The power of ULI chipset on AM2? MSI K9NU Neo simple test

[windwithme]

When the news of NVIDIA merges ULI company was exposure to the world,
Customers might feel not very good more then happiness.


NVIDIA got the most chipset market share on AMD platform.
ATI just start to run chipset business, it takes time to enhance quality and
improve small issues.
VIA/SIS become entry level company and got less exposure now.

ULI can follow up the step to launch chipset product and have reliable quality.
So their products are very expected by customers in second tier branding.

We don’t know when NVIDIA will stop the ULI chipset supply when merged.
But it’s fine, they can catch up this AMD AM2 platform train at least.

MSI launched their K9NU Neo product with ULI single chip design.
They use bright red PCB design and put it on entry level segment.







Left down corner of motherboard.
1 PCI-Express 16X
3 PCI slot
Expansion ability is not bad.








Right down corner of motherboard.
Build with 4 SATA2 port
2 IDE port
Single chip and silent heatsink design








Up side of motherboard.
DRAM slot and CPU VRM placement.

[windwithme]

Chipset number is ULI M1697







IO ports






Test platform setup
CPU:AMD AM2 Althon64 3000+
MB: MSI K9NU Neo
DRAM:Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C3
VGA:ELSA 6800Ultra
HD:Seagate 7200.7 80GB
POWER:AcBel 550W
Cooler:Tower112

A piece cake with easy test warm up.
CPU FSB adjustment test
Stable on 295MHz






DDRII 1T test
Stable on 830MHz CL=4-4-4-12

[windwithme]

DDRII 2T test
Stable on 1010MHz CL=4-4-4-12 2V






Maybe it’s discomposure with HDD and USB components reliability on NVIDIA chipset for long time.
ULI chipset based motherboard brings a reliable power.
2 IDE port, not bad on overclock, if the street price could under 80USD even lower, it’s a very good option on AMD AM2 platform.
The test above is not my limited, I will post the BIOS introduce and extreme test if possible.