Review of MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R Mainboard on i875P Chipset

by Ilya Gavrichenkov
06/12/2003 | 01:21 PM

The arrival of the new chipsets from the i875 and i865 families catalyzed some changes in the mainboard market. These chipsets were launched to unleash the power of the sweetest pair: Pentium 4 processors with 800MHz bus and dual-channel DDR SDRAM memory configuration. No wonder every respectable mainboard maker has already announced new products based on these chipsets. For today, i875/i865 based products have reached adulthood and left all children’s diseases behind as the manufacturers have already eliminated most bugs. So, we are going to announce our own series: reviews of mainboards based on i875 and i865 chipsets.

The first mainboard like that to enter our test lab was MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R. As the name tells, it is based on the most expensive i875P chipset. This mainboard has already appeared in stores, and that is why we decided to review it among the first.

The manufacturer positions MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R as a flagship of their Pentium 4 product line. MSI emphasizes the big number of integrated controllers, extensive overclocking opportunities and rich accessories set. But what can MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R show in practice? Let’s check it out!

Specifications

MSI 875P Neo may come in several flavors, differing in availability of some integrated features. So far, we’ve seen two variants of this mainboard:

• MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R (full-feature version);
• MSI 875P Neo-LSR (a version with a 10/100Mbit network controller and without IEEE1394 and additional IDE RAID controllers).

These two variants quite naturally cost different money: the full version costs $190 today, the simpler one - $150. This is a nice fact, considering that the i875P chipset itself costs more than all the integrated stuff (over $50).

The accessories coming with MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R are really numerous:

• CD disk and two floppies with a standard set of drivers and utilities;
• Bundled software CD with Photoshop Album SE, WinDVD 4, WinRip 2, Virtual Drive 7, RestoreIT! 3 and Media Ring;
• Four Serial ATA cables and two power adapters for Serial ATA hard disk drives;
• One round aerodynamic ATA-133 cable;
• FDD cable;
• D-Bracket 2 with a four-LED diagnostic system and a pair of additional USB 2.0 ports;
• Bracket with a coaxial and SPDIF outs;
• Bracket with three IEEE1394 ports;
• User’s manual and RAID-array manual.

Closer Look

First of all, MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R is targeted at any demanding user who wants to build an up-to-date system based on a high-end Intel processor. Of course, such a product must support all modern processors and memory types as well as a number of interfaces and protocols for connection of external devices and equipment.

As for CPUs, you can install any Socket 478 processor into MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R. This mainboard supports CPU buses working at 400, 533 and 800MHz frequencies and Hyper-Threading technology. It is interesting that Intel doesn’t list the support of the older 400MHz bus in the i875P specifications. But as we see, the reason lies in marketing rather than technological realm: a new and expensive chipset just shouldn’t support old and cheap processors. However, MSI took the responsibility to implement this support in its MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R. Although this mainboard will surely accommodate Prescott processors coming out in the fall, it is also friendly to older CPUs on the Willamette core and with 400MHz bus, which are incompatible with the new VRM 10 power supply circuit, according to Intel.

Like any i875P- and even i865-based mainboard, MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R supports up to 4GB of dual-channel DDR SDRAM. DDR266 and DDR333 can be used with 133MHz FSB, while DDR400 is for 200MHz FSB only. there are four DIMM slots onboard: two slots for each memory channel. So, if you want to work in the dual-channel mode, install the modules in pairs (one pair or two pairs). In this case, the modules must have the same capacity and the same number of banks. It is not necessary that you use identical memory modules, but if this is the case, the memory timings are set according to the slowest module. Of course, you can hit the maximum performance only when using identical modules.

Single-channel memory configuration is also available, but the memory subsystem will work slower in this mode, of course.

Graphics companies should rejoice: the new chipsets of the i865 and i875 families bring AGP 8x support into mass mainboards. MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R, of course, supports this graphics interface, too. We should note however that modern graphics cards don’t actually lose in speed when they work in AGP 4x mode. Moreover, the AGP 8x interface will probably have a short lifetime, being a makeshift until the arrival of PCI Express. This is going to happen somewhere in the middle of the next year.

