MSI KT4 Ultra Motherboard

[Chintam]

hi there

I recently heard about the newly launched MSI KT4 Ultra-FISR motherboard. As iDon't know so much about the company and it's product especially this one as it is newly launched motherboard, can anyone help me in finding few facts and information regarding the MSI KT4 Ultra-FISR motherboard.

[Amd Athlon]

Micro-Star International Corporation, Ltd. is one of the IT industry's leading manufacturers of computer hardware products and solutions, including world's top five and Taiwan's top three motherboard manufacturer, Taiwan biggest and world's top five server manufacturer, and has been the leading graphic card manufacturer for the past four years. Today MSI is pressing forward with the development of new products, such as notebooks and consumer electronic products. The sales of MSI's MP3 product has been growing rapidly, making MSI one of the top MP3 product suppliers in Taiwan since 2004. Through world class engineering, manufacturing & design innovation, MSI is dedicated to providing leading-edge hardware products and robust solutions that are easy to implement and integrate while also enhancing overall performance, value and ultimately the individual end user's personal digital life experience. With annual worldwide sales of US $2.4 Billion in 2005, MSI ranks 26 in the Taiwan Top 1000 Companies for 2005.

[gygabite]

Special Features:

• PC Alert 4
• Live BIOS / Live Driver
• Fuzzy Logic 4
• Live Monitor
• MSI DVD
• D-Bracket 2 (Optional)
• S-Bracket (Optional)
• Serial ATA RAID
• Bluetooth ready
• IEEE1394 Firewire
• Gigabit LAN

[Joshua]

Product Specification

• CPU:

1. Supports Socket A (Socket 462) for AMD Athlon XP/ Athlon / Duron processor
2. Supports 800MHz up to 1.8GHz (Athlon XP 2200+) processor

• Chipset:

1. VIA KT400 chipset
2. FSB 200/266/333 MHz
3. Supports DDR200/266/333 memory
4. AGP 8X and PCI advanced high performance memory controller.
5. VIA VT8235 chipset
6. Dual channel Ultra DMA 66/100/133 master mode EIDE controller.
7. ACPI & PC2001 compliant enhanced power management.
8. Integrated USB 2.0 controller.

• FSB:

1. 200/266/333 MHz clocks are supported

• Main Memory:

1. Supports up to six memory banks using three 184-pin DDR SDRAMs.
2. Supports up to 3GB memory size.
3. Supports DDR200/266/333/400* memory.
4. DDR 400 memory support by MSI certified module only.
5. DDR400 (PC3200) Max. up to 2 Memory DIMM slots with 4 memory banks only
6. Due to the High Performance Memory design, motherboards or system configurations may or may not operate smoothly at the JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council) standard settings (BIOS Default on the motherboard) such as DDR voltage, memory speeds and memory timing. Please confirm and adjust your memory setting in the BIOS accordingly for better system stability.
7. Example: Kingston HyperX DDR500 PC4000 operates at 2.65V, 3-4-4-8, CL=3.

• Slots:

1. One AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) slot.
2. Supports AGP 2.0 4x/8x.
3. Six 32-bit PCI bus slots (support 3.3v/5v PCI bus interface).

• On-board IDE:

1. An IDE controller on the VT8235 chipset provides IDE HDD/CD-ROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA133/100/66 operation modes.

• Serial ATA Interface:

1. Promise 20376 controlls 2 Serial ATA ports in 150 MB/s operation mode and 1 Ultra DMA port

Bluetooth Ready:

1. 1 extra pinheader for Bluetooth connect connection.

On-Board Peripherals:

1. 1 floppy port supports 2 FDDs with 360K, 720K, 1.2M, 1.44M and 2.88Mbytes
2. 2 serial ports (COM A + COM B)
3. 1 parallel port supports SPP/EPP/ECP mode
4. 1 IrDA connector for SIR/ASKIR/HPSIR
5. 6 USB 2.0 ports (Rear * 4/ Front * 2)
6. 1 audio port

• Audio:

1. C-Media 8738MX 6-channel audio + SPDIF out.

• BIOS:

1. The mainboard BIOS provides "Plug & Play" BIOS which detects the peripheral devices and expansion cards of the board automatically.
2. The mainboard provides a Desktop Management Interface (DMI) function which records your mainboard specifications.
3. ACPI, 1.0a, APM1.2, PnP 1.0a, SMBIOS 2.3, USB 2.0, WFM 2.0, Overclock, Boot from USB device.

• Dimensions:

30.5 cm(L) x 23 cm(W) ATX Form Factor

• Mounting:

6 mounting holes

• Accessories:

D-Bracket 2

[MattyBoy]

List of MSI Certified Memory Modules KT4 Ultra Series:

[Russell]

Final Verdict:

Overall, the new MSI KT4 Ultra-FISR is a greatly designed board which features the newest on board peripherals which is more than enough for purchasing the board as you will be sure of these peripherals won't run out of fashion so soon. The Broadcom's Gigabit Ethernet and Promise Technology's PDC20376 Serial ATA RAID controllers are the latest devices which you can expect from MSI and they should remain as permanent features in future models also.

In case of performance, the KT4 Ultra-FISR is refreshing and good as market people had a good time benchmarking this board. The board has no problems running FSB333 CPUs at either DDR333 and DDR400 memory. To add more, you should ensure that only MSI allows to set your FSB to 333MHz when using DDR400 memory. Other boards like ASUS A7V8X will not allow you to perform in the BIOS. This is again an advantage with the KT4 Ultra-FISR.

There's no point to dislike about the MSI KT4 Ultra-FISR; but a better accessories especially with the on-board C-Media 8738 audio chip should have been provided. As the hardware based audio controller supports six-channels of analog audio output, MSI did not bundle their famous S-Bracket which provides connectivity for rear, center and subwoofer channels. Also, users are expected to convert the LINE IN and MIC jacks for additional outputs via software. I think MSI should bundle the S-Bracket which completely give users the full product satisfaction.