abit AN52 vs. MSI K9A2 Platinum

If we look two years back, at the time of release of Intel Core 2 Duo processors, we can see how this architecture has been gradually expelling AMD products. As of the start of year 2008, we can establish an almost complete victory of Intel, in all the directions and fronts. Some sort of the "acid test" is the assortment of motherboards by leading manufacturers, which most precisely expresses the real alignment of forces. In particular, the list of models that support AM2 processors has shrunk to the minimum, and currently large manufacturers are offering either top-end motherboards with a set of unique features or explicitly cheap products with a basic feature-set.

These are just the boards we are reviewing today. The former is made by MSI, MSI K9A2 Platinum, and is based on the AMD 790FX chipset. The key trait of this board is in the four PCI Express x16 slots implemented due to the good specifications of the north bridge RD790. As the south bridge, the outdated chip SB600 that lost its competitive edge a year ago is used. In order to somehow equal the board's specifications with those of the competitor product by Intel, engineers at MSI had to install a rather expensive Promise PDC42819 chip (for comparison, the expansion card Promise FastTrak TX2650 based on this chip costs about 80$).

The latter board is called AN52 made by abit and is based on the single-chip NVIDIA nForce 520. Its feature-set is minimum, but at the same time this board costs three times as cheap versus MSI K9A2 Platinum. So, there won't be a straightforward comparison of the motherboards: each of them is playing in its own league.

Specifications

Retail boxes

Design of the packages:

Package bundle

The package bundle of abit generally meets its low price. But that can't be said about the MSI product: K9A2 Platinum costs almost $200, with out any non-standard components. Moreover, even the standard bundle items don't fully unveil the board's capabilities.

So let's keep to the point: both the motherboards offers a kit of PATA and FDD cables, a mandatory cap for the rear panel, and a few SerialATA cables. The MSI board has the required power supply adapters, whereas the abit product doesn't.

Since K9A2 Platinum supports the Crossfire technology, two flexible bridges to connect video cards into an array are put into the box.

Now, regarding the user's manual and the software. The documentation of the MSI board is highly detailed and reveals all the specific traits of the system assembly and setup. The brochure for the abit product also contains all the required information, however, the description seems to have been drawn up in a haste. We had nothing to complain about the software of both the boards. We note it separately that the MSI board comes bundled with two CDs for both XP and Vista.

Only the MSI board offers additional items. These are two brackets: one with a Firewire port, the other one - with two USB 2.0 ports and D-LEDs for initial diagnostics.

We rate the package bundle of the abit product as "3.5/5", and "2.5/5" for that of the MSI board.

Layout and Features

We note it straight off that abit uses the same PCB to produce three models at a time: the low-end AN52-E (6-channel audio; 100 Mbit LAN), the mid-end AN52 (8-channel audio; Gigabit network), and the "luxurious" AN52S (8-channel audio; Gigabit LAN; a COM port; the more efficient cooling system Silent OTES).

Engineers at MSI also use the same PCB design for several models. To date, only the K9A2 Platinum has been announced, and it lacks some connectors (e.g., JSLIC1 - to plug in a VoIP card).

There are 2 power connectors on the abit board: the main 24-pin and additional 8-pin power connectors (both positioned over the board's edges). On the MSI product, there are three connectors: the main 24-pin, additional 4-pin, and an additional Molex (additional connectors - near the rear panel):

The low-end nForce 520 chipset features in low power consumption level, which allowed the engineers at abit to confine with a small radiator. The AMD 790FX chipset is far not the low-end, but like the previous ATI's chipsets, it offers a small power consumption. However, engineers at MSI have installed a rather powerful system for cooling the north and south bridges, as well as power converter.

Two heat pipes emerge from the south bridge, one of then linked to the radiator of the south bridge, with the other one - to the PWM radiator (and runs through the NB radiator):

Each motherboard have four 240-pin DIMM slots for DDR2 memory modules, with the overall supported memory capacity being 8 GB.

Now a few words on the connectors to plug in fans. On each of the boards, there is a mandatory 4-pin connector to plug in a CPU cooler.

Besides that, there are three 3-pin connectors on the abit board: AUXFAN1, AUXFAN2 - over the left-hand edge of the board, SYSFAN1 - over the right-hand edge. On the MSI board, there are four 3-pin connectors: SYSFAN3 and SYSFAN2 - in the bottom-left corner, SYSFAN1- near the DIMM slots, and SYSFAN4 - near the north bridge.

On the abit board, there is one PCI Express x16 slot; on the MSI - four times as more:

16 bus lanes can be allocated to the first and the third slots, whereas the second and fourth slots are physically restricted by 8 lanes. If we enable all the slots, then 8 bus lanes will be allocated to each of the four video cards. Besides the above slots, MSI K9A2 Platinum uses two more "regular" PCI slots as well as a PCI Express x1 slot. On abit AN52, there are three PCI and two PCI Express x1 slots.

Due to the nForce 520 chipset, four SerialATA II disks can be plugged in to AN52 (with the option to arrange a RAID array), and two ParallelATA disks. The same specifications are there in the south bridge SB600 installed on K9A2 Platinum.

This quantity is definitely not enough for a high-end product, so engineers at MSI have installed an additional SerialATA RAID Promise PDC42819 controller which provided support for four more SATA II links.

In the end, this allows plugging in 10 hard disks (8 SATA + 2 PATA) to the MSI board and arranging two RAID arrays.

