Motherboard: MSI 645-Ultra Review :: Installation

The 645-Ultra incorporates a jumperless design allowing the user to control the system environment within the BIOS making setup a very painless experience for the user. Overclocking options are available but are very limited. I was only able to overclock up to 112MHz before the system became unstable which although not terrible is not enough for the enthusiast.

One thing to take note of though is the lack of enough on-board fan power headers. There is only one header located near the ZIF socket and only a single other located by the front bottom of the board. There is overkill and there is neglect and this falls into the latter. You need at least three headers on a high performance motherboard, one for the CPU fan, one for the back system cooling fan, and the last for the front intake fan.

You can monitor your systems functionality within the BIOS as seen below. In this screen you can see your system and your CPUs temperature along with both the system and CPU fan speeds to insure all is well with your board. You can also set the BIOS to set off an alarm alerting the user of intrusion detection such as removing the case side panel and set the system to shut itself down in case of overheating.

There was not a whole lot of control available to the user but it was very simple and easy to work with and should not pose a problem for the beginner or first time builder. A little more features could have taken this board a long way but lackluster options kept this motherboard out of the winner's circle and took it straight into the land of mediocrity.