BlueSmoke - Review : MSI Reviews

 Date  : Oct 1st, 2002
 Genre  : Motherboards
 Developer   : MicroStar International
 Author  : Tom Smith
When we talk about maximum performance, in the AMD world 333 MHz bus and memory speeds tend to pop into my mind at first. Well, as of yet AMD has yet to release a 333 MHz FSB verison of the very popular Athlon processor, but the motherboard chipset & memory manufactures have released both memory and motherboards that run at 333 MHz. So what kind of performance gains are given when you run the memory faster than the processor FSB?

Here today we have a kind of "2 in 1" review for you. We have the MSI KT3 Ultra and the MSI G3Ti200 PRO-VT128 GeForce 3 TI200 128MB video card.

So with out further ado... let's get to the meat and potatoes of it all.

 

MSI KT3 Ultra

Established in August 1986, MSI has been in the motherboard game for quite some time now, and has a good reputation for building quality and good performing products.

One of the great things about this board is it will read from the internal Diode on the AMD Athlon XP. So no more in socket Thermistor.
 
With 1 AGP and 5 PCI slots, there should be enough expandability for any power user.
 
Three DIMM slots. No different than any other out on the market. Maximum supported ram is 2 GB. Do notice, however that the AGP and DIMMS will interfere with each other when an AGP card is installed.
 
Promises ATA 133 RAID controller. This is the "Lite" version so it will only support 2 drives in an array. Any other drives connected to it will be their own array.

 

Specs

Here's a table of the specs :

CPU

-

 Supports Socket A ( Socket 462 ) for AMD® Athlon™ XP / Athlon™ / Duron™ processor

-

 Supports 800MHz up to 1.8GHz ( Athlon™ XP 2200+ ) processor
 
Chipsets
 
VIA® KT333 Chipset

-

 FSB @ 200 / 266 MHz

-

 AGP 4X and PCI Advanced high performance memory controller
 
VIA® VT8235 Chipset
- Integrated Direct Sound AC'97 audio
- Dual channel Ultra DMA 33 / 66 / 100 / 133 master mode EIDE controller
- ACPI
- Integrated USB 2.0 controller
 
FSB

-

 100 / 133 MHz clocks are supported.
 
Main Memory

-

 Supports six memory banks using three 184-pin DDR DIMMs

-

 Supports a maximum memory size up to 3GB

-

 Supports 2.5V DDR200 / 266 / 333 DDR SDRAM DIMM
 
Slots

-

 One AGP slot

-

 AGP ( Accelerated Graphics Port ) specification compliant

-

 Supports AGP 2.0 1x / 2x / 4x

-

 Five 32-bit PCI bus slots ( Support 3.3v / 5v PCI bus interface )

-

 One CNR ( Communication Network Riser ) slot
 
On-Board IDE

-

 An IDE controller on the VT8235 chipset provides IDE HDD / CD-ROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA133 / 100 / 66 / 33 operation modes.

-

 Can connect up to four IDE devices.
 
Audio

-

 Realtek ALC650 6-channel audio

-

 SPDIF out ( Through S-Bracket only )
 
On-Board Peripherals
On-Board Peripherals include :

-

 1 floppy port supports 2 FDDs with 360K, 720K, 1.2M, 1.44M and 2.88 Mbytes

-

 2 serial ports ( COM A + COM B )

-

 1 parallel port supports SPP / EPP / ECP mode

-

 1 IrDA connector for SIR / ASKIR / HPSIR

-

 1 audio/game port

-

 1 D-Bracket™ pinheader

-

 1 S-Bracket pinheader
 
BIOS

-

 The mainboard BIOS provides "Plug & Play" BIOS which detects the peripheral devices and expansion cards of the board automatically.

-

 The mainboard provides a Desktop Management Interface ( DMI ) function which records your mainboard specifications.
 
Dimension

-

 30.4 cm ( L ) x 23.5 cm ( W ) ATX Form Factor
 
Mounting

-

 6 mounting holes.
 
Special Functions
 
USB Interface
- Supports USB 2.0 and downward compatible with USB 1.1
- 6 ports USB 2.0 ( Rear x 2 / Front x 4 )
 
Promise 20276 On-Board
- Supports ATA133 RAID 0 or 1
- The two ATA133 RAID connectors support hard disk drives only

 

G3Ti200 PRO-VT128 ( MS-8850 )

Here's a table of the specs :

Key Features :

MSI 3DTool Utility

 

System Setup

Motherboard - MSI KT3 Ultra2
Processor - AMD Athlon XP 1800 +
Memory - 256 MB Crucial PC2400
Video Card - MSI G3Ti200 PRO-VT128
Hard Drive - Maxtor 40 GB ATA 100
Operating System - Windows 2000 SP3

With this review I decided to benchmark with both the sound on and off, and since we were using the onboard sound I wanted to see how "efficient" the board was. The latest VIA and nVidia drivers were installed.