One more nice feature of MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R is a gigabit network controller. It is implemented via Intel PRO/1000CT Gigabit LAN (Intel 82547) chip. It means the network controller is connected to the North Bridge via a dedicated CSA bus with a bandwidth of 2Gbit rather than to the South Bridge across the PCI bus. Thus, the integrated network of this mainboard will work faster than PCI analogs and the PCI bus itself will be less cramped.

It’s rather a curious thing to see a codec from Analog Devices in a mainboard from MSI. Earlier, this company used only Realtek codecs in its products. But times are changing and it’s Analog Devices that offers best sound codecs of today. By some obscure reason MSI put off the newest AD1985 codec that allows dynamical switching between audio-outputs, the microphone in and line in. Still, the AD1980 chip soldered to the mainboard sounds excellent, supports six-channel speaker systems and, thanks to the bracket with a coaxial and digital output, supports SP-DIF.

The variety of external ports in MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R includes, in particular, eight USB 2.0 ones. The South Bridge (ICH5) of the i875P chipset supports this number of USB ports and they are all available. Six of them are placed at the back panel of the mainboard and the remaining two are connected via the D-Bracket.

As you see, the back panel is far from being standard here. This shouldn’t frighten you though: there is a special bracket for the back panel of the PC case coming with the mainboard.

The eight USB 2.0 ports are not the last thing to be mentioned. As i875P doesn’t support 1394(a) FireWire, this interface is implemented by means of a VIA VT6360 controller. By the way, Intel is lagging behind other manufacturers in this respect, as SiS and NVIDIA include IEEE1394 support into their chipsets already. MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R has three IEEE1394 ports (on the bracket). There are two 6-pin connectors, and one 4-pin connector.

The D-Bracket we’ve mentioned above also carries four LEDs that constitute a house diagnostics system. The key point of the system is simple: various combinations of LEDs correspond to certain phases of the POST procedure, so if there is any problem during boot-up, the user can determine the cause (by looking up in the user manual). Of course, we can’t call it a very powerful system; still, it’s better than nothing. Its functionality falls far behind fully-fledged POST controllers, but the main POST phases are all covered.

The daintiest bit comes last. The main advantage of MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R, in our opinion, is the number of hard disk drives you can connect to it. Thus, the ICH5 South Bridge supports two ATA-100 channels (for four ATA-devices) plus two Serial ATA-150 channels. The mainboard also carries an integrated IDE RAID controlled from Promise – PDC20378. It supports one ATA-133 channel for two devices and two Serial ATA-150 channels. Overall, MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R includes three Parallel ATA and four Serial ATA channels. In other words, you can connect up to ten hard disk drives to the reviewed mainboard. Wow!

You are also offered wide opportunities for building RAID arrays. The South Bridge ICH5 (its ICH5R modification, to be more exact) allows striping two Serial ATA HDDs into a Level 0 RAID array. Promise PDC20378 supports RAID 0 (stripe) and 1 (mirror) arrays.

RAID in ICH5R

We haven’t yet discussed in our reviews the Serial ATA RAID controller built into the South Bridge of the i875P chipset. Now, we are going to bridge this gap. So, for the integrated RAID to function properly, the following requirements must be met:

• You need the RAID-supporting ICH5R South Bridge. The marking of this chip is Intel FW82801ER;
• The controller must be set to the RAID mode in the BIOS Setup (it can also function in the mode with two independent channels);
• Two Serial ATA HDDs are attached to ICH5R;
• Serial ATA RAID driver called Intel Application Accelerator RAID Edition is installed.

Note: for today, ICH5R only supports Level 0 RAID (stripe), but Intel promises an upgrade, so that it could also support Level 1 RAID (mirror). Moreover, the RAID driver for ICH5 is now available for Windows XP only; the driver for Windows 2000 is going to appear soon.

