A couple months ago, we got a look at the KT3 Ultra-ARU. It was MSI's first shot at the KT333, and they did a great job by producing a feature packed motherboard. Although we have a KT400 in house, MSI has also released an updated version of the KT3, dubbed the Ultra2. There are several varieties of the Ultra2, and we'll be examining the KT3 Ultra2-R model.

Historically, most users knew well enough to skip the initial release of the VIA chipset. The "A" version would usually follow soon after, correcting a variety of performance issues and bugs. The KT333 is the exception however, as no real "A" version came out. While many consider the KT333 an upgraded KT266A, the chipset manages to stand on its own merits. Like the KT3 Ultra-ARU before it, MSI doesn't skimp with the KT3 Ultra2. Everything one would want in a modern Athlon motherboard is present, such as ATA133, RAID, USB 2.0, and 6-channel audio support. Although the features mirror the previous version, there are some differences in how they are implemented.

As usual, MSI packs a lot of goodies with their products, and the Ultra2 is no exception. The DVD software isn't too shabby, as it's based on the latest PowerDVD version, which in my opinion, is the best software DVD player.

This isn't going to be a long, drawn out review, as the Ultra2 is very similar to the Ultra we've reviewed earlier. If you want more information on the KT333, and its features, I encourage you to refer to that article. Like most MSI boards we've looked at, the Ultra2 comes in its patented red PCB. Personally, I love the PCB, but if you've spray pained your case interior blue, this mobo won't really match.

For Alpha and Swiftech owners, you'll be relieved to see the 4 mounting holes around the CPU socket. Keep in mind that most newer boards, particularly the KT400s, seem to be lacking this. You should keep this in mind if you're shopping for a new cooler. The socket lacks any thermal probe, but rather, the temperatures are read from within the socket itself. Though this isn't as accurate as the internal XP diode, it should provide accurate temperature readings.

The power connection is located in between the back panel and the CPU socket. This isn't our favorite location, as the power cable may interfere with the CPU heatsink/fan by either restricting airflow, or even worse, getting damaged by the fan blades should a loose wire stray.

Keeping the northbridge cool is a nice silver active heatsink. Enthusiasts will be happy that the cooler uses thermal paste, rather than a TIM to bond the two surfaces. For anyone who wishes to reapply the thermal material with something else, removing the northbridge fan is no harder than popping a couple of retaining pins.

There are a total of 5 PCI slots available for expansion. There's built in sound and RAID, so if you choose to use what's integrated, you can save a couple PCI slots by going that route. The AGP slot includes a video card clip, which may be a handy feature for those who transport their PC a lot and are concerned about the video card being jarred loose. The clip may pose a problem as it's located very close to the 3 DIMM slots for the ram. Removing, or exchanging ram while a video card is installed may prove to be difficult, as illustrated in the last image.

Rounding out the connections are the IDE connectors. Both the primary and secondary IDE are located where they should be, with the floppy connection nearby. Due to the integrated features, both RAID IDE connections are located away from this area. One nice feature about these connections is the "openings" on either side of the connection. I've snapped the edges on one of my other motherboards previously while removing an IDE cable, and I suppose this addresses the issue.

The back panel has everything you'd expect it should. Although the motherboard supports 6 channel sound and 4 USB ports, you'll need to setup the included D-Brackets to gain access to those features. The USB bracket also includes some diagnostic LEDs to help troubleshoot your system should you have any problems.

Although the KT3 Ultra2 is still a KT333 board, there are actually a couple of noteworthy upgrades from the KT3 we've reviewed earlier. The northbridge is a newer revision, the CE, which is reported to overclock much better than the previous CD revision. We didn't have a whole lot of success in overclocking with our last KT3 Ultra, so I'm expecting it to go a little smoother this time around. Of course, the KT333 supports DDR333 (or PC2700), but you'll have to be aware that pre-2700+ Athlons are still on the 266FSB. This is an issue if you're looking to maximize your performance, as older Athlon XPs simply don't have the bandwidth to saturate the memory bus.

The next upgrade is the newer VIA VT8235 Chipset (southbridge). All the usual features are included, such as AC'97 Sound, ATA133, but the upgrade from the previous VT8233A is the inclusion of USB2.0 natively supported. The previous KT3 Ultra supported USB2.0 via a separate NEC controller. This should theoretically lower the pricing a little as the extra hardware is no longer needed.

What is more or less becoming common fare these days, the KT3 Ultra2-R includes a Promise RAID controller. There's support for ATA133 drives, and if RAID, in its supported flavors, doesn't appeal to you, you can use it as an extra IDE controller. MSI includes a nice little manual to help you setup a RAID array for those of you who've never set one up. If RAID isn't your thing, MSI offers the board without it.

The Realtek ALC650 returns again, and it's a decent solution for the sound card impaired. In the past, most people stay away from onboard audio for a couple reasons... it sucks up CPU resources, and it generally sounds like crap. Although the Realtek does use some resources (about 5-7% in MP3 playback), most users with their high speed CPUs probably won't notice anything. As for sound quality, well, it's great. True audiophiles can probably nitpick and point out the problems, but for everyday computer use and gaming, I find the sound acceptable.

Software

Fuzzy Logic 4 is MSI's Windows based overclocking software. It works well for the most part, but personally, I still prefer doing it the old fashion way in the BIOS.

PC Alert III, much like Motherboard Monitor, is a background app (though it can be configured to be launched only when requested) that monitors your system health, in regards to heat. Your CPU temps are monitored, as well as any fans that support monitoring.

The Live BIOS and Live Driver is something that's packaged with all of MSI's new boards, but it's still something I'm not comfortable using. Both are Windows based applications that can update the appropriate feature on your motherboard. I'd still update the BIOS through pure DOS mode though. I did give the Live BIOS a shot for the sake of testing it, and it kept hanging on me. Go figure.

The DVD software was a nice addition, and works well enough that if you choose to watch DVDs from your computer, this will be more than enough.

Finally, you get all of the drivers you need to run your hardware. Standard stuff, but you'll be better off going to the right sites and grabbing the latest version.

Installation notes

Like we've mentioned earlier, there may be some issues with removing memory with a video card already installed in the system. Not a big deal to be honest, but lazy people will have to remove the video card to get their ram out.

The mounting holes surrounding the socket are for the larger, motherboard mounting heatsinks. They're already