Motherboard: MSI 845 Ultra :: Features

Features

• Chipset: Intel I82845 North Bridge (MCH), Intel I82801BA South Bridge (ICH2)
• FSB: 100 MHz (Quad Pumped)
• Memory: Three DDR slots, 2GB of PC1600/PC2100 184 Pin DDR SDRAM
• PCI Slots: Five 32-bit Master PCI bus slots.
• AGP: 2x, 4X (Only 1.5V)
• CNR: 1
• On-board Sound: C-Media CMI8738 /PCI-6ch supports 2/4/6 channels speaker.
• IDE Channels:
• 845 Ultra: Two ATA100 Compliant IDE controllers.
• 845 Ultra R/RU: Add. Two Ultra ATA/100 RAID 0/1 ch. PROMISE PDC20265R
• 845 Ultra A: Add. Two Ultra ATA/133 channels. PROMISE PDC20275
• 845 Ultra AR/ARU: Add. Two Ultra ATA/100 RAID 0/1 ch. PROMISE PDC 20276
• Power Requirements: 12V P4 Ready
• BIOS: AMIBIOS
• Hardware Monitoring: Yes
• Wake On LAN: Yes
• Keyboard Power On: No
• STR (Suspend To RAM): Yes
• STD (Suspend To Disk): Yes
• Live Driver and BIOS Updates: Yes

CPU Compatibility

• Intel P4 478 Pin I/O Built In On Board
• 1 x Floppy port
• 2 x Serial ports
• 1 x Parallel port
• 1 x IrDA connector for SIR/ASKIR/HPSIR
• Audio - External: Speaker Out / Line In / Mic In Internal: CD-In / AUX IN / MODEM IN
• 1 x Game/MIDI port.
• 1 x D-Bracket Pin Header
• 2 x USB ports onboard, 1 header onboard on rear or front computer panel + 1 bracket (2 Ports) for rear. (For RU and ARU)

Package Contents

• 1 x MSI 845 ULTRA MS6398 Motherboard
• 1 x CD-ROM driver and software disk
• 1 x User Manual for Motherboard
• 1 x User manual for ATA 133 Raid
• 1 x Floppy Diskette Driver for ATA 133
• 1 x 2 USB 1.1 Ports + D-LED Bracket
• 1 x 4 USB 2.0 Ports Bracket (ARU-RU Models only)
• 1 x FDD cable
• 1 x IDE 80 conductor IDE cable (2 Cables for RAID Models)

MSI left me just one thing to say. MSI did everything to make sure that this board has every feature on it. I have careful eyes and have counted every single feature that can be found on a motherboard. I have to admit I liked their feature set.

First of all, we took out the fan and heatsink to reveal the new (or just with a new make-up) chipset. For a good overclocker motherboard, active cooling for the chipset is a must. We could actually see the standard square marked "don't put anything here" place for the heatsink on the motherboard. The logic of the chipset is the same. It is told that they did a motherboard based tune up for the chip.

This motherboard has five PCI slots. We prefer 6 PCI Slots for a top motherboard but these days most of the features come onboard. There are 3 DDR Slots on the board. Standard is 2 Slots. But for a 2 GB Max memory solution, I say, stick with 2 Slots 1GB Memory. Because if you like to populate all slots, first slot can be double sided, but you have to fill other slots with single sided memory. Here, MSI tried to push the specs a little bit.

This board comes in many flavors. According to the manual I have there were three models but I downloaded the manual and saw that they changed it. So I'll tell the meanings of the model letters. If there is an "A" like (AR-ARU) in the model code that means that it has the new Ultra ATA-133 controller. If there is an "R" in the model code it points out a Raid 0,1,0+1 controller. AR means Ultra ATA 133 Raid Controller. If it has the letter "U" like RU or ARU, it means that it has USB 2.0 controller. The model we have was ARU and had the all multimedia functions also. BIOS Menu was detailed and satisfactory. It lets you adjust frequency 100 to 200 by 1 MHz stepping. Vcore adjustment and Spread spectrum settings were there also to help us overclockers.

Although Intel pushes Serial ATA, there are no Serial ATA solutions on the market yet. But some of the disk manufacturers are releasing Ultra ATA 133 disks to the market. Don't expect a huge performance jump on this, but it will replace the old Ultra ATA 100 Raid chipsets, and in a couple of months the prices will be the same. So it is better than no change at all at a same price. I am looking for the benefits of Serial ATA, but it seems that Intel needs time to put it into their chipsets. Good old Promise did it again. PDC20275 chip is for Ultra 133 ATA channels and PDC20276 chip for adding RAID function to it.

If I decide to buy a new motherboard, I would definitely check the USB port availability. I use 3 ports already. Back home, I was using 5 ports. Printer - Scanner - Smartmedia reader - NEC Monitor Display controller and PC2PC connection cable. I didn't mention any mouse, keyboard, UPS connection or USB removable media like Thumbdrive or Disk-on-key.

There is a new standard on the market USB 2.0. This board has a 4-port USB 2.0 bracket. In the driver CD you can find even find beta drivers for XP. Microsoft's new baby doesn't have native USB 2.0 support yet. We are waiting for it in the new service pack. USB 2.0 is theoretically forty times faster than 1.1. . It's not important for scanners and printers. It is very important considering huge video data or removable media needs. If you have a Creative Jukebox you can understand what I mean. Try to pump 6 Gigabytes of MP3 files for a vacation to take it with you. It will take forever.

A lot of USB 2.0 products are ready for the market. If you are buying USB products or motherboards you have to consider this, or you will have to buy USB 2.0 controller card or/and upgrade your USB products. So this board has four USB 2.0 ports and four USB 1.1 ports, total of eight ports. You can use USB 2.0 ports for USB 1.1 products. I don't know you but this is more then enough for me.

There are four leds on the USB 1.1 Bracket. They call this D-Bracket. Four D-Leds are for motherboards diagnostics. If there is a problem when booting up its easy for you to understand what is wrong.

About a year ago, if you would ask me if I like onboard audio, I would tell you "hell no", because it steals from the CPU performance. But now the CPU performances are so overwhelming, and the new audio chipsets are so capable, if you are not an enthusiast, it is not necessary to invest to an expensive audio card. Six channels sound is a different story. The C-Media CMI8738 sound chip offers 6 channels sound. But if you want to hook up six channels you have to sacrifice from Line-In and Mic-In. It means that if you have a 6 channels system you cannot voice chat. You can use only four channels but that time you have to sacrifice Line-In. There is no digital-out. When you are configuring the drivers for every two channels, card converts the next available port to Line-Out. So if you are considering 6 or even four channels prefer to buy an audio card. But standard Audio CD - MP3 and movie listening you don't have to buy an audio card anymore.

There are two more important things about the motherboard. For a long time, Fuzzy Logic and PC Alert Utility have been included in their software package, and you can monitor your motherboards health inside your operating system. Live BIOS update feature is very handy. For a DOS Flash BIOS update, you have to boot the system without TSR or settings to update the BIOS. You need to have a very little knowledge about DOS. But if your system is updating BIOS inside your OS, and if you don't need to know anything about it at all, that is good news.

I didn't see keyboard power on feature on this motherboard. I prefer to start my computer up by pressing a combination on my keyboard. People who hide their cases under desk will prefer to power up by keyboard instead of trying to find the power button.

The software package includes PC-cilin antivirus. If you consider the price of these kinds of softwares it is a plus. Highly detailed motherboard and ATA 133 RAID manuals, cables, brackets, quality box. Briefly, complete, luxury motherboard package.