Shaith

This is a three-part review. Part 1 deals solely with aesthetics, specifications, and first impressions. As a follow-up, Part 2 will have the eye candy, with pictures, while Part 3 will deal with the meat-and-potatoes part that most of us enjoy, benchmarks and performance.

Part 1: Aesthetics

The first thing you’ll notice about the MSI KT3 Ultra2 is the box itself. Unlike many other motherboard boxes, the KT3 Ultra2’s box is eye-pleasing. Brilliant red with gold and white, it has an almost foil appearance, very shiny. It’s a pleasant surprise in a land where many motherboards come in boxes that look like they were recycled fireworks.

Opening the box reveals more attention to detail. Everything was packed neatly and to prevent excess shifting during transit. In my particular package, I received two sets of Enhanced IDE cables, a floppy drive cable, a USB bracket connector complete with LED indicators (more about these later) marked as supporting USB 2.0, and a digital audio connector with optical and coaxial output capabilities.

To round out the package, MSI includes a 50+ page “Quick Start Guide”, which is one of the better motherboard manuals I have seen. Illustrations are clear and concise, and very easy to read. The manual itself is also easy to follow, although the translation into English could still use some work in places. By following the instructions in the manual, it is reasonable to believe that the average user would be able to successfully install this board. A supplemental 45-page guide covers the installation and proper use of the RAID controller, which is a Promise PDC20276. Also included is a nice fold-out desktop calendar with an interesting rendition of a motorcycle, a holofoil “Geared by MSI” card, and several pieces of software. The first is the Utilities and Drivers disc, which contains everything you’ll need to keep this board running in top shape, from temperature monitoring facilities to on-the-fly overclocking to automatic BIOS updates. Also included are the ATA133 RAID drivers (on floppy) and a CD containing the MSI 5.1 DVD player. Lifting out the calendar tray reveals the mainboard itself, packaged with care as everything else was, supported by a foam pad underneath to prevent damage in transit.

The mainboard itself is as eye-catching as the box, sporting that same brilliant red color. One of the first things you’ll notice is the large sticker covering the Socket 462 which reads “CPU Thermal Protection”. This monitoring facility ties in directly to the included PC Alert™ III utility and delivers real-time temperature data. Also monitored are fan speeds, voltages, and chassis intrusion (on equipped cases). Also of note is the included cooling fan and heatsink for the KT333, a nice touch for overclocking enthusiasts.

The layout of this motherboard is superb, with ample spacing between all major connection points to allow for ease of cabling and installation. The board includes six (6) mounting holes, as well as four (4) CPU support holes for heatsink support. Slots include three memory slots for 184-pin DDR DIMMS (supports up to 3 GB), an AGP 2.0 slot that supports 1x/2x/4x, five (5) PCI slots supporting both 3.3v and 5v PCI bus interfaces, and a CNR (Communications Network Riser) slot.

The regular drive connections are provided via the VT8235 chipset controller, allowing up to four IDE connections ranging from PIO all the way through UDMA133, and supports up to four IDE devices. Immediate adjacent to the primary IDE connectors is a single floppy interface. Placed some distance from these connectors are two more IDE connections. These are used for the built-in ATA133 RAID.

Looking at the rear edge, you can see that this motherboard sports onboard audio and game controllers, has two 9-pin serial ports, a parallel port, mouse, keyboard, and another pair of USB connections. Other connections available include an optional Bluetooth module and an optional IrDA connector.

One strange choice made by MSI, however, was the decision to place the serial number sticker on the underside of the motherboard. Those of you who purchase one, make sure you write the number down in your manual for future reference in case you should ever need it to avoid having to completely remove everything from your PC just to get the number.

Mainboard Specifications

CPU:
Supports Socket A (Socket 462) for AMD Athlon™, Athlon™ XP/Duron™ processors.
Default BIOS support for 800 MHz to 1.8 GHz processors. BIOS updates currently allow 2 GHz processor usage.

Chipset:
VIA KT333 chipset:
FSB @200/266 MHz
AGP 4X and Advanced high-performance memory controller

VIA VT8235 chipset:
Integrated DirectSound AC97 Audio
Dual Channel UDMA 33/66/100/133 master mode EIDE controller
ACPI
Integrated USB 2.0

Clock Generator supports 100/133 MHz clocks.

Main Memory:
Supports 6 banks using 3 184-pin DDR DIMMs, max size 3GB
Supports 2.5V DDR SDRAM DIMM

Promise 20276 Controller:
Supports ATA133 RAID 0 or RAID 1

Peripheral support includes 2 serial, 1 parallel, 1 game, floppy support up to 2.88 MB, 1 S-bracket and 1 D-bracket pin header, IrDA, and audio connections. Also included are front panel connectors for full Front Panel I/O connectivity

The D-Bracket2

One of the neater features of this mainboard is the D-Bracket2, which not only provides additional USB ports, but includes diagnostic LED’s which indicate every phase of the startup process and can be invaluable for figuring out what’s going on with your system in case of problems. Everything is covered from memory testing to BIOS image decompression to assigning resources. Best of all, you aren’t taking up a valuable PCI slot with a diagnostic board to receive this information. My only complaint is that it’s designed as a rear slot bracket rather than a drive bay appliance, so you’d have to be looking at the back of your PC for this information to be available. Still, this is a useful tool.

