MSI K9A2 Platinum

[furstbild]

Thanks heyheybooboo.
I am a bit impulsive and went ahead and installed the mobo. It was so shiny and pretty.....
I guess I'll live with the thought in the back of my head that I should have got a different mobo. That will be the incentive to build another one for me. This one is for my son.
I would like to learn how to OC with this one and then move on.
This one will still play the newest games, right?
Thanks, this site rocks. If ever I start to lose my faith in humanity I can look at these forums and witness hundreds of selfless people helping the noobs.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: furstbild
Thanks heyheybooboo.
I am a bit impulsive and went ahead and installed the mobo. It was so shiny and pretty.....
I guess I'll live with the thought in the back of my head that I should have got a different mobo. That will be the incentive to build another one for me. This one is for my son.
I would like to learn how to OC with this one and then move on.
This one will still play the newest games, right?
Thanks, this site rocks. If ever I start to lose my faith in humanity I can look at these forums and witness hundreds of selfless people helping the noobs.

Your gaming with the 8800gts will be just 'dandy'.

The MSI 790fx is decent OCer and a 'CrossFire' (meaning multiple graphics cards) motherboard. Your Geforce card is not CrossFire capable (it's made by the other team).

When your are ready to enter the gaming enthusiast fast lane you may want to consider an ATI/AMD video card which would be CrossFire capable in the future. An HD4850 starts around $140 and would be roughly 50-60% more capable that the 8800gts (using approx the same wattage).

The MSI 790fx would be capable of running up to 4 of those HD4850 video cards (I'm guessing you knew that) but you reach a point of diminishing return after 2-3 cards (but the drivers are getting better).

You have multiple options for your OC: 1) Using settings in the BIOS; 2) using the AMD OverDrive (AOD) utility for the CPU; and 3) using AMD Fusion (a single click utility which overclocks the cpu and the gpu while shutting down Windows background services).

Enjoy!

 

[furstbild]

I think I will return that video card. I haven't opened it yet so i might as well do it right. If you had $175 to spend on an ATI/AMD vid card, what would you get?
I'm stuck on hooking up the wires. I am a little timid. I suppose I can't screw up the usb and LED pins in that if it isn't hooked up right, it just won't work. Right?
I love this stuff.
Thanks for the info on the OCing. There are a lot of pages with BIOS set up guides for this mobo I noticed.
When i was shopping at Newegg, I went by which product had the most reviews thinking that a lot of people had bought the product so it must be good, not realising there were a lot sold because it had been on the market for a year.

Thanks!

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: furstbild
I think I will return that video card. I haven't opened it yet so i might as well do it right. If you had $175 to spend on an ATI/AMD vid card, what would you get?
I'm stuck on hooking up the wires. I am a little timid. I suppose I can't screw up the usb and LED pins in that if it isn't hooked up right, it just won't work. Right?
I love this stuff.
Thanks for the info on the OCing. There are a lot of pages with BIOS set up guides for this mobo I noticed.
When i was shopping at Newegg, I went by which product had the most reviews thinking that a lot of people had bought the product so it must be good, not realising there were a lot sold because it had been on the market for a year.

Thanks!

Take your time and you will be fine. Touch the case to discharge any static electricity and double check your connections. My version came with separate connectors which allowed pins to be inserted and then the assembly attached to the pin headers on the mobo.

Much of your video depends upon the screen resolution at which you will be gaming. Higher screen resolutions (more screen 'real estate') have higher pixel counts and at high detail can 'test' your video subsystem. Higher screen resolutions require more video power.

If your son (or you) will be gaming at 1900x1200 and up you may want to consider the SAPPHIRE 100242-1GL Radeon HD 4850 1GB for $180 AR. The only 'issue' I have with that card is that it is a 'single slot' card which will vent hot air inside the case.

A 'dual slot' card will vent hot air out of the back of the case - check out the HIS Hightech H485QS512P Radeon HD 4850 512MB for $170 AR. This 'issue' with a dual slot card is that it will block an expansion slot on the mobo.

If you want to go 'low', have good case ventilation and want to save some cash toward a second video card check out the single slot SAPPHIRE 100245L Radeon HD 4850 512MB for $140 AR (with free shipping). When you add a second video card you may want to consider adding a side fan to keep things nice and cool.

You've got a great rig. The MSI 790fx is wunnerful (I'm still diggin' on mine )

Try to think a little ahead and things will turn out great. Be aware that these video cards are 'big' so when you mount your hard drive(s) they can get in the way - and you might have to move them.

But all of us have been through that - LOL

 

[furstbild]

I was thinking the: visiontek 4850
I am going to a box store today to pick one up. Weekdays are tough to work on this and we want to make some progress this weekend.
The box has four stock fans one of which is friggin huge.
I'm gonna start pluggin stuff in and hope it works. The mobo seems simple enough to work with and the instructions are pretty thorough. The more I play with it the more sense it starts to make. Thanks again for your suggestions!

 

[ccook129]

just got the same board and I can't get it to startup,beeps so I shut it down.I have 2 GeForce 8600gts cards.I've only got it to startup by removing the bridge and I have tried both of them.In the device mgr it shows both cards,so I shut down and unplug power install bridge again,and it won't start again.What am I doing wrong?

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: ccook129
just got the same board and I can't get it to startup,beeps so I shut it down.I have 2 GeForce 8600gts cards.I've only got it to startup by removing the bridge and I have tried both of them.In the device mgr it shows both cards,so I shut down and unplug power install bridge again,and it won't start again.What am I doing wrong?

The MSI K9A2 Platinum will not run 2 combined GeForce 8600GTs. Multi-card configs from nVidia are called 'SLI' and the K9A2 architecture does not support it.

The motherboard supports multiple video cards from AMD/ATI in 'CrossFire' config.

 

[ccook129]

Thanks,for the info.this was a Christmas present,was to be SLI because of the video cards 2 8600GTS,I already had 1 so I think buying new crossfire cards was out of the question for me.I will have exchanged for k9N2 board with SLI,too bad it doesn't work since device mgr showed both cards installed and I could plug widescreen monitor into either one,great board,just can't use bridge both together,but can run 2 monitors I guess?
Thank again for the info.









Antec Sonata
X2-5600
2x8600GTS cards
OCZ DDR2 PC2-8500 Fatal1ty 4GB Dual Channel
2 Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB Hard Drive - 7200,16mb-sata300
MSI K9N2 SLI Platinum,soon
Antec 750 truepower

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: ccook129
Thanks,for the info.this was a Christmas present,was to be SLI because of the video cards 2 8600GTS,I already had 1 so I think buying new crossfire cards was out of the question for me.I will have exchanged for k9N2 board with SLI,too bad it doesn't work since device mgr showed both cards installed and I could plug widescreen monitor into either one,great board,just can't use bridge both together,but can run 2 monitors I guess?
Thank again for the info.

Don't do it ... :shocked:

The k9N2 will run PCIe Gen2 "x16-x8". The K9A2 Platinum will run "x16-x16". As graphic demands are increasing the additional bandwidth will become more and more of a factor (probably around 5%+ now).

This would not be an issue with your 8600gt(s) but it is an issue with your 8600gt. It's not really a gaming card (with 128-bit memory bus) - it's more an HTPC card that was first marketed because it can reduce cpu utilization by processing h.264/VC-1 video encoding.

In 'SLI mode' your 8600GTs would be roughly equivalent to a single HD3850. A single HD4830 (for less than $100) would blow your 8600GT-SLI away.

If you are partial to nVidia a single GeForce 9600gt (or maybe an 8800gs) would be an excellent alternative to your 8600gt-SLI.

edit: And yes ... you may run the cards independently but they cannot be 'combined' on th MSI K9A2 Platinum ...

 

[ccook129]

I don't kow,both of my cards are MSI GeForce 8600GTS PCI-EX SLi DDR3 cards and rated pretty good I think.Ive had one card for about 9 months now and I played Neverwinter nights 2,and both expansions with no problem and am now playing Oblivion, again with no problems.Thats the reason I got another 8600gts sli card thinking that with a good sli board everything would improve,if they were put together.I've almost always had MSI products,and havn't used ATI cards since I had a 9600 agp card a few years back,even though I know that they have improved since AMD,some day I'll go back.I still use AMD processors for speed-cost reasons-more for the buck,than Intel.I don't think buying new cards right now would be good.I was lucky my wifes Christmas present the other board K9A2 looked great and I loved it but buying 2 crossfire cards would perhaps put me in the dogg house with tthe dog.At least I still get to use the ddr2 8500 even with new board.I'll be 60 years old in july and my wife and I are maybe the oldest gamers in the Indiana area.Thanks again..