MSI K9N6PGM2-V AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

Good Budget Board

Reviewed By: Vapor_Trails on 1/18/2010

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Boots. Inexpensive. Everything works. All of the components listed below worked from the start. Nothing DOA. I first installed XP Pro and then Windows 7 a few months later. XP ran great and 7 hums along just fine. This is an "always on" machine and so far, so good. The whole build was right at $300 (plus a copy of Win 7 later).

Cons: For the price , none. PCI Express x16 2.0 would be nice but no entry-level boards have 2.0. The bios is a bit antiquated but it's a $45 board. I didn't expect anything more.

Other Thoughts: I used this board to build my wife a basic office machine. She uses it for web surfing, video streaming, social networking stuff, office apps, digital pics, and iTunes. It's been running for about six months with no crashes or freezes. And that's all I can expect for a sub-$50 mobo.

Specs:
*Windows 7
*MSI K9N6PGM2-V motherboard
*Athlon 64 X2 5050e Brisbane 2.6GHz AM2 45W Dual-Core
*MSI N8400GS-TD512 GeForce 8400 GS 512MB video card
*PNY OPTIMA 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Ram
*Western Digital Caviar Blue WD1600AAJS 160GB HD
*Rosewill R909SL Case with 350W Power Supply

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Great board for the $$$...

Reviewed By: krispy on 1/17/2010

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Worked on 1st try, no hassles. 6150SE integrated video is way better than Intel GMA 950 IGP, ATi Radeon Express 200 IGP, & Chrome 9 Via IGPs. Supports AM2, AM2+, AM3 CPU's. 7.1 Sound 10/100 ethernet, 2 SATA headers, 1 IDE, plenty of USB ports. Installed 2GB DDR2 800, Athlon 64 X2 5000 AM2+, Logisys 480W max power supply in an existing Antec case. with existing IDE DVD ROM and existing IDE 80 GB hard disk. Re-installed Windows XP Home edition, updated to SP3 w/ current express updates, and REACTIVATED Windows with absolutely no problems. (Thought reactivation would be an issue because of so many new hardware components, but it was not an issue.) Very fast considering the price. Doubt one could buy an HP/DELL/ etc... with this performance/price ratio. Runs older games like Q3 Arena, Halo, Doom 3, Deal or No Deal, Wheel of Fortune Deluxe excellent. Let Doom 3 scan hardware and presto 800x600 on High settings. Wow! This is a killer setup for cheap LAN party. Low $$$ ? Buy this 1!

Cons: Packaging states Geforce 7 series IGP, device manager says 6150SE IGP. Small gripe, but a bit confusing. Took an egg away from score.

Other Thoughts: 1755 marks on 3dMark03 if anyone cares. PCI-e x 16 slot is nice to add more current video. Makes a great upgrade path to a Quad-core for the future. Up and running, including disassemby of old board etc... in less than an hour (not including updating Windows etc...). Suprisingly fast. Plan on upgrading my entire family's PC's with this setup (I'm not paying for it though :) ). Highly recomended, especially for the price. Doom 3 runs very nice and eventhough it is an older game, it is still a benchmark this motherboard passes easily. The memory is running dual-channel and that should give a 128 bit memory interface for the onboard video/IGP.
Living large for cheap.... Only thing really holding back out of the box performance is the video, which is not bad in my opinion. Add a $60.00 +/- video card to this, and its GOLDEN! Have 2 other MSI system with a very similar MOBO, X2 4000 AM2 CPU, 1GB DDR2 533 D/C, Via Chrome 9 IGP (which is not very good by the way), 2 years strong

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Reviewed By: farna on 1/9/2010

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 week to 1 month

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Great board with plenty of features for the price

Cons: None really.

Other Thoughts: There is no digital surround-sound output. I bought it for a media PC and this would have been nice. It wasn't mentioned in the specs. It does have internal SPDIF out for an HDMI video card, but only analog surround output. So I'll have to buy a sound card now. I guess I can't complain for the price of the board. I didn't use the on-board video as i wanted dedicated video memory.

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