Today we will be looking at the MSI K7D Master mainboard. Considering the fact that has a good working relationship with AMD, their decision to release an SMP capable Athlon MP board wasn't a huge surprise. While MSI was not the first company to release a dual MP board, (that respect goes to Tyan), they are still one of the only companies to do so. AMD has had a hard time entering the server and workstation market so far, despite the fact that their product line is a lot more economical than Intel's. Hopefully more companies will join Tyan, Asus and MSI in releasing AMD Dual Processing boards, allowing AMD to gain market share in this area.

For those of you unfamiliar with Symmetric Multi Processing, or SMP as it is commonly referred to by, here is a rundown. SMP is a technology that allows two threads to be simultaneously processed by the operating system. It does this by giving each CPU a thread to process at the same time. Simply put, SMP speeds up your system by processing more information in a shorter amount of time. This is especially beneficial in CPU intensive programs such as Photoshop or Maya.

SMP is pretty much useless in games, as very few support it. There are a few games such as Quake 3 that do support SMP, but actually run worse with it enabled in some scenarios. Unfortunately, I don't think game developers are moving towards adding SMP functionality anytime soon, since SMP is mostly targeted for workstations and servers.

SMP is still a niche technology. Very few people need, or want, SMP functionality, as it is entirely too expensive. There are a lot of home users that run SMP machines, myself included, because they love the extra "zippiness" that dual processor's bring. Hopefully this review will help you decide whether an investment in SMP is for you.

Features

CPU
Supports dual Socket A (Socket-462) for AMD® Athlon" MP processors
Two Socket 462 for AMD® Athlon" MP Processors 1900+ or higher

Chipset
AMD® 762 chipset. (North-Bridge 949 BGA)
Supports 266MHz high speed, split transaction system bus.
AGP PRO 4x and PCI Advanced high performance memory controller.
AMD® 768 chipset. (South-Bridge 492 BGA)
Host (primary) PCI bus utilizes a 66MHz, 32-bit interface.

AC'97 soft audio controller.
Enhanced IDE controller. (Through to ATA-100).
LPC bus to connect peripherals such as super IO and BIOS.
Extensive ACPI-compliant power management logic
IO APIC controller.

FSB
Supports 200/266MHz FSB

Main Memory
Four 184-pin DDR DIMM.
Maximum memory size up to 4GB. (Registered DDR only)

Slots
One AGP PRO slot.
Two 64-bit/66MHz PCI slots.
Three 32-bit/33MHz PCI slots.

On-Board IDE
An IDE controller on the AMD 768 chipset provides IDE HDD/CD-ROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA 66/100 operation modes.
Can connect up to four IDE devices.

Audio
Chip Integrated.
Direct Sound AC'97 Audio.

Network (optional)
Intel 82559ER LAN controller
Integrated IEEE 802.3 10-BaseT & 100-BaseTX PHY.
Wake-On-LAN and WFM 2.0

On-Board Peripherals
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.
1 IrDA connector for SIR/ASKIR/HPSIR.
1 Audio/Game port.
4 USB 2.0

USB2.0 (PCI 4 port USB card)
Compliant with USB specification Revision2.0 (Data Rate 1.5/12/480Mbps)
Compliant with Open Host Controller Interface specification for USB Rev 1.0a
Root Hub with 4 external and sharing with 1 internal downstream facing ports

BIOS
The mainboard BIOS provides AMI "Plug & Play" Flash 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
ATX Form Factor.

Mounting
9 mounting holes.

The K7D Master is based on the AMD 760MPX chipset, which is currently the only chipset that features dual Athlon MP support. Other than the fact that the 760MPX chipset supports dual processors, it is identical to the 760 chipset. The Northbridge uses the AMD 762 chipset, which features PC2100 DDR support, a 66Mhz/64-bit PCI interface, and a 66 MHZ AGP 2.0 compliant slot. Besides the 64-bit PCI support, there is nothing really exciting about the 762 chipset. The Southbridge uses the AMD 768 chipset, which is very uninteresting. No new features come along with the 768 Southbridge, with the exception of 66Mhz PCI support that goes hand in hand with the 64-bit PCI slots. The K7D Master comes with AC'97 audio, which works fine if it is going in a server. If you plan on using this board in a workstation or home PC, an upgrade to a better sound card is advisable.

Packaging and Layout

The K7D Master came in a dark blue box direct from MSI. On the front the letters "K7D Master" were printed. There was a sticker that caught my attention right off the bat. "Registered DDR Only" it read. In my talks with MSI I was informed that non-registered DDR would work fine in the first two slots, so I was kind of surprised that they put that on the box. There was also a sticker that advertised that the board came with a USB 2.0 PCI card. The AMD 768 Southbridge has issues with onboard USB, and every 760MPX-based board comes with a PCI USB card.

