![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , May 24, 2007
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
MSI P6N-SLI Platinum
The MSI P6N-SLI Platinum is based on NVIDIA’s lowest end SLI compatible chipset, the 650 SLI. MSI has a done a great job with the P6N-SLI Platinum overall, but it still has a few issues that need to be addressed. Maybe MSI is on the comeback trail?
Subsystem Testing
NOTE: For all Subsystem Testing, a socket LGA775 Core 2 Duo E6300 (7x266MHz) and 2048MB Corsair Dominator PC-2 9600C5D DDR2 memory running at 800MHz was used for testing.
Audio – Subjective Listening
For subjective listening you want to listen to something that covers a range of sound types. For this portion of the review I went with System of a Down, Mesmerized.
The onboard audio solution did a decent job of audio playback with no popping, hissing or other audible distortions heard. While not the equal of nicer add-in boards, it was sufficient for most users and activities.
Audio – Microphone Port Testing
The onboard audio MIC-IN port was tested using a Logitech Internet Chat Headset. Spoken words were recorded from the Windows Sound Recorder found under the Accessories\Entertainment folder in the start menu within Windows XP. The recording was made with the Microphone Boost option disabled, then enabled. The Microphone Boost option is found within the advanced menu under the microphone section with in the Volume Control Menu.
With the microphone boost option disabled, the playback was almost inaudible, and with the microphone boost enabled, the playback was free of distortion and was audible, albeit barely.
Drive Performance
To test the capabilities of the on board USB 2.0 connections, we used an ACOMDATA HD060U2FE-72-USB 2.0/FireWire HDD connected first to the USB port. SATA and IDE drive tests were performed using Maxtor 80Gb ATA 133 model 6E080P0 hard drives on the IDE headers and Samsung 40 GB SATA 3G with NCQ hard drives on the SATA headers. The SATA drives were used for testing in RAID 0 16k block size configurations on all applicable controllers. Testing was also conducted using a stand alone SATA drive on all applicable controllers, and an IDE drives connected in a primary slave configuration on the JM363 controller All drive benchmarks were done using the open source Iometer program.
As expected, the RAID0 configuration was the fastest tested. Unfortunately with only one eSATA port I was unable to perform RAID 0 testing on the Silicon Image controller.
Network Utilization Tests
Hagel Technologies’ DU Meter software was used with Windows Task Manager to determine the performance levels of the onboard network interface. DU Meter was used to measure bandwidth and transfer speeds, while Windows Task Manager monitored CPU utilization on the test system. For the testing, a 750MB Archive file consisting of several compressed WMA/MP3 files was used for the large file transfer, and 750MB worth of MP3/WMA files were used ranging in sizes from 3 to 30MB was used for the small files transfer test. The test was performed using a plenum rated category 5e crossover cable to bypass any traffic, routing or other transfer issues and possible packet loss or corruption that can be caused by a router/switch or hub. They cables were connected between two test machines, one using the onboard NICs and the secondary onboard NIC of the Tyan K8SD Pro (S2882-D) which uses dual Broadcom NetXtreme GigE Ethernet ports.
The MSI P6N-SLI Platinum has one integrated Ethernet solution based on the Realtek RTL8211BL PHY. It is capable of 10/100/1000 Base-T operation.
LAN1
The small files download test peaked at 31.06 MB/Sec. and averaged 19.82 MB/Sec with 18% CPU usage. The small files upload maxed out at 31.96 MB/Sec. and averaged 9.72 MB/Sec. with 11% CPU utilization.
For the large files test, the download reached 33.34 MB/Sec. and averaged 30.01 MB/Sec. with 18% CPU utilization. The Large files upload test maximum transfer rate was 32.07 MB/Sec. and the average transfer speed was 22.28 MB/Sec. with a consistent 18% CPU usage.
In basic terms, the LAN performance is nothing special. In some cases it is one of the worst I’ve seen. It is good enough to surf the web, and therefore play online games, but the performance of the onboard NIC is nothing to be excited about and falls short of the solutions integrated into other motherboards I’ve worked with and certainly falls short of some add in boards. As is typical of onboard network interfaces this solution is merely “good enough”.
Test Systems
The following system configurations were used for the Sandra memory benchmark graph, as well as all graphs listed under the Application and Gaming Benchmarks sections:
Graphs are labeled as follows: Motherboard - CPU Clock - FSB Clock - Memory Clock
SiSoft Sandra Memory Bandwidth Benchmark
Note that all results above were obtained running the installed memory in Dual Channel mode.
Interestingly enough, the 650i SLI based P6N-SLI Platinum beats out Intel's P965 Express chipset and only loses ground to the more expensive 680i SLI chipset. This isn't totally surprising as SLI-Ready memory support is one of the missing features of the 650i SLI chipset.