MSI K7N2 (MS-6570) Motherboard

Company: Microstar International
Product: MS-6570 K7N2 AMD Motherboard
Street Price: ~$100 USD
Date Reviewed: March 10, 2003
Reviewed By: Joey C. aka Chong345
Overall Rating: (8.2/10)

Introduction:

MSI is a company that definitely does not need an introduction. They have been around for a while now and have been producing good motherboards as well as video cards. They have been competitive with other motherboard manufacturers because of their high quality motherboards that are user friendly and loaded with features. Today we look at the MSI K7N2 Socket A motherboard based on the NVIDIA NForce 2 chipset. Assuming you know what the NForce 2 chipset is, let us look at the board.

Specifications:

CPU:
  • Supports Socket A for AMD® Athlon/AthlonXP/Duron processors @ FSB 100/133/166
  • Supports 600MHz up to Athlon™ XP 2700+ processor or higher

Chipset:
  • nVIDIA® nForce2 SPP Chipset
    - Supports DDR200/266/333/400
    - Supports external AGP 4X/8X

  • nVIDIA® nForce2 MCP2 Chipset
    - AC97 Interface supporting up to two concurrent codecs
    - Ultra ATA133 for the fastest hard disk throughput
    - USB 2.0 EHCI/1.1 OHCI controller

FSB Support:
  • 100/133/166(200/266/333)MHz clocks are supported.

Main Memory:
  • Supports six memory banks using three 184-pin DDR DIMMs
  • Support Dual channel PC3200/2700/2100/1600 DDR SDRAMs
  • Supports both 64-bit and 128-bit DDR SDRAM
  • Maximum memory size of 3GB

Slots:
  • One AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) 1.5V 4X/8X slot
  • Five 32-bit PCI bus slots (support 3.3v/5v PCI bus interface)
  • One ACR (Advanced Communication Riser) slot

On-Board IDE:
  • An IDE controller on the MCP2/MCP2-T chipset provides IDE HDD/CDROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA133/100/66 operation modes
  • Can connect up to four IDE devices

Audio:
  • Realtek ALC650 6-channel audio

Network:
  • Chipset integrated 10/100 Base-T Ethernet/Fast Ethernet

On-Board Peripherals:
  • On-Board Peripherals include:
    - One floppy port that supports two FDD with 360KB, 720KB, 1.44MB and 2.88MB
    - 1 serial port
    - 1 parallel port supports SPP/EPP/ECP mode
    - 3 audio ports in vertical
    - 1 Bluetooth pin header (Optional)
    - 6 USB ports (Rear * 4/ Front * 2)
    - 1 RJ-45 jack

BIOS:
  • The mainboard BIOS provides "Plug & Play" BIOS which detects the peripheral devices and expansion cards of the board automatically.
  • The mainboard provides a Desktop Management Interface (DMI) function which records your mainboard specifications.

Dimensions:
  • 30.5 cm(L) x 23 cm(W) ATX Form Factor

Mounting:
  • 6 mounting holes.

Accessories:
  • D-Bracket2 (Optional)

*Specifications Courtesy of MSI.