Introduction

MSI K7N420 Pro nForce 420-D Motherboard Review

This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.

It sure did take a while, didn’t it? I completed my NVIDIA nForce Chipset Review back on October 25, 2001, nearly three months ago. In comparison, it took just over a month for me to get my first KT266A chipset review out after the reference board. To be completely truthful, the MSI K7N420 Pro motherboard has been out for a few weeks already, but I had a couple conflicts with the bios and features that I wanted to get perfectly straight before publishing the review on Amdmb.com.

Past that, the NVIDIA nForce 420-D chipset has been one of the most frequent subjects of discussions and debate in both the Amdmb.com Forums as well as in my own email box. People are writing in every day to find out the latest information on this board as well as those from other manufacturers. Even though you may have already read my reference board review, there are some new facts, and different features that will surely intrigue you to read the rest of this review.

MSI has had a very good run with AMD-based motherboards. Here at Amdmb.com, their products have received lots of recognition from both our reviews as well as our forum readers. They are typically one of the first to adopt a new technology or chipset, and are still able to pull ahead as one of the top motherboards in their respective categories. Not only were they first to release an nForce product, they are still the only one to have been able to show me a final product. That is quite an impressive feat.

All right, time to begin. I’ll start out with the motherboard specifications according to MSI:

Motherboard Specifications
CPU Socket Socket A (200/266 MHz Support)
Chipset NVIDIA nForce 420-D
Form Factor ATX
Multiplier Options default only
Bus Speed Options 100, 105, 106, 11, 144, 13, 137, 140, 145, 147, 154 and 157
Voltages default only
Memory Support 3 x 184-pin DDR DRAM PC1600/PC2100/PC2700 Support
Expansion Slots 5/0/1/1 (PCI/ISA/AGP/CNR)
AGP Support 4x AGP
USB Support 2x Standard USB ports
4x Add-on USB ports
Integrated Components GeForce 2 MX 400 video
5.1 Channel Dolby Digital Audio
10/100 Network
Digital/Optical Audio out
Bios Award BIOS
Onboard IDE 2 x ATA100 EIDE
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