 

Quake III

Quake III is still the number one benchmark out today. The engine may be showing its age with systems hitting over 300 FPS, but it is still a great indicator of system performance. Here we see the set up is still over 200 FPS at 1280X1024.

 

Unreal Tournament

Unreal is a Direct3D benchmark. Here I got some interesting results. At 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768 in 16-bit color with the sound on I got better frame rates than any other test. This occurred with all three tests that I ran. I cannot explain it, but you guys have an reason please let me know. Again pretty respectable frame rates even at 1280 x 1024.

 

Jedi Knight II : Jedi Outcast

Jedi Knight II : Jedi Outcast is based on the Quake III engine. As you can tell by the frame rates, it's updated quite a bit. As you can see again the frame rates are still very playable at the higher of the resolutions. Plus, it looks gorgeous at 32-bit.

 

Comanche 4

Comanche 4 is Novalogic's newest addition to the Comanche game series. As you can see that is game will stress any machine. Even though we dropped below the magical 30 FPS at 1280 x 1024, the benchmark played relatively smooth. At this level, you can really tell the difference between 24 and 30 frames a second. If you are looking to play this game at high resolutions, it may be a good idea to turn off some of the "extra" graphic features.

 

Aquanox

Aquanox is Massive's underwater shooter. You can see that the system just got hammered.

 

3D Mark 2001 SE

 

SiSoft Sandra CPU

 

You can see from the last two pages that the performance is on par with other similar systems that are out there.

 

Conclusion

Pairing the MSI KT3 Ultra with the GeForce 3 TI 200 yielded some good results. I guess the most important thing to many consumers is cost. This set up can be purchased for around the 275.00 to 300.00 mark. Not too bad...

GeForce 3 TI 200

The GeForce 2 TI200 is starting to show it's age. With the GeForce 4 TI 4400 and 4200s out on the market at about $190.00 and $131.00, and the GeForce 3 TI200 at about $80.00, it may be well worth the extra money for the latest and greatest. But still the GeForce 2 TI 200 is still no slouch, and can still run any game at a nice playable level. It is not the greatest but, for a budget system, it's not too bad.

KT3 Ultra

The KT3 performed with out a hitch. The performance is on par with other KT333 boards out, the price also makes this board an attractive option, ranging between $80.00 and 100.00 depending on the options that you select.

You will also notice the lack of the in socket thermistor, this is because the motherboard can read from the internal diode of the XP line of processors, both the .18 and .13 micron versions, the temps range anywhere from 10 to 15 degrees higher when reading from the internal sensor, but at least now you get a true reading. Clearance around the socket was not an issue. I was able to install the MCX-462, the Coolermaster HSC-V62, and the Thermaltake Volcano 6 CU+.

The onboard audio did not affect performance as much as I thought it would, showing that integrated solutions can perform as good as add in PCI cards. I was really impressed with the card when it came to DVD & Music playback. All sound was crisp and clear. The onboard audio supports both Dolby and DTS decoding, you get the 5.1 connections via a CNR card. This was the first time that I have really gotten a chance to play with CNR but I didn't see any problems.

Supporting 2 GB of ram should keep any user happy, having the ability to run your memory at 266 or 333 also is nice. Of course that's why it is a KT333, right?

This board also supports USB 2.0, unfortunately I don't have any USB 2.0 peripherals so I could not test that, but I did test for backwards compatibility and everything from the old Iomega CDRW to multiple gaming devices worked with out any problems.

Also included with this board is Promise's 20276 RAID controller. This is the "Lite" version, meaning that only 2 drives will work in a multiple drive array. This is kind of a beef with me. I would much rather see a non-lite version of the RAID controller. I happen to run and know people who run a 4 drive raid array, but that is really a minor issue in the overall scope of this board.

This set up rocks for what it is. Granted, a 4400 would be nice, but hey, you have to work with what you have.

Testing this setup was a pleasure, I ran into 0 issues or crashes. I did not have the opportunity to test out the overclocking features of the board at the time of the review, but I will get to it here in the very near future. I would like to thank Phillip over at MSI for supplying the awesome products for review.

So if you are looking into building a budget system, remember to take a look at these two products as your options. This set up comes Very Highly Recommended.


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