It’s an easy thing to build up a RAID array. Let’s see how it’s done with MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R. First, we enable the use of Serial ATA channels and say Yes to the option “Configure S-ATA as RAID”:

After that, there appears a special RAID BIOS during boot-up. You can go in and configure the array there. But that’s not necessary as there is an easier way: Intel Application Accelerator RAID Edition allows configuring an array from Windows XP. By the way, you cannot install this driver-utility without enabling the RAID mode in the BIOS: the installation will go abort mumbling something about incompatibility.

After Intel Application Accelerator RAID Edition has been successfully installed, the system installs the RAID driver:

From Intel’s utility you can create and configure a RAID array. The creation is a simple task: just answer a few questions from the driver:

Now that the array is created, the two hard disk drives are recognized by the system as a single drive of a double capacity (if you use two identical drives).

In theory, you can install Windows XP directly onto the RAID array. MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R comes with a floppy carrying an appropriate driver.

Note: when ICH5 works in the non-RAID mode, you won’t need any drivers at all. In this case Windows XP itself finds the Serial ATA controllers and disk drives.

There is one important thing about the driver support of IDE controllers in ICH5. Earlier, Intel offered its standard Application Accelerator for IDE controllers in its chipsets. This Accelerator performed buffering of disk operations, resulting in a certain performance gain for the disk subsystem. But with the launch of i875 and i865 chipsets, Intel Application Accelerator has entered the league of RAID drivers and abandoned IDE controllers support. So, mainboards with ICH5 don’t have disk buffering on the driver level anymore. To put it simpler, office applications that actively use the disk subsystem run slower on i875 and i865 than on previous chipsets as far as disk access time is concerned. We can’t say why Intel gave up writing intelligent IDE drivers for its new chipsets.

IDE RAID: Intel vs. Promise

So, it turns out that Serial ATA drives as well as Parallel ATA drive can be connected to two different controllers on MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R: to the one integrated into ICH5 or to the additional Promise PDC20378. MSI gives us the choice, but what should we choose? We carried out a brief comparison having tested Promise PDC20378 and ICH5R of MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R.

We measured the performance of single Serial ATA drives and Level 0 RAID arrays connected to both controllers, and the performance of Level 1 RAID array created on Promise PDC20378. For this test we used WD Raptor disks and SiSoft Sandra 2003 benchmark. The results are listed below:

As our brief test suggests a single drive would be faster if connected to Promise PDC20378, although not much faster. In the RAID 0 mode, on the contrary, the controller from the South Bridge behaves noticeably better. The reason may lie in the connection type. Promise PDC20378 is connected to the South Bridge via the ordinary PCI bus with 133MB/s bandwidth, which is shared by all PCI devices. The integrated controller from ICH5 works without any PCI, which is gradually becoming a bottleneck of the modern computer system.

PCB Design

We had no difficulties building a system based on MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R. Notwithstanding the numerous controllers and other components, the design of the mainboard is good. Everything is in its right place.

The FDD and Parallel ATA connectors as well as the ATX power supply connector are placed in front of the DIMM slots. The 12V ATX connector is located at the back part of the PCB, between the chipset and AGP slot.

Note the unusual coloring of the memory slots. While most other manufacturers paint the same color symmetrical pairs of slots belonging to different channels, in MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R slots belonging to one channel are colored green, to the other – purple.

MSI engineers did a good job placing connectors for the additional USB and IEEE1394 ports and D-Bracket diagnostics system on the left side of the PCB, behind the last PCI slot. Their cables won’t interfere with other system components.

An installed graphics card doesn’t block the DIMM slots clips. That’s nice, although this design advantage is achieved due to the use of only five, not six, PCI slots.

Although the North Bridge of the i875P chipset feels all right with a passive cooling, MSI chose to mount an active cooler on it. Probably, this is a move for those people who have a transparent case: the chipset cooler carries six cheerful LEDs that blink when the fan is working. The cooler itself is hidden beneath a nice tracery lattice. On the other hand, the installation of this cooler has a negative side: its 6,000rpm speed makes a lot of noise.