Inside the box there was a manual, two driver CD's, an ATA100 and Floppy cable, an MSI sticker and the K7D master mainboard. Unfortunately, MSI only includes one ATA100 cable with the mainboard. What if this was my first mainboard and I had to go buy an extra IDE cable just to use it? I hope MSI reads this and decides to spend an extra nickel to throw in an extra IDE cable with the mainboard.

The documentation that was included with the mainboard was very well written and complete. The manual is almost sixty pages long and covers everything from jumper settings to driver installation. The disks included the most recent AMD drivers, as well as some very nice utilities from MSI.

Here we see the K7D Master in all of its glory. I was kind of disappointed that MSI didn't go with their trademark red PCB for this board, but their decision made sense in this situation. Seeing as servers and workstations require a high quality, no-frills board, a red PCB may be dismissed as a gimmick. You will notice the ATX power connector is in its usual spot, right behind the PS/2 ports. Usually this orientation causes the ATX cord to be draped over your heatsink, thus reducing airflow. This wasn't an issue with the K7D Master, as the first CPU socket was too far to the right for it to interfere with the ATX cord. The second CPU was too low on the board for it too interfere with the ATX cord as well. Above the AGP Pro slot is a P4 power connector, which is used to power the second CPU and AGP Pro card. If you look closely, you will see that there are no onboard USB ports. As I stated earlier, the 760MP chipset has issues with USB. Thankfully, MSI had the foresight to remove it from the mainboard to alleviate any confusion.

Here we see a stock heatsink  mounted on the board.  The K7D Master has a fair amount of space around the socket; so installing a large heatsink should not be an issue. MSI has also drilled the mounting holes in this board, which will allow for waterblock installation, which I found to be a very nice touch.

A close-up of the 761 Northbridge shows us that when it comes to stability, MSI doesn't want to take any chances. While other boards based on the 760MPX have passive cooling, MSI has rigged the K7D Master with a fan. The fan spins at about 4800 RPM's, and is barely audible. MSI also placed an ample, even amount of thermal grease between the heatsink and chipset, ensuring good thermal conductivity.

The AMD 768 Southbridge sits alongside the IDE and floppy cable connectors. I am used to seeing the drive connectors place adjacent to the ram slots, and not the PCI slots. I found that this orientation forced me to drape my IDE cables across the backside of the RAM, which could constitute to overheating. A quick twist of the cables solved the problem.

The K7D Master sports an AGP Pro slot along with five PCI slots, two of which are of the 64-bit, 66 MHZ variety. The 64-bit slots are backwards compatible with 32-bit slots, but there is a problem. There has to be a notch on the front of the card or else it won't fit into the 64-bit slots. Fortunately, my modem had the necessary notch, and I was able to test it with the 64-bit slots. The modem worked fine when it was installed in the 64-bit slot. Keep in mind that if you intend on using the included USB card you will have to give up a PCI slot, reducing the amount of open slots to four.

I was extremely pleased with the packaging and layout of the K7D Master. It included well-written documentation and up to date drivers. The inclusion of the USB 2.0 card was an added bonus, since MSI could have just thrown in a standard USB card. The fact that only one IDE cable was included was kind of annoying. The only other thing that bothered me was the way the drive connectors were laid out. Besides those two minor issues, I was very pleased with the layout and packaging of the K7D Master.

BIOS and Overclocking

The K7D Master uses a Phoenix BIOS. There are not too many user adjustable features within the BIOS. As for overclocking features, well there are none. I would also like to point out that there were times when the BIOS seemed sluggish during testing. It would lock for a second and the menus would scroll slowly. I questioned MSI tech about this and they didn't have an answer for me. It is a minor issue, but an issue nonetheless.

Here we see the main BIOS screen. It is what we are all used to seeing nowadays.

Within the Advanced Options section there is a place to adjust memory timings and on board features. There are not too many adjustments the user can make but there is a fair amount of tweaking that can be had within the advanced options of the BIOS.

I might as well admit defeat now. I could not overclock with this board at all. It didn't matter if I tried with one CPU or two, it just wouldn't cooperate. The BIOS does have multiplier adjustments up to 12.5, but they don't work when both of your processors are multiplier locked. No problem, just up the FSB, right? Well, it wasn't exactly that easy. Every time I bumped up to a 138 MHZ FSB the system would lock within ten minutes. Why go with such a high bus speed right off the bat you ask? The K7D Master only allows FSB adjustments in 5 MHz increments. No matter what I did, from using two Thermalright SK6's and pumping up the voltage, nothing would help. Seeing as it was not designed with system tweakers and overclockers in mind, I am not too shocked with the K7D Master's terrible overclocking results.

Overall the K7D Master sports a very plain, yet functional BIOS without too much depth. There were some nice user adjustable settings, such as RAM settings, but that was pretty much all. There was absolutely no overclocking to be had, which was kind of a sore spot.