Special Features

In addition to the PC Alert™ III software, some other fantastic features are available on the Drivers/Utilities disk. These include LiveBIOS™/LiveDriver™, which allow for easy updates of the mainboard BIOS, drivers, and utilities, MSI DVD 5.1 which allows for 5.1 (6 channel) operation, CPU Thermal protection which automatically shuts the PC down in the event of sudden abnormal temperature rises (such as fan failure), and my personal favorite, Fuzzy Logic™ 4.

Fuzzy Logic™ 4 allows for instant, in-Windows overclocking. You can adjust FSB, voltages, CPU speeds, and there is even an automatic overclocking utility. This utility will automatically increase the testing value of the CPU until the system reboots, then save the last good value for you. A simple mouse-click applies that value as your “Turbo” value, while clicking “Default” restores all default values, providing you with true on-the-fly overclocking ability.

First Impressions
Overall, the quality and craftsmanship of this package is impressive. Everything is neat, tidy, and sound. Visual inspection reveals no obvious flaws, over/under solder joints, or cut corners. Attention to detail is obvious, from the catchy box to the well-laid-out manual to the mainboard itself. In all, a great package, and very competitively priced.

Still to come: Pictures, screen shots, and benchmarks, so stay tuned!

XSwiftX

I used to love MSI boards, but in the last year I have had two of them die for no apparent reason. A local shop just started carrying ABit boards so I picked up the KX7-333R. It smoked the MSI K7T 266a Pro2 RU board I had before in performance. And has been rock solid. The reputation of MSI reliability and stability is a total farce if you asked me.

JMHO of course.....



But I will agree they do a very good job of packaging.

Zardon

well actually im not sure I would agree on your MSI comments, this specific board is a spectacular board and from the reviews ive also seen from independent reviewers and my own personal use I can safely say the board runs like a dream and is even better than my last Abit board (which also performed perfectly, the Abit KR7a raid.)

Actually we are both flying in the face of techs who rate ABIT as extremely poor for reliability, a well known fact from the past. personally ive never had an issue with Abit, but its worth noting in forum posts from dissatisfied users. There is also the recent issue of cold booting with an ATI 9700 on my last specific abit board.

The only thing I will say against the MSI is the use of a promise raid controller, the boot up times are simply horrendous. around 30 seconds. not a particularly acceptable time frame in my opinion, but as the rest of the mobo is exceptional I live with it. but overclocking and restarting is a curse due to this.

Performance levels of the MSI board in conjunction with my 9700, kingmax DDR2700 333, 2100XP (oclocked to 1.85ghz) is around the 13.5k mark, Pcmark benches are 5,450 CPU, 4,150mem and 1,300 hard disk.

Stability and software included are top notch. specifically the vast array of utilities and online live update software which is a very smart way to handle the nightmare of continually webchecking. The recent updating of the bios to allow 2400, 2600+ and the new addition of PC alert 4 make for customer satisfaction with good support being given.

im working on a review of this board in my setup and will post more details at a later date.

RIV@NVX

I have KT3 Ultra-ARU, works great...
Ultra2 is newer revision of it with 8235 southbridge, while Ultra-ARU has 8233A...
Nice review...

__________________
-- Vedran

Shaith

Sorry folks, had some camera troubles. While the quality still isn't what I normally use, I didn't want to wait any longer. So, here's a couple of the promised images. I'll most more later. Zardon's also got images of an installed rig using this mainboard, looks really neat with the cool neon lighting he's using (expensive night light though, Z). I left the images huge on purpose so that you could get a closer detailed look.

In this first image, you'll get an idea of everything included with this package. Note that this is NOT everything available for this motherboard - there are other options to add even more features via easy-to-install brackets.



In this image, I got a bit tighter in on the motherboard. You can see the clean layout I mentioned in the initial review. If you look at the left side, you'll see all the pinheaders. If you look closely at the CPU socket area you'll notice the four mounting holes for securing a large heatsink. How many mainboards have you seen that lacked this feature and instead wanted you to rely on ugly metal clips that did nothing but put undue stress on the socket? A simple feature to include, and I'm glad to see it here.



Here's a picture of one of my "helpers". It has absolutely nothing to do with this review, but she's darn cute, and considering getting two usable shots took almost 30 minutes, mostly chasing her out from underneath the backdrop or attempting to remove her from the middle of the scene or keeping her from playing hockey with the smaller parts. She's also the "lump" in the right side of the first picture.



