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Motherboard: MSI 845G Max-L :: Features
The 845G MAX-L is an Intel i845G chipset based motherboard that is suited for both the office and enthusiast market due to its flexible feature set. The i845G chipset offers the user an adjustable 100/133 MHz FSB and support for the 400/533MHz Intel Net-Burst micro-architecture bus allowing the use of the latest Socket 478 processors available. Made on a four layer PCB in the ATX Form Factor and sizing in at a modest 30.5cm x 21.5cm means the board should fit any standard size or larger enclosure.
The 845G chipset offers a broad range of configuration options designed to enable cost-effective mainstream platforms featuring extremely stable and innovative integrated on-board graphics for the office or high-performance solutions for the enthusiast with the addition of an add-in 4X 1.5V only AGP graphics cards via the AGP port.
At release time the board supports the .13-micron 1.3GHz, 1.4GHz, 1.5GHz, 1.6GHz, 1.7GHz, 1.8GHz, 1.9GHz, 2GHz, 2.1GHz, 2.2GHz, 2.4GHz and will support higher frequencies as allowed on future BIOS flashes. And since we are on the subject of BIOS flashing MSI has an online automatic solution for the end user called Live BIOS. This is a process that allows the user to log on to the MSI website and flash the BIOS within the Windows environment. This is a much simpler solution than the old school way of doing things and is also much safer for the user virtually eliminating the no post syndrome encountered with many manual BIOS flashes. Using PC1600-PC2100 DDR SDRAM is not only cost efficient it is also fast and easily obtainable at almost any tangible computer shop. The 845G series of motherboard's support up to 2.0GB of memory in chip sizes varying from 64MB to 512MB modules via its three onboard DIMM slots. The MSI documentation states that the board supports 2.0GBs but that would require four DIMM slots with 512MB sticks occupying all slots and this board has only three slots; Hence it actually has a 1.5GB maximum capacity.
Another nice thing about the 845G MAX-L is the on-board 10/100 LAN adapter that is provided courtesy of the Intel 82562ET. This comes in handy and frees up a PCI slot that would otherwise be needed for a peripheral LAN card. Having six PCI slots, the LAN, and the CNR slot is an option not available on Intel's own boards that only include either the CNR or the LAN option but never both.
Sound will be made available through the 2.2 AC97 Codec that supports six-channel audio. The thing is this feature is really only available if a cable or CNR card is provided with the board and the 845G MAX -L did not include this in the sample I received from MSI. The sound quality is still very decent and with the Sound Max drivers installed works and sounds even better. This Sound Max solution and the Creative Labs Live cards are almost identical other than treble control. It does however work well with both gaming/music and MP3 audio and has available environmental and reverb options. The only slight drawback to the 845 chipset in general is its lack of ATA133 support as it only supports the normal and older ATA100 standard. The 845G Max supports up to four ATA100 devices operating simultaneously in a two-master two-slave configuration that should be adequate enough for most users. There is no RAID option on this board. There are six available USB 2.0 ports, two are on the rear I/O and the other four are on a provided cable that connects to the motherboard. This is also where the D-Bracket 2 system monitor LED's are located for monitoring system functionality. The Hi-Speed USB 2.0 feature offers up to 40x greater bandwidth over original USB 1.1 for demanding I/O peripherals such as external CD writers and hard disc drives. There are some other features worth talking about such as the adjustable FSB and voltage tweaking options for the memory and the CPU. This allows for better and more stable overclocking results to be achieved. Another very interesting new gadget is called the Bluetooth wireless. The Bluetooth wireless standard is going to be implemented into many things in the near future including cars and home appliances due to the simplicity and fundamental principal of its design. Bluetooth is a product that allows close distance wireless solutions that are easy to use in many of today's currently existing system environments without radical modifications being necessary. For the MSI board this means you can have a wireless LAN option that means none of those messy cables are required for a peer-to-peer network. The Bluetooth has two parts, the receiver that plugs into your motherboard, and the transmitter that plugs into the USB port on your other device to be used in this array.
All in all this is a modest effort by MSI and shows promise as a multi-function motherboard that should be well received on the market. All of the on-board sound, video and LAN options can be disabled in the BIOS if you choose to use inline (PCI) peripheral solutions. The lack of RAID options and no NB active cooling is slightly a drawback but nothing to really dissuade someone from using this board. Well that about wraps up the feature section of this review let us move on now to the installation and performance of the 845G Max-L and see how well it did in our labs.
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