The Board

Window modders rejoice, as you finally have a motherboard worth enough to show off. The red PCB was noticable in our nForce review, and maybe it's the light, but the red is very noticable now. Anyhow, I think it looks great, but we're hoping it'll be more than that. Let's check the rest of the layout...

Starting with the socket, you'll notice that it lacks a temperature probe we've all gotten used to. Could this mean that for Athlon XPs, we can finally make use of the internal thermal diode? Not exactly. Temperatures are not read off the diode, but rather, the socket itself monitors the CPU, much like the old days. Although the readings aren't 100% accurate, they are closer to the true temperature of the CPU. For those of you with large heatsinks that require screw mounts, the KT3 Ultra-ARU has grounded screw mounts, so do NOT use the extra spacers you may have used before.

Other than the red PCB, the other standout was the northbridge heatsink and fan. It appears to be of decent quality, and appears to adequately cool the chipset, although I haven't heard many reports of heat issues with the KT333 chipset.

MSI has stuck with the standard AGP slot, which is a good move since I doubt many enthusiasts, the target market of this board, will have AGP Pro cards.

You'll also notice that there's an AGP card securing clip. Although it isn't all that important for those of you who rarely move their computers, it does add a bit of security for those who do. It does come awfully close to the DIMM slots though, but I'll get more into that later.

There are 3 DIMM slots available, which I think should be sufficient for the majority of users. One issue that may arise is that installing, or removing ram with an AGP card in place may prove to be problematic due to their proximity to one another.

Your standard I/O connections are here, but there are a few things I think I should mention. Although the motherboard supports USB 2.0, the connections pictured above are 1.1. A bracket is supplied though, so this isn't much of a concern. As we stated earlier, 6-channel sound is also available, but unless you use the included bracket, you only got support for two speakers.

Previous Page - The KT333

Next Page - More Goodness