See folks, like we said - these are no-BS reviews. No big agency or studio, no corporate cheese breathing down our necks. We'll give it to you straight.

dipstick

Sweet board, hear nothing but good things. Looks very nice also. Good review



Btw, nice cat...looks exactly like my friends.

RIV@NVX

Cute cat, BTW. I like cats very much.

__________________
-- Vedran

HsuGotaQ

Great article. I guess this article summarizes pretty much every article I've seen to date about this mobo, but gives it a more hands on approach feeling compared to other reviews. I should be getting mine in a few days now. The only problem, is that they didn't sell the cat with the mobo. I really did want that cat. (nice cat btw)

dipstick

hehe, I remembered this review when looking for a replacement mobo and I grabbed this one. Excellent board. Thanks again for the review.

Desert_Siege

I picked this board up about a month and half ago and have been blown away by the performance difference between it and my trusty old Epox 8K7A+. I agree with Zardon on the choice of the 'Lite' promise controller. I hate promise controllers, they suck arse, but with the full raid hack to TX2000 and the 5.6 BIOS, I can at least get it off the default 64K cluster size, but be warned, if you update to the hacked BIOS, all your info will be gone. I learned that the hard way, but didn't lose anything I didn't already have backed up. Could live without the CNR or AMR or whatever that brown slot is at the bottom and I don't care for the interrupts for the USB contoller and AGP controller being shared (at least on mine it is), but it hasn't effected performance in the slightest. Get almost 11,000 with a GF4 Ti 4400 on 3D Mark2K1SE and a MASSIVE increase in memory bandwidth so I am not complaining. The only BIG negative I have about this board is its VERY limited Vcore adjustments. I need 1.95 to run my 1600+ at 1700, but this board only gives me 1.85 which only gets me close...lol. A Vcore mod may be in order later, but only when I have a 2400 or 2600+ to replace this one with in case I blow it up...

Shaith

If you flip to page 2-29 in the motherboard manual, you'll see a handy reference chart for available IRQ setups. Unfortunately there will always be some sharing going on (which I think is stupid). If your hardware is all PCI 2.x compliant, this shouldn't be an issue. Implement ACPI in XP, which gives you access to IRQ's over IRQ15, and regardless of the "physical" IRQ, a virtual one will be used (works great if the ACPI implementation is done right, and is absolutely AWFUL if it isn't).

Regarding Part III: Been a bit of a delay on the parts I need to put this board into testing, which is why I have yet to post the final installment. I'll see if I can get Zardon to step in and post you some benchmarkes to keep you sated. It'll also show you what this board can do with a Radeon 9700. I'll follow-up as soon as I can with my own results to complete this series.


I'd like to once again extend an invite to you wanna-be reviewers out there. If you're interested in adding your own reviews, PM me.

Regarding the ultracute kitten: We actually rescued her, she was a stray. (We do that a lot). Out of our rescued kitties, she's without question the best of the bunch. You can't find a cat with more personality than that little one has.

Nor will you find one nearly as spoiled as that one is, either.

FYI: The little brown slot is the Communications Network Riser (CNR) slot.

What's that mean? It means it's the little brown unused slot, of course.

Shaith

Ok, so this is slightly off topic, but I'm allowed




By the way, let me know if you guys would like more shots of the motherboard.

Vampyromaniac

OMG that pic is almost as cute as my Kelsenellenelvian!!!
Can you also do a review of your kitties, and post a millionzillionjillion pics??!??!?!!??!???

PS sorry, if you consider this spamming, but for F's sake, they are cute!!!!!*#%*$@&#%#!!!!

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dipstick

The messed up thing about this board though is that when you throw a Tbred in it, it will limit the max Vcore to 1.75v. Kinda gay if you ask me. Mine does not have raid so I don't know of your troubles with that.

Btw, that pic is freakin awesome. I wish cats didn't wanna make me rip my eyes out or else I'd have a few myself

Shaith

Sorry boys and girls, while I'd love to be posting you all the nitty gritty details, I'm currently having to work with the good folks at MSI to get my board replaced. After weeks of delays, I finally managed to get my hands on a CPU and memory to put in this little speedster, only to run into a DOA board. And as returning it to the vendor is no longer a viable option, I'm afraid we'll have to go the long route.

After writing MSI's support team and receiving several good suggestions the same day (though I'd tried them all already), we're now to the RMA phase. It's a good thing this happened to me, my faithful readers, and not you guys. Rest assured, I'll keep you all informed on the progress. Let's hope MSI's support team lives up to the reputation this product carries.

