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I have recently had the chance of getting the MSI 845 Ultra-ARU motherboard and to say the least, I'm very impressed. As you probably know, MSI is at the forefront of the motherboard and video card sector, and the 845 Ultra-ARU is includes everything the end user would want or need.
  
Specifications
First, the obligatory website specifications of the motherboard are:
- 4 USB 2.0 Ports
- 4 USB 1.1 Ports
CPU
- Supports Intel® Pentium® 4 processor in 478 pin package.
- Supports 1.5GHz, 1.6GHz, 1.7GHz, 1.8GHz, 1.9GHz, 2GHz, 2.1GHz, 2.2GHz, 2.4 GHZ
Chipset
- Intel® 845 (593 FC-BGA) Chipset
- Supports DDR SDRAM at 200/266MHz operation (DDR200/DDR266).
- AGTL+ host bus with integrated termination supporting 32-bit host addressing.
- 1.5V AGP interface with 4x data transfer and 4x fast write capability.
FSB
- Support 100MHz FSB
- Support 400MHz Intel NetBurst micro-architecture bus
RAM
- Supports four memory banks using three184-pin DDR DIMM.
- Supports up to 2GB PC2100/PC1600 DDR SDRAMs.
- Supports 2.5v DDR SDRAM
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
- An IDE controller on the ICH2 chipset provides IDE HDD/CD-ROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA66/100 operation modes.
- Can connect up to four IDE devices.
- ATA133 RAID supported by Promise PDC20276
Audio
- C-Media CMI8738 / PCI-6ch supports 2/4/6 ch speaker.
Peripherals
- 1 floppy port supports 2 FDDs 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.
- 1 IrDA connector for SIR/ASKIR/HPSIR.
- 1 D-Bracket" pin header.
- 1 audio/game port.
The MSI 845 Ultra-ARU comes packed with features that everyone wants in a high performance card. MSI made the board very easy to work with, positioning the CPU and the heatsink brackets very well. One thing I found was when installing a larger heatsink, the brackets are a pain to get off of the board, but this is so in almost all other 845 boards I've seen.
The position of the CPU socket makes it very easy to get to, which was really nice when we dropped our 1.9GHz chip in.
The Memory slots are in the standard 845 board position, with the IDE and RAID ports just underneath.
Like all other MSI products we've reviewed, one of the first things you notice about the motherboard is the MSI sticker on the board's northbridge heatsink/fan.
The back panel has the Mouse and Keyboard PS/2 connectors, the two USB 1.1 connectors, the COM A and COM B connectors, and the Parallel, Midi / Joystick, and L-out, L-in, and MIC connectors. There isn't any LAN connection, so hold on to your trusty NIC.
The board layout is very nice, and the size of the board is 12" x 9", being in between the larger and standard boards. The majority of ATX cases should be able to handle the motherboard. Oh, did we mention how it's red?
A great thing about MSI is the fact that they always include great software and drivers with the components they make.
Next Page - Software & BIOS
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