MSI K9A2 CF Quick Peek
Before we delve deeper into the Phenom 9600, I wanted to do a quick overview of the motherboard we used: the MSI K9A2 CF. Unfortunately we did not have time to do a separate motherboard review for this 790 chipset based board, but we can present you with the specifications - and since we were able to test the processory, you know the motherboard and also have an idea of its overclocking potential and limitations.
MSI's website tells us that the motherboard normally comes with an IDE cable, SATA cable, and SATA power adapter cable; presumably you would also get a manual and a driver CD.
The board appears to be a decent way to get into a Crossfire setup.
The back panel has four USB 2.0, one Gigabit ethernet, PS/2 mouse and keyboard, serial port and audio connectors. A bit sparse if you ask me, it really could use an SP/DIFF output and some more USB ports.
The BIOS was pretty decent, with a fair number of tweakable parameters in the Cell menu - however I could not adjust the CPU multiplier at all, and the layout and behaviour of the memory settings was confusing.
 CPU
• AMD® Phenom/Athlon/Sempron CPU.
Please refer to CPU Support for compatible CPU; the above description is for reference only.
FSB
• HyperTransport 3.0 supporting speed up to 2600MHz
- AM2 CPU supports HyperTransport 1.0
- AM2+ CPU supports HyperTransport 3.0
Chipset
• AMD® 790X and SB600 Chipset
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Main Memory
• Supports Dual DDR II 533/667/800
- 4 DDRII DIMMs (240pin / 1.8V)
- Supports a maximum memory size up to 8GB.
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Slots
• 1 mazarine PCI Express x16 slot with x16 operation (PCI Express Bus SPEC V1.0a compliant)
• 1 light-blue PCI Express x16 slot with x8 operation (PCI Express Bus SPEC V2.0 compliant)
• When 2 PCI Express x16 slots are all installed, the PCIE x 16 lanes will auto arrange form x16/ x0 to x8/ x8. Do not use the light-blue slot when only one PCI Express x16 card is installed.
• 1 PCI Express x1 slots
• 2 PCI slots, support 3.3V/ 5V PCI bus Interface.
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Audio
• Chipset integrated by Realtek® ALC888
- Flexible 8-channel audio with jack sensing
- Compliant with Azalia 1.0 Spec
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LAN
• Realtek PCI-E GbLAN controller 8111B
- Integrated Fast Ethernet MAC and PHY in single chip
- Supports 10Mb/s, 100Mb/s and 1000Mb/s
- Compliance with PCI-Express Bus specification v1.0a
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IEEE1394
• Chipset integrated by VIA® VT6308P
- Transfer rate is up to 400Mbps
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Internal I/O Connectors
- ATX 24-pin power connector
- ATX 4-pin 12V CPU power connector
- CPU / System x 2 FAN connectors
- CD-in connector
- Front panel audio connector
- Front panel connector
- Chassis intrusion switch connector
- 3 x USB 2.0 connector support additional 6 ports
- 1 x Floppy disk drive connector
- 4 x Serial ATA II connectors
- 1 x ATA133 HD connectors
- Clear CMOS jumper
- 1 x SPDIF-out header (optional)
- 1 x IEEE1394 connector support additional 1 ports (optional)
- 1 x TPM module header (optional)
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Back Panel I/O Ports
- 1 x PS/2 keyboard
- 1 x PS/2 mouse
- 1 x Serial port
- 1 x 6 in 1 audio jack
- 4 x USB 2.0 ports
- 1 x RJ45 LAN jack
- 1 x eSATA port (optional)
- 1 x IEEE1394 Port (optional)
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Dimension
• 30.5cm(L) x 22.0cm(W) ATX Form Factor
Mounting
• 6 mounting holes.
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Here are the DIMM sockets:
And the SATA ports:
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