Then, the south bridge SB600 and the chipset nForce 520 support 10 USB2.0 ports. Both the boards offer the same configuration of ports: four on the rear panel, with 6 more plugged in with brackets (there is one bracket for two ports with only the MSI product).

Besides, MSI K9A2 Platinum supports the Firewire. For that, there is an additional controller made by VIA. That is a VT6308P chip which supports two matching ports.

Configuration of the ports: one is mounted on the rear panel, with the other one connected with a bracket (available in the package bundle).

Now a few words on the High Definition Audio subsystem. The abit board uses the ALC883 codec; the MSI - ALC888. It should be noted that the PCB design of the MSI board provides for installation of a more functional audio chip (perhaps, the Creative X-Fi), however, this model has not yet been announced.

A few words on the network support: both the boards offer a Gigabit LAN controller. On the abit board, that is a Marvell 88E8056 chip, and a RTL 8111B on the MSI board:

The board's rear panel is of the following configuration:

COM and LPT ports are completely missing on the abit board. The MSI board supports only one COM port albeit via a bracket (missing in the bundle). Engineers at MSI decided the use the vacant space for installation of the Firewire port, an optical SP-DIF output, and a couple of eSATA ports.

The boards' components layout diagram:

Among the special traits, we note only the power-on and reset buttons on the MSI board, which are positioned near the battery.

Now on to the BIOS settings.

BIOS

The BIOS of abit AN52 is based on the Award BIOS Phoenix version, with the BIOS of MSI K9A2 Platinum based on the AMI BIOS version.

The section in charge of memory operation settings in the abit board looks like this:

The MSI board offers no less abundant albeit pretty inconvenient set:

The next important parameter that affects the performance is setting the memory operating frequency.

Now look at the system monitoring sections. In abit AN52, all is implemented at a rather high quality:

The board displays the current temperature values for the CPU, system, power converter, as well as voltage levels, rotational speeds of the four fans, and offers a feature for adjusting the rotational speed of the CPU cooler depending on the CPU temperature (the FanEQ feature), as well as the cooler connected to the SYS_FAN.

Besides, it's also possible to keep track of the system monitoring readings from within Windows, using the abit EQ utility (with a very plain and inconvenient interface):

Using the abit FlashMenu utility, you can update the BIOS firmware:

As regards the system monitoring of the MSI product, MSI K9A2 Platinum keeps track of the current temperature values of the CPU and the system, voltage levels, rotational speeds of the three fans, and offers a feature to adjust the rotation of the CPU cooler depending on the CPU temperature (the Smart Fan utility), as well as the cooler connected to the SYSFAN1.

Besides, the board is able storing and loading the BIOS settings as profiles (two profiles altogether are supported).

To update the BIOS firmware, the MSI board offers the MSI LiveUpdate utility. It is fully aimed at using the Internet connection through which you can also update the drivers and utilities. However, if you have no Internet connection, you would have to find the update utility on the disk and load the new firmware into it. Anyway, we did not like MSI's approach to that.

Another utility, Dual CoreCenter, is aimed at the system monitoring, control over the rotational speed of the fans, and dynamic overclocking.

Overclocking and stability

Before we move on to Overclocking, let's look at the power converters. The PWM of the abit AN52 board uses a 3-phase power scheme, in which there are six 1500 mkF, three 1200 mkF, and two 1000 mkF capacitors. The PWM of the MSI board uses a 5-phase power scheme, in which there are ten 820 mkF and six 470 mkF capacitors.

Now on to the overclocking features. On the abit board, all the overclocking tools are gathered in the "SoftMenu" section:

on the MSI board - in the "Cell Menu" section:

We note the following traits of the motherboards at overclocking. First, abit AN52 wouldn't overclock at all; the maximum possible HTT speed = 216 MHz. We must admit that we received this board late last year with the BIOS version 10, but for the two months that followed the BIOS "grew up" to version 15, but still there aren't any improvements in the overclocking part. Therefore, we can conclude that either the chipset NVIDIA nForce 520 is absolutely not suitable for overclocking, or the engineers at abit have not yet learned how to "cook" it :-)

As regards the MSI board, we note the feature for dynamic overclocking - D.O.T., which allows raising the HTT speed by 52%, stepwise.

Now let's look at the practical results of overclocking. The maximum stable FSB speed in the MSI board is 360 MHz.

Performance tests

While determining the starting FSB speed, we found that the MSI board detects it at a high precision, while the abit board overstating it by 0.9 MHz.

In our test setup, we used the following hardware:

Let's first take a look at the results of synthetic benchmarks.

Now on to the gaming benchmarks.

Recall that Gigabyte MA790-DQ6 is based on the AMD 790FX chipset.

Final Words

Frankly, we like both the motherboards. Above all, it is abit AN52 which stands out for its very low retail price. Although the expansion options are standard and the package bundle scarce, the affordable price makes up for all. Needless to say, this board will not appeal to PC enthusiasts since it won't let overclock processors. However, AN52 is a perfect fit for a student computer.

As regards the MSI K9A2 Platinum, it is a top-end solution for the AMD platform and it allows using the Crossfire technology with two and more (in future) video cards. At the same time, you can install four video cards and plug in eight monitors to this motherboard. At the same time, the expansion options of the board meet the most recent requirements, and computer enthusiasts will be happy about the superb overclocking capability.

Now regarding the shortcomings. We found no technical issues in both of the boards. The only thing to complain about is the interface of abit's and MSI's proprietary utilities which are inconvenient to use.

Conclusion