Shaith

On Friday, I contacted MSI via e-mail. After bouncing things back and forth, we determined that the board did indeed need to be RMA'd. Monday, they sent me the forms I needed, which I faxed back late Monday afternoon. Tuesday morning they sent me the RMA number, so less than a 24-hour turnaround there, most impressive considering this was all done via e-mail (except the fax part). I shipped the board to them Tuesday, and sometime Thursday they should be receiving the board. I'll keep you all posted on the return trip status.

Throughout this their support people have been great, very knowledgeable, always professional. My thanks to R.C. over there for being so responsive. Kudos, R.C.!

So something to consider, guys and gals: Everyone now and again gets a DOA board. Think the luggage guys at the airport are rough? Nothing compares to the brutality of the freight industry. So it's going to happen. It's good to know that a company is willing to stand behind its product and provide support for it when things go wrong.

I'll keep you all posted as things develop.

Shaith

After all the wonderful experience to date, to have an unpleasant bit of news to report was not entirely unexpected, but I certainly didn't anticipate reporting THIS news.

I received this e-mail this morning in response to my query about how long I could expect to wait for a working replacement.

Dear Customer,

The average turn around time for RMA's is 2-4 weeks. Also RMA'd motherboards are replaced with remanufactored units.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two to four WEEKS? To plug in a motherboard, verify that it's defective, and slap a label on a replacement? I think not. Two to four DAYS I understand, but WEEKS? What if this were a user's only machine, and the user can't afford to go buy a WORKING motherboard while waiting for support to get around to sending the replacement? It's not like you're fixing this one and sending it back - you're sending a completely different board, so two to four weeks just isn't justified.

This is indeed bad news for MSI. While two to four weeks might sound good to them, to a user with a dead computer, two to four DAYS is about all we'll wait, especially when the board was sent to them via FedEx. Anything after that and customers look to spend their money with other companies.

And take careful note of the fact that reman'd units are sent out as replacements, readers - even if your unit was NEW, you get someone else's REMANUFACTURED unit, which means they figure out what's bad and replace it, and plug it in to see if it works. If it does, poof, in a box it goes. There's one problem: Remanufactured units are *not* NEW units - things that went bad could have caused undetected stresses. I have come across reports of all kinds of horrors with remanufactured units since I received this e-mail this morning, and some of them are truly ugly. Stories about boards being delivered with all but one memory slot dead, PCI slots not working, or even DOA. I shudder at what I'm going to receive after reading these stories, frankly.

So, this will conclude the KT3 Ultra2 review. There won't be a third part.

Test rig:
MSI-6380-E KT3 Ultra2
AMD Athlon Tbird 1.4
256M PC2700
ATi Radeon 8500
Seagate U2W 10K Cheetah LVD
3Com 3c905B 10/100
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 XGamer
Plextor 40X SCSI2

Results:

Unit fails to post. Official 3dmark 2001 score: 0

Recommendations:

Mixed. While those who have working mainboards report good performance, those with RMA issues have reported nothing but problems with all aspects. I had high hopes that it was a temporary fluke with this being a newer product and that such issues had been resolved. Unfortunately, I see that this is apparently not the case. Further, to replace brand-new suspected DOA product with remanufactured product just doesn't sit well with me, and I doubt it will with you either. And while it's true that I had very little problem getting an RMA number issued, being informed that it could be after Thanksgiving before I can expect a replacement when they received the piece on Halloween (at 10:37 AM)...that's just bad news all around.

Final Conclusion:
Caveat Emptor, boys and girls. Let the buyer beware.

Vampyromaniac

Man that's too bad.
OK, so how about some more pics o' the kitties ??!?!?!???

__________________

Shaith

Ask and ye shall receive - one cat, one dog picture, coming up.

Vampyromaniac

OMG how many animals do you have ????!?!? lucky guy

__________________

Shaith

10 - 9 cats, 1 dog.

We're our own rescue shelter.

Shaith

Just to let you all know, my RMA showed up today. I'll get around to testing it sometime this week and let you know if it's a good board or a dud board.

Shaith

Well, I finally got a chance to get the MSI up and running.

Before we get into details, however...

If you'll recall, I sent a brand-new, albeit DOA, mainboard in for RMA service and was informed that it would be replaced by a remanufactured unit. I was further informed that it would take 2-4 weeks.

Well, it didn't take as long as they stated, which is a good thing. But it's definitely a remanufactured unit, and from the looks of it, was owned by Ivan the Retard. And RMA was handled by his brother.

IDE slot 1: Side of slot broken off. Pins bent.
IDE slot 2: Pins bent
FDD slot: Pins bent

AGP Slot: Bent pin

CPU HSF retainer tooth looks like it's been chewed by rats. Enough material to keep HSF retainer attached, but not by much.

Without overclocking, performance was actually about the same as the Abit KR7A-RAID. By slightly increasing the FSB (about 4-5 MHz), I was able to produce this result:

http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=5054170