Test system setup and notes
• CPU: Athlon 64 X2 3800+ AM2
• Motherboard: Abit KN9-SLI / Asus M2N-E / MSI K9N Platinum
• HDD: Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA 120GB
• VGA: Gecube Radeon X800GTO3
• PSU: Ultra X-Finity 2G 600W

Software used:
Sisoft Sandra 2007
PCMark 2005
SuperPi (XS mod)
F.E.A.R.
Prey
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
AutoGK

All three motherboards were tested with their initial release BIOS. Each time we switched the motherboard, the hard drive underwent a full format and re-install of all the essential drivers. The included CDs were used for installing the drivers. After installing all of the motherboard drivers, the NET Framework v1.1, Media Player 10 and Media Encoder 9 were installed. Finally the Catalyst 6.6 drivers were installed for the ATi video card. The video card settings were left to default.

We benchmarked all of our tests at stock speed. No overclocking tests took place, since all three motherboards had several different problems when overclocking. We could not find an overclocking point where all three motherboards could reach and be evaluated fairly. For example, the MSI K9N Platinum could not make use of most RAM dividers and the Asus M2N-E would not even start if the HTT was set anywhere between 220MHz and 255MHz. The AM2 socket is probably still immature and a few BIOS releases are needed in order to iron the bugs out. Later we found that Abit fixed most of the bugs with their latest 1.5 BIOS, but still two of the RAM dividers do not work properly when the motherboard is overclocked.

	Abit K9N-SLI	Asus M2N-E	MSI K9N Platinum
Dhrystone	14570	14490	14565
Whetstone	12330	12295	12319

	Abit K9N-SLI	Asus M2N-E	MSI K9N Platinum
Integer	37781	37820	37694
Float	41139	41122	41095

	Abit K9N-SLI	Asus M2N-E	MSI K9N Platinum
Integer	7221	7095	7110
Float	7196	6992	7001

Sisoft Sandra is one of the most popular applications used for synthetic benchmarking for a wide range of PC components. Sisoftware released the 2007 version of Sandra back in May. We used the CPU arithmetic, CPU multimedia and Memory bandwidth benchmarking modules. The synthetic benchmark results were very close to each other, which is expected for motherboards which use the same chipset. What was not expected is the slightly larger memory bandwidth that the Abit K9N-SLI provides. That is rather uncommon, since the memory controller is not present on the motherboard but inside the CPU, which makes the last benchmark results a small mystery.

PcMark05

	Abit K9N-SLI	Asus M2N-E	MSI K9N Platinum
CPU	4036	4002	4017
Memory	3787	3755	3759
Graphics	3948	3891	3902

PcMark05 is a very popular benchmarking suite for almost every PC component. For the needs of our review, we ran the CPU, memory and graphics test suites. In PCMark05 all of the motherboards perform close enough to make the performance difference entirely unnoticeable in real-world applications. Even so, the Abit KN9-SLI excels a slightly bit against the other two in all three benchmarks.

Super Pi

	Abit K9N-SLI	Asus M2N-E	MSI K9N Platinum
1MB (time in seconds)	42.094	42.195	42.127
32MB (time in seconds)	2213.047	2217.002	2214.585

Super Pi is a very simple, yet popular benchmarking program. It simply calculates a number of decimal digits of the π number and then notes the time it took the system to do that.The performance differences are once more minor. They won’t be noticeable in real world applications. Nevertheless, once more the Abit K9N-SLI pulls slightly ahead of the other two motherboards.

AutoGK (1GB file, no sound)

	Abit K9N-SLI	Asus M2N-E	MSI K9N Platinum
Divx (time in seconds)	544	542	545
Xvid (time in seconds)	1629	1612	1629

Auto GK is a very nice video encoding application which can encode by using the DivX or Xvid Codec, so we can test them both. It has an included timer which helps us know how much time the application needed in order to encode a certain file. Lower results are of course better. This time it was the turn of Asus M2N-E to take the lead. Albeit only for a couple of seconds, the M2N-E was proven to be the fastest motherboard for video encoding. The Abit KN9-SLI and the MSI K9N Platinum performed almost the same in this benchmark.

First Encounter Assault Recon (1024X768)

	Abit K9N-SLI			Asus M2N-E			MSI K9N Platinum
	Min	Avg	Max	Min	Avg	Max	Min	Avg	Max
Frames per second	32	54	115	31	53	112	31	54	115

F.E.A.R. is not only one of the best FPS games of the past year, but one of the most taxing games ever released as well. It also includes a performance test. We run the test with a resolution of 1024x768 and maximum details.

Prey (1024X768)

	Abit K9N-SLI	Asus M2N-E	MSI K9N Platinum
Frames per second	58.7	57.9	58.1

Prey (1280X1024)

	Abit K9N-SLI	Asus M2N-E	MSI K9N Platinum
Frames per second	41.5	41.2	41.3

Prey is another FPS game, exceptionally taxing and with unique features like gravity alteration. It was one of the most anticipated games of 2006. We used a custom benchmark and run it with maximum details on two resolutions.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted (1280X960)

	Abit K9N-SLI			Asus M2N-E			MSI K9N Platinum
	Min	Avg	Max	Min	Avg	Max	Min	Avg	Max
Frames per second	51	62.186	80	50	61.778	80	50	61.801	80

NFS : Most Wanted is a popular street racing game with cutting edge visual effects. Unfortunately, it does not include a timedemo so we have to use FRAPS this time round. We chose a 3-lap circuit run, so that the length of the race and the repeat of the same lap 3 times would give us more consistent results. For the record, we are running a modified Mercedes CLK-500 in the Ironwood Estate circuit stage. The details are set to average. Since we are using FRAPS, the results are not 100% accurate because our game laps cannot be identical, however the 3 laps should give a fairly accurate result. Across all of the game benchmarks, we faced the same result. While the performance differences are slight, the Abit K9N-SLI is slightly faster, followed by the MSI K9N Platinum. A mere frame throughout a whole benchmark run is not all that important, nonetheless for overclockers and benchmark addicts 1 frame can mean life and death.