chipsets. The 590 SLI is designed for enthusiasts and the 570 SLI for performance users, while the ordinary 570 and 550 are for the mainstream and budget markets respectively. The 570 SLI chipset is a single chip solutuion and only supports 2x8 PCIe is SLI mode, while the 590 SLI chipset has usual northbridge and southbridge combination and supports 2x16 PCIe in SLI mode. "

In this review we take a look at MSI K9N-SLI Platinum motherboard. It's a direct replacement for their socket-939 based K8N-SLI Platinum, and it's designed for performance users in mind.

  

Yes, the competition is now becoming very fierce amoung the manufacturers, with Asus, Abit, Gigabyte and many others releasing their AM2 motherboards on to the market. It will be a tough one. What makes one consumer buy from one brand and not the other, basically boils down to price. I think MSI could be a winner here ... let see what their K9N-SLI Platinum can do for us.