Performance and Stability

Test System

MSI K7D Master mainboard
2x AMD Athlon XP 1700+ processors
2x256 Meg Kingmax PC2100 non-registered DDR RAM
MSI GeForce 4MX 420
10 GIG 7200 RPM Maxtor hard drive
Mitsumi 48x CD-Rom drive
Sony 12x CD-RW
nVidia Detonators 28.32
Windows XP Professional

Benchmark software

SiSoft Sandra 2002 Standard (CPU and Hard drive)
Prime 95 (Burn in)
Mad Onion 3D Mark 2001se (Direct 3D)
GL Excess (OpenGL)

As you can see, we intend on throwing a slew of benchmarks and torture tests at the K7D Master. I would like to thank and for each providing me with the Athlon XP 1700+ processors I needed to test this mainboard.

Lets take a look at the SiSoft Sandra benchmarks.

The graphs show the K7D Master to be a very strong performer when compared to reference scores from SiSoft. The slight advantage that the Reference 1700+ processor had over the K7D Master in the comparison is nothing to worry about, since it is within the margin of error. Why don't we take a look at single CPU scores next?

*Ed. Note: I'm aware the above graphs have 3 Dual 1700+ CPUs listed. This was an error on my part, and I'll be fixing that. The highest values are in fact, reference Dual 1800+ CPUs.

By comparing the single CPU scores between the reference platform and the K7D Master we can see that the K7D Master performs very nicely whether it is using one CPU or two.

Stability

What is the point of having a server if it is instable? I wanted to see how long this board would go without a crash and decided that a week long vacation would be the best time. Right before I left I decided to run Prime 95, a very processor intensive torture test. I left for vacation and when I came back, the test was still going, an obvious sign that this board can handle anything you throw at it. Just for kicks, I stopped Prime 95 and ran Hot CPU Tester just to see if closing and opening an application after running for so long would cause a crash. Hot CPU Tester opened without a glitch. The K7D has managed to turn out very good stability and performance on the CPU side of things so far. How about some memory scores?

As you can see, the K7D Master managed to turn out some very impressive memory scores. While the scores are not up to Rambus speed, they do come out better than the reference AMD 760 scores, which shows me that the K7D Master is very efficient when it comes to using all of the memory bandwidth it can.

Next we will be using GL Excess to test OpenGL performance. OpenGL performance is dependent on the CPU, RAM and video card, so this is a great all around test. GL Excess does not run in SMP mode.

The fill rate test is mostly dependent on the video card. An average of 65 FPS is fairly decent. Although the K7T266 Pro2 managed better results, the K7D Master still had a strong showing here.

When the CPU is the determining factor, the K7D pulls off slightly better scores than the K7T266 Pro2. Both boards are so close in performance that saying any one board is a winner would be wrong. The K7D Master pulls of some great GL Excess scores, bottom line.

Now we move on to 3D Mark 2001se, which will test Direct3D performance. This is mostly a video card benchmark, although the faster your CPU and RAM, the higher your benchmark scores will be. All tests were run at default settings with anti-aliasing disabled.

Very respectable scores, especially when you consider that the graphics card we were using is a low-end GeForce 4MX 420. I would also like to pint out that 3D Mark 2001se does not take advantage of SMP, making these scores even more impressive. I was listening to MP3s, had a Sandra window open, running Hot CPU tester, surfing the internet, playing Pinball and doing other tasks. The CPU managed to stay between 1 and 5% usage while doing all of these things. The system constantly ran smooth no matter what I was doing or how much I was doing it.

Overall I was very impressed with the K7D Master's performance and stability. It didn't hiccup during any stress tests and it flew through our benchmarks without a problem. The K7D Master used the memory and AGP bandwidth in an extremely efficient manner. Despite what MSI may say, the K7D Master works fine with non-registered RAM and Athlon XP's running in SMP mode yielded terrific results. Obviously MSI takes pride in their engineering and with the K7D Master it really shows.

Final Words

I am having a hard time deciding what to say about this board. While the K7D Master is the best mainboard I have had the privilege of testing, it is also the most expensive. It is hard for me to recommend the K7D Master to average consumers because when it is all said and done, you will pay a minimum of $450.00 for the board and two compatible processors. I found SMP to be extremely beneficial in everything from loading applications and serving the web, as it reduced lag and made things seem to run a whole lot smoother.

If you are looking to build yourself the ultimate workstation or server and money is no issue, then the MSI K7D Master would make a perfect foundation for your new system. It is truly a fine piece of work.

Pros
Extremely stable throughout testing
Great benchmark and real-world performance
Works with non-registered DDR
Runs with Athlon XP's in SMP mode*
Best mainboard I have ever tested

Cons
No overclocking prowess
BIOS not tweaker-friendly
Costs a lot
Only one IDE cable included

Known Issues/hardware conflicts
The original BIOS revision will not allow the K7D Master to boot with any ATI Radeon 8500 based cards. The latest revision solves this issue.

Bottom Line
The combination of stability and performance that the K7D Master possesses is almost impossible to beat.

*Some newer Athlon XP's have the fifth row of the L5 bridge cut, not allowing them to work in SMP mode. Connecting the bridge the same way you would connect the L1 bridges to unlock the processor multiplier will enable MP mode on these chips.