Introduction and Specifications
Both MSI and ECS have come out with motherboards based on the Radeon XPress 3200 chipset for the AM2 platform, but can either of them hold their own against the NVIDIA 590 chipset for the enthusiast?
Introduction
With AMD’s release of the AM2 processor socket in May of this year, all the motherboard and chipset vendors were forced to migrate to the new platform in order to cash in on the new processor upgrades that would inevitably come. NVIDIA chose to do this with a new chipset series, the nForce 590 and 570, which we covered here. ATI went the other route, simply moving their same chipset technology over with a new processor socket plugged into it.
There is no disadvantage to ATI going about their AM2 product line up in this way; we have already reviewed and looked at the Radeon XPress 3200 chipset and found it to be a worthy enthusiast class product. However, motherboard vendors have been apprehensive in making and marketing solutions based on this chipset as the nForce boards were just flat out selling better. A few months now after the AM2 launch from AMD, we have two motherboards in house that use the XPress 3200 chipset that are readily available on the market.
But are either of them worthy of your money? In this article we’ll look at both motherboards individually and then compare them side-by-side for performance and let you know which, if either, is the better deal.
ECS KA3-MVP Specifications (from ECSUSA.com)
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MSI K9A Platinum Specifications (from MSIComputer.com)
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