The CPU power supply circuit on MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R includes three phases. The MOSFET transistors used in it have heat-spreaders on. Theoretically, this should help in case of very warm processors. 

BIOS and Overclocking

Unlike the majority of manufacturers who have made a choice in favor of Phoenix-Award BIOS’s, MSI often prefers BIOS’s from AMI. MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R is another example, using AMIBIOS. There is nothing bad about it. Modern AMIBIOS versions, unlike their predecessors, are flexible and sometimes provide higher performance than their Award counterparts.

The performance issues will be discussed later on, now let’s have a walk around the Setup. First, look at the memory timings that are placed on a separate page in the BIOS Setup of MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R.

Here, you can set DRAM CAS# Latency (to 2, 2.5 or 3), DRAM Precharge Delay (to 5, 6, 7 or 8), DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay and DRAM RAS# Precharge (to 2, 3 or 4). Overall, a standard set of options. Besides, there is an option to turn on ECC, as MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R is a i875P based mainboard.

The Frequency/Voltage Control page is more interesting as it contains most overclocking and frequency adjustment options.

First of all, check the available memory frequencies. Like in many other i875 and i865 based mainboards, the DRAM frequency depends on the FSB frequency. Particularly, the owners of CPUs with 800MHz bus will have a wider choice. The table below lists available memory frequency settings:

As we see, MSI engineers have added some new modes to the standard set: DDR354 for CPUs with 533MHz bus and DDR500 and DDR532 for CPUs with 800MHz bus. We can’t say these modes are too helpful, but overclockers may put them to good use.

Back to the most interesting, to the parameters that immediately affect CPU overclocking. MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R offers the following to a dedicated overclocker:

• FSB frequency adjustment. Formally, the range is from 100 to 500MHz. The maximum for processors with 400MHz bus end at 355MHz, while for processors with 533 and 800MHz bus frequencies the mainboards allow setting 500MHz FSB. However, this is just a marketing trick: no processor available today can work with such a high FSB frequency.
• Theoretical possibility of changing the CPU multiplier. Although this option is present among the settings, you cannot use it. All processors Intel sells today have a dead locked multiplier.
• Manual adjustment of the Vcore from the nominal CPU voltage to 2.3V with 0.0125V increment for the first 0.1-volt segment and 0.1V increment thereafter. Thus, you can flexibly control the Vcore. Only the too large increment for high voltages is upsetting.
• Vmem adjustment. The range is from 2.5V to 3.3V with 0.05V increment.
• Vagp adjustment. The range is from 1.55 to 2.1V with 0.05V increment.

So, overclockers should welcome MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R. This mainboard offers the richest opportunities for adjusting the FSB frequency as well as the voltages. That is, MSI has adapted its product for both: ordinary and extreme overclocking.

And yet, MSI forgot about one thing: MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R has no means to reset CPU parameters in case of “over-overclocking”. So, if the system doesn’t start up after some tuning in BIOS Setup, there is only one way to get it back to life: use the Clear CMOS jumper.

Although BIOS Setup of MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R looks fantastic, we encountered certain problems in it. During our test session we tried to use three different versions of the BIOS for this mainboard: 1.0, 1.2 and 1.4. Every version had some individual drawbacks:

• BIOS 1.0 didn’t allow setting CAS Latency = 2 for DDR400 with processors supporting 800MHz bus. If we set this parameter in BIOS Setup, the memory frequency dropped to 333MHz.
• BIOS 1.2 was illiterate with timings. Manual adjustment of DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay and DRAM RAS# Precharge in BIOS Setup led to unpredictable results.
• BIOS 1.4 is nasty during overclocking. The maximum FSB frequency we reached using this version was 217MHz. Meanwhile, with earlier versions we overclocked our test processor to 275MHz FSB.
• Besides, all tested BIOS versions don’t work correctly with XMS3200 memory from Corsair. By default, the mainboards sets such timings that the system cannot start up. So, if you want to use DDR400 memory from Corsair, you will have to turn the mainboard on with some other memory modules, manually configure the memory and then switch to Corsair modules.

MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R has an interesting overclocking-related feature called CoreCell technology.

A special chip in an original metal packaging is responsible for this feature. As the mainboard box tells, CoreCell monitors system health and offers four advantages:

• Controls the rotation speeds of the fans (CPU, North Bridge and others) to reduce the noise;
• Increases the reliability of mainboard components;
• Reduces power consumption;
• Controls overclocking features of the mainboard, making overclocking more fruitful.

But as we see, the BIOS Setup has no trace of this technology. The system monitoring page doesn’t mention CoreCell, either.

Nevertheless, the PC Health page has a lot to say about the system. For example, you can watch the CPU and system temperature, rotation speeds of the CPU and chipset fans, the voltages of the CPU, battery and PSU (on all lines).

As for CoreCell, it turned out that all the pleasantries of this technology are only available when you use a special CoreCenter utility from the software bundle coming with the mainboard.

Besides monitoring system parameters from Windows, this utility can overclock the computer by changing the FSB frequency and voltages directly from the OS. Moreover, this utility controls rotation speeds of the fans installed in the system depending on the temperature of certain system components. This gives an opportunity to reduce the overall noise coming from the PC case.

Performance

Before we start discussing the actual test results, we’d like to say that mainboards based on the same chipset don’t greatly differ in performance (we don’t take into account the miracles with PAT-enabled i865PE here). So, when choosing a particular product among those based on the same core logic, you should primarily pay attention to its features, overclocking friendly options, stability and reliability and technical support rather than benchmark results.

During the tests we compared the performance of MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R with that of another popular product – ASUS P4C800 Deluxe mainboard, also based on the i875P chipset. The testbed was configured as follows:

• Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz CPU;
• MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R and ASUS P4C800 Deluxe mainboards;
• 512MB (2x256MB) DDR400 SDRAM from OCZ and Corsair;
• ATI RADEON 9700 PRO graphics card;
• Seagate Barracuda ATA IV 80GB hard disk drive.

The benchmarks were run in Microsoft Windows XP SP1. The BIOS’s of both mainboards were set to maximum performance.

Below you can see the performance results in various applications:

	ASUS P4C800 Deluxe	MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R
Business Winstone 2002	33.6	32.5
Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2003	49	48.5
3DMark2001 SE, Default	16323	16753
3DMark03, Default	4860	4873
3DMark03, CPU Score	714	702
PCMark2002, Memory score	8949	8965
Unreal Tournament 2003, dm-antalus, 640x480x32	62.69	62.36
RTCW, Checkpoint, 640x480x16	223.6	219.3
SiSoft Sandra 2002, RAM Buffered Bandwidth	4908	4908

As we see the two mainboards show about the same performance results.

Conclusion

So, MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R proved a handy and functional mainboard. Its overclocking friendly features are definitely worth taking a look at, at least. Combined with a rich accessories set, good performance and rather low price (for an i875P based mainboard), MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R has every chance to become popular in the market.

The overall good impression about the mainboard is somewhat spoiled by the problems with the BIOS. If MSI solves them in the near future, we could talk about MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R as about something really exceptional, a great solution for stable and high-performance platforms with the new Pentium 4 CPUs supporting 800MHz bus.

Highs:

• New Pentium 4 processors support;
• Support of up to 10 hard disk drives (4 Serial ATA and 6 Parallel ATA);
• Two integrated Serial ATA RAID controllers;
• USB 2.0 and IEEE1394 support;
• Gigabit Ethernet connected via CSA;
• Rich accessories set;
• Excellent CPU overclocking options;
• Well-thought design and stylish exterior;
• High stability.

Lows:

• CoreCell technology requires a special utility;
• Certain problems with the BIOS.