MSI 745Ultra SiS745 Review (1)

At last, we have a broader choice for the SiS745 platforms. So what has the MSI has to offer which differs from the K7S6A. Finished in red and the huge heatsink above the MOSFETs are some of the characteristics of this board. This board was probably based on an earlier design of the SiS735 board which never make it to the market at all.

The board we have here in our labs is a retail board with BIOS dtd 8/Mar/2002 which is the v1.0 bios available on the MSI website. This board do not have Firewire built on board. For most of the SiS745 users which are mainly from the ECS camp, the 745Ultra does provide a BIOS that offers "true" overclocking features. FSB range is selectable at 1Mhz stepping from 100~200Mhz. Multiplier from 6x ~ 15x, Voltages are also adjustable for Vcore and Vdimm. Doesn't this resemble the KT3 Ultra's overclocking features? Yes, it definitely does.

During our initial testing, we were quite shocked as we were able to POST even a AthlonMP1.2G at 7.5x166 at normal timings. We went further, it POSTED all the way to 183Mhz.

Below are the specifications of the board. The subsequent pages will be the gallery followed by benchmark results including SuperPI, Q3, etc.

Special Features
	Fuzzy Logic3™ D-Bracket™ (Optional) Live BIOS™ Live Driver™ IEEE1394 (Optional for 745 Ultra-E)

Special Options
	* 2 on-board IEEE1394 ports (745 Ultra-E)

CPU
	Support Socket A (Socket 462) AMD® Athlon/Athlon XP/Duron processor up to 2000+MHz Support AMD PowerNow!™ technology

Chipset

SIS® 745 Chipset
- applies the multi-threaded architecture- "Build-in Multi-threaded I/O Link" to provide enough I/O bandwidth up to 1.2GB/s.
- supports additional AGP slot with 4x/2x/1x and Fast Write Transaction.
- offers AC'97 compliant interface.
- built-in fast IDE controller supports the ATA PIO/DMA, and the Ultra DMA33/66/100 function that supports the data transfer rate up to 100MB per second.

® Chipset

FSB
	100/133(200/266)MHz clocks are supported.

Main Memory
	- Support six memory banks using three 184-pin DDR DIMM - Support up to 3GB DDR333/DDR266/DDR200 SDRAM - Support 3 unbuffered DIMM of 2.5V DDR DRAM

Slots
	* One AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) 4x slot (1.5V only) * Five PCI 2.2 32-bit Master PCI bus slots -- Support 3.3V/5V PCI bus Interface * One CNR (Communication Network Riser) slot

On-Board IDE
	- Provides IDE HDD/CD-ROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA 33/66/100 operation modes. - Can connect up to four fast IDE drives

Audio
	Chip integrated. -- AC'97 codec supports 2 channel Audio

On-Board Peripherals
	On-Board Peripherals include: - 1 floppy port supports 2 FDD with 360K, 720K, 1.2M, 1.44M and 2.88Mbytes - 2 serial ports (COM A + COM B) - 1 parallel port supports SPP/EPP/ECP mode - 4 USB ports (Rear x 2/ Front x 2) - 1 Line-In/Line-Out/Mic-In/Game port - 2 on-board IEEE1394 ports (optional)

BIOS
	- The mainboard BIOS provides "Plug & Play" function which detects the peripherals devices and expansion cards of the board automatically. - The mainboard provides a Desktop Management Interface (DMI) function which records your mainboard specifications.

Dimension
	30.5 cm(L) x 21.5 cm(W) ATX Form Factor

Mounting
	6 mounting holes.