MSI K8T Neo

The MSI K8T neo is a K8T800 based board, with plenty of features and a rather garish red PCB, decorated with a spot of orange and yellow to taste.

The specifications includes IDE and SATA RAID, 6 channel audio with optical and coax SPDIF out, as well as separate analogue jacks. The board also has both 4 and 6 pin firewire sockets and Gigabit LAN.

The layout of components and connectors is generally good; the only problem is the 4 pin ATX connector, which forces the cable to cross the CPU heatsink area. This board, like most of the rest, uses a plastic latch to hold down the graphics card, which is obstructed by large graphics cards. A fan header is provided right next to the north bridge, to allow you to easily fit a fan to the north bridge heatsink.

The manual is well written and clear and includes some useful information about what some of the more exotic bios options actually do. It also contains concise information about the audio and RAID features of the board. Only the bare essentials are included in the box, but a nice addition is that the floppy and IDE cables are rounded. Another interesting feature the MSI Core Cell chip, which adds power saving and fan control features to the board.

At first glance, the BIOS seems to have plenty of overclocking options, but on taking a closer look we discovered the CPU core voltage options only go up to 1.55 volts, which is the default voltage for an Athlon 64 3200+. This will effectively cripple the overclocking potential of the board, unless a future BIOS release addresses this issue.

At £76.97 inc VAT, the MSI K8T is extremely good value for money. Don't expect to be able to overclock this board hugely, but if you need a solid board with plenty of features, it won't disappoint.

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