why isnt msi more popular??

Stormer · Nov 5, 2003

hey guys I heard great review about this board
MSI 865PE Neo 2-FIS2R however doesnt seem like many people in here use it or discuss it? any reason why? am i missing something that makes this board not a good overclocker?

Thanks

Balrog · Nov 5, 2003

Intermittent quality control problems and usually not among the best OCers.
Regards, Balrog

Gnufsh · Nov 5, 2003

The quality is not the highest, and they don't OC the best. I used to have an MSI KT3 Ultra 2, it wasn't too bad, and overclocked decently, but I upgraded to a refurbished Abit KD7 and really felt te difference. For example, my computer would not post above 172 MHz with my KT3 Ultra2, but I've posted above 211 on the Abit with the same RAM (the RAM was not stable, and the PCI bus was at 42.2 MHz. When I stuck a smaller stick of RAM in the MSI, I got it up to 189FSB stable (instead of 171). I ran my Abit at 193 or so, and it was stable at 201 except for a few hdd problems in windows (none in linux, however). If you have any questions about that board, I might remeber. I modified a bios to un-hide a bunch of options (most of which were useless).

deadkenny · Nov 5, 2003

Generally, not the best OC'ers, but they can be a good value.

Nimblor · Nov 6, 2003

I think that I have read that review as well.
I was looking into the MSI board after reading that too.

However, I have become disenchanted with the 865pe chipset as some manufacturers are discontinuing bios updates for them. Inspite of thier high performance. It is kind of sad really.

I like the reviews for pointing out features and the usefullness of features and things like that but few reviews adequatley cover overclocking possiblilities.

Also they are incapable of giving any information about reliability and constancy of manufacture since most reviews only look at 1 mobo.

Trent · Nov 6, 2003

im running a kt3ultra2 and it runs at 190 all day no sweatand probably higher, Im running it at 185 now because with the lack of the 1/6 i dont want to push things too far out of spec.

Karbon · Nov 6, 2003

i have msi neo2 865PE, i think its awesome. without overclocking,i get great performance. but thers no problem overclocking with this, not for me at least. i can easily get my 2.6 up to around 3.7-3.8 no problem. it has every bios feature you would need except cpu / ram divider, which is not a problem for me becaue i hav corsair xms pc4000

IMO its a great board for good price

polarys425 · Nov 7, 2003

i have some KT3 Ultra2's around here in third and forth machines, they took a back seat to the NF7-S which is in machines 1 and 2. they are good boards though, picked them up off Neweggs refurbs. highly stable, but as mentioned, not stellar overclockers.

Chupacabras · Nov 7, 2003

I've got my Kt3 Ultra 2-R running at 202fsb with 2 sticks of generic infineon pc3200 ram. I'm running with the onboard sound and a fx5800u. I've heard nvidia cards can handle out of spec agp frequenices better than ati's offerings though, so that might by why some people were having problems without the 1/6 divider.

My biggest gripe with MSI boards is that volage adjustment. From reading posts here it seems like with other boards you have a much larger selection of voltages to raise to. With the MSI its only +10% totally dependant on the chip's default voltage. MSI bios' also are usually missing a few things in terms of overclocking. They'll have what you need--vcore,vdimm,fsb,basic memory timings--but there definitely are more fully featured bios' out there.

One of the biggest advantages I find in Canada is the price though. They are regularly priced significantly cheaper than the competition and they are easy to find. If you can get around the few bumps, and know them before hand, they can make fine boards though.

cobray · Nov 7, 2003

The MSI KT6 Delta (KT600) allows for Vcore up to 2.3V, mem to 3.3, Vagp to 2.0 and Vchipset to 2.0. Plus it has the rubycon capacitors which are the best

leggysoe · Nov 8, 2003

newbies prefer brandname

Nimblor · Nov 9, 2003

Please tell leggysoe,

What do you mean that newbies prefer brandname?

How are we supposed to learn otherwise besides reading these forums. It is extroardinarly difficult to find reasonable and reliable information about motherboards beacause few are willing to share. Who knows if voltage X with memory Y on motherboard Z will work for person N?

Gnufsh · Nov 9, 2003

Is MSI not a brand name? It is the name of a brand...

Nimblor, most people here are as open as possible. No one really knows if voltage X with memory Y on motherboard Z will work for person N? if your running your hardware out of spec, because each piece of hardware varies. Two processors adjacent to each other on the wafer might overclock very differently. It's all chance. I already listed my MSI experience in this thread, I wasn't able to puch my stick of ram as hard in my MSI board as in my new Abit. But, a new stick of ram runs faster then my bottle neck was. The board is fast and stable at stock, but not the best as far as overclcoking is concerned (far better than biostar or ECS, IMO).

If you have any questions ask away, we're here to help.

larva · Nov 10, 2003

MSI=impressive feature list, low price, intermittant quality control, buggy bioses, high DOA and field failure rates.

chasingapple · Nov 10, 2003

Every MSI board I have had overclocked well and was extremely stable. They are a trusted brand in my book.

larva · Nov 10, 2003

chasingapple said:
Every MSI board I have had overclocked well and was extremely stable. They are a trusted brand in my book.

When you have used hunderds of the things a different picture emerges.

tnt2ultra · Nov 11, 2003

larva said:
MSI=impressive feature list, low price, intermittant quality control, buggy bioses, high DOA and field failure rates.

Larva has pretty much nailed it, and I am sure he has good reason to doubt reliabilty with MSI.

I know a couple of importers and they're satisfied with the reliability, but that's their side of the story. Might be from a different factory then?

And I haven't been particularly impressed with MSI BIOSes either. Prior to the 865PE Neo, OC features were also 50:50 - like in the MSI Max2 BLR, their is no AGP lock. After all that was a premium priced board. You will also find that most temp reading are whacky. The feature list is usually pretty impressive, with a very nice package and manual.

My experince with MSI vid cards haven't been pleasant either, though they are one of the top manufacturers. I had probs with convergence with my Trinitron that would not go away with a MSI GF4 ti4200. Changed the brand and it was fine.

David · Nov 11, 2003

I have an MSI K7D Master-L and havent had many problems with it, except that it wouldnt change multipliers on my factory unlocked Tbreds, but I ended up blowing bridges and stuff anyways.

But, you may want to take a look here, especially the latter half of page 2: http://www.pcextreme.net/845ultra-aru.php
Also: http://www.pcextreme.net/archives/00001415.php

However there have also been many MSI board reviews in which the boards were rather well liked.

I am happy with my MSI board and I would buy another K7D Master, or for that matter would consider any MSI board.

Remove · Nov 11, 2003

I have had 2 bad MSI K7D Master-L boards and have given up on them entirely.

cobray · Nov 12, 2003

Im about to ditch my MSI (KT600) board for an Abit NF7-S. Its an OK board, but after browsing the futuremark database all the top scores run the ABIT NF7...hmm.....

why isnt msi more popular??

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