The board
Contrary to its name, the K9N SLI Platinum is not, in fact, decked out in platinum. Instead, it's built from a black board that's dotted with multi-colored ports and slots. The color-coding ruins any hope for a consistent color palette, so the board doesn't end up looking terribly unique. What's worse, the manual doesn't actually refer to any of the ports and slots by their color, so you lose out on both looks and utility.
MSI's also made a few layout decisions of which we're not too fond. Among them is the placement of the board's auxiliary 12V power connector, which creates unnecessary cable clutter around the CPU. We're also not crazy about having the board's four-pin Molex connector, which is recommended for use with SLI configurations, so close to the top PCI Express x16 slot. This position makes getting at the plug a pain for those of us with short, stubby fingers.
On a more positive note, MSI neatly tucks the 24-pin primary power connector out of the way along the right edge of the board. The power plug's surrounded by the board's ATA and floppy connectors, which are also well placed.
Things are a little tight around the K9N SLI's socket, where DIMM slots and taller capacitors flank the AM2 heatsink retention mechanism. There's plenty of room for our Zalman CNPS9500, but those with wider heatsinks may run into clearance issues, especially with taller memory modules like Corsair's Pro and Xpert DIMMs.
From this angle we also have a good view of the board's chunky VRM cooler. The cooler bucks recent trends and does not connect to other onboard heatsinks via a heatpipe. Elaborate heatpipe cooling certainly has its place, but it's apparently not needed on the K9N SLI.
Active chipset cooling isn't necessary, either. The K9N SLI makes do with a relatively modest passive chipset heatsink that's about twice the width of a standard cooler, but no taller than a low-profile design. That leaves plenty of clearance for double-wide graphics cards, although longer cards do pose a couple of other problems for the board.
When installed in the board's top PCI Express slot, longer double-wide cards like the GeForce 7900 GTX will block access to one of the board's Serial ATA ports. Five SATA ports should still be plenty for most folks, but it seems silly that such a clearance issue exists at all, especially when there appears to be enough available board real estate to avoid it completely.
More annoying than losing access to one Serial ATA port is the limited clearance between the top PCI Express x16 slot and the DIMM retention tabs. There's just enough room for the retention tabs to flip down, but with longer graphics cards installed, it's not easy to actually get at the tabs themselves.
Fortunately, it is easy to get at the board's CMOS reset switch. MSI puts a handy red button next to the CMOS chip, and pressing it's all you need to do to reset the BIOS. That beats fumbling with a tiny little jumper any day.
The K9N SLI's slot layout shares some of the blame for the DIMM slot clearance issue. There's only so much vertical area to work with in the ATX form factor, and MSI squeezes two PCI Express x16, two PCI-E x1, and three standard PCI slots onto the board. This generous array of expansion slots ensures that two PCI and one PCI Express x1 slot are available even when a pair of double-wide graphics cards are running in SLI. The presence of three full PCI slots should delight those disappointed by the dearth of PCI-E x1 peripherals, as well.
Around back, there's a little something for everyone from legacy-loving luddites to digital audio snobs. PS/2, serial, and parallel ports all make an appearance on the backplane, but we'd gladly trade the latter two for a few extra USB ports. The port cluster only has four USB ports, and although the board comes with a PCI back plate that supplies and additional two ports, users are on their own when it comes to tapping the additional four onboard USB headers.
MSI has taken an interesting approach to supporting digital audio output with the K9N SLI by equipping the board with not one, but two digital outputs. S/PDIF output is supported in coaxial and TOS-Link flavors for maximum compatibility, but it comes at the expense of a digital S/PDIF input. If you're serious enough about audio to need digital S/PDIF input, chances are you won't be using integrated audio, anyway.
