The Intel i865 Springdale chipset is the next "big" thing for the Pentium 4.... right after the i875 Canterwood of course. Springdale is gaining in popularity primarily because the little chip which gets soldered onto the motherboard offers something on the order of around 97% of the performance of the flagship Intel i875P, for about three-quarters of the price. So what you say? If you're currently working with an i850E (RDRAM) pentium 4 system and long ago made the decision to pass on the DDR-based i845PE's which has been wooing consumers for the last six months, you should still take note. Boards which are based on the i850E were faster and more powerfull than their i845PE counterparts, but the i865 tops both. Hey, it is a new chipset after all! Today we're going to be weighing the pros and cons of MSI's first entry into the mainstream Springdale (i865PE) desktop mainboard market - the wickedly red MSI 865PE Neo2-FIS2R. This is the top of the line model with all the bells and whistles on board - so if you want to save a few dollars and don't need all the little extras you can shoot for the 'vanilla' 865PE Neo2 version.