Difference Between Neo2 Platinum and Neo4 Platinum?

[heffe734]

I was set on the Msi K8N Neo2 Platinum until they just recently released the Neo4 Platinum. Should i now go with the neo4 board? Other than its nforce3 vs. nforce4, what are the main differences between the two? Is there anything special about nforce4 performance wise or in anything else that makes it a better option?

I'm just looking for performance and stability...(who doesn't), features is not a big thing for me. I'm kinda hesitant too about jumping the gun here because the board did just come out..

Your thoughts and comments are appreciated! Thanks in advance!

 

[SunSamurai]

if features arnt a big thing, then why dont you spend $50 on a very inexpencive and trusted board.

 

[mwmorph]

aeternitas dosent know jack about anything he talks about dont listen to him

nforce 4 is sli, the wave of the future. agp is going to die sooner or later so better to go sli. nf4 also has a built in firewall on the chipset as well. buy now and the sli version is only $20 more!

 

[Idleuser]

There really isn't any differences besides a more mature nfroce chipset. Preformance should be about the same but the nforce 4 has slightly better overclocking potential if the right board is used. Other than that it's really just a PCIe vs AGP and added SATA II support from what I can tell and a onboard firewall. just FYI SLI isn't worth it imo because not all games can use sli and are done on the driver level. I too had my mind set on SLI until I found out the upgrade route isn't really better than just buying single and more new faster cards.

 

[mwmorph]

meh, its mnore of a cheap upgrade option. say i have a geforce 6800oc from bfg. if 2 years from now im poor and dont want to spring for something like a 8800oc for say 400usd, id just buy a old 6800oc for about 150 again and enjoy the cheap performance increase.

 

[Idleuser]

well that is correct and not really correct because the newer cards has more added features than the older cards so saying it'll be the same as upgrading to a new card with a new core isn't the same as going with the old upgrade route of adding another card with less features than the new core. Either way you can't go wrong except the fact that you'll eventually spend the same amount of $$$ with either upgrade option.

 

[mwmorph]

yeah eventuallly in a 2 year span 2 6800oc would cost me 400 while me shelling out only 150 the second time around but buying a 6800oc and then a 8800oc would cost something like 600-700. with me shellnig out like 400 the second time around. see waht i mean? if you dont care or need say, dx10 hardware support with all the added graphics goodies, then the nv drivers will do limited dx10 feature support with software fine for you. but i dont know, maybe im just cheap like that.

 

[TheInvincibleMustard]

Well, unless your games are optimized for SLI by nVidia's drivers, you're not going to notice any performance benefit from an SLI setup. nVidia's marketing is very misleading in that it promises an immediate increase in performance by using SLI, but they don't say right out that it's only a very limited subset of games that can take advantage of SLI.

nZone link stating current "scalable apps" -- http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_sli_scalableapps.html
PCPerspectives link with more info -- http://www.pcper.com/article.p...d=99&type=expert&pid=9

So while the upgrade path does sound modestly decent, Idleuser's got a point with regards to hardware changes, plus there's the problem with drivers needing to be specifically developed for a particular game in order to take advantage of SLI. IMHO, SLI's not what it's cracked up to be and is more of marketing ploy than anything else.

 

[mwmorph]

oh well. at least get a nf4 for pci-e. at least we ca nagree pci-e is gonna move agp out of the scene soner or later right?

 

[st3]

Originally posted by: mwmorph
oh well. at least get a nf4 for pci-e. at least we ca nagree pci-e is gonna move agp out of the scene soner or later right?

Agreed, although it will be more likely later than sooner. It took a long time for ISA to die off completely, and I think PCI/AGP will be good for at least a few more years.

As to the guy that started the thread my advice is this:
If you are building a system from scratch and/or are getting a new video card I would go with the nforce4 and Pci-e.

If you have a decent AGP video card or other PCI cards you want to hang on to I would stick with the nforce 3 and AGP/PCI. If say 18 months from now you want to go to pci-e a new board isn't that expensive.

 

[Idleuser]

18months from now ATI will already penetrate through the market with a nice chipset as well to give nvidia a little competition. and yes it's better go to pcie if building from scratch but if building upon an existing nice agp card you already have... stick with it the preformance won't be justified seeing how nforce4 has migrated over to atx 2.0 it'll call for a new psu for maximum preformance.

 

[heffe734]

thanks for your input guys...looks like i'm headed towards the nforce4. Just waiting for some more anandtechers to put up some personal reviews of the board...

 

[amol]

Originally posted by: mwmorph
aeternitas dosent know jack about anything he talks about dont listen to him

nforce 4 is sli, the wave of the future. agp is going to die sooner or later so better to go sli. nf4 also has a built in firewall on the chipset as well. buy now and the sli version is only $20 more!

nforce 4 means pci-express, not necessarily SLi . . . you can buy a 4x that has pci-e, but not Sli :roll:

and you say aeternitas doesnt know jack . . . :roll:

 

[Sentrosi2121]

The nForce3 250GB also has hardwired Firewall on the chip as well.

On the notion that AGP will die out soon; yes and no.

Yes because we all know SLI will pretty much be the norm for power gamers in the next couple of years.

No because, even now with 8x AGP, we have yet to cross the threshold where an 8x AGP card is overworked in regards to bandwidth. PCI-E video cards are even more insane as far as bandwidth is concerned. Give AGP another 3 or 4 years.

 

[ddviper]

idk if agp will last 3-4 yrs, but i bet they'll at least go for 2, IMO

 

[Sniper82]

AGP will probably be like PCI video cards was 2-3 years ago. It will get some cards but then we will see PCI-E start to pass it up in the next couple years. Then we will probably see AGP just getting the lower end cards. I think its still go another 2-3 years before its dated and by then most ppl will have PCI-E boards.