MSI K9A2 Platinum review - overclock friendly mobo for AMD

Overclock, Conclusion

Overclock

In tests the motherboard reached 310 MHz bus frequency without voltage increase with multiplier set at 3x HT. The reason not to test mote aggressive is that we had no access to better CPU cooler and the processor measured rather high temperatures even on default. What we've see from our colleagues is that the motherboard has vast potential and if you are an AMD clocker and anything is holding you back, that not the MSI K9A2 Platinum for sure :)

Conclusion

Positives

• Good chipset cooler – it remained ice cold during the tests.
• Good design – it allows you to use the PCI slots.
• Rich bundle.
• Support of the SAS standard.
• Very customizable BIOS
• Swell overclock potential, everything any advanced AMD user needs
• Power and Reset on the motherboard – for people that don't use cases this is extremely useful since this way the risk of damaging anything when poking around with a screwdriver for the pins is non-existent.

Negatives

• The North bridge cooler prevents you from using a videocard with custom cooler on the first slot.
• The soldered parts on the back and the chip so close to the CPU mounting holes might obstruct some coolers.
• The memory we tested the system with was unstable on the orange slots.

Wrapping it all up with the results and capabilities of the motherboard we ca honestly recommend it to each user that is in search for a quality AMD based motherboard with huge overclock potential. MSI K9A2 Platinum deserves rating of 8.5/10 and our "Recommended" award.

Author: Aleksandar Vasilev a.k.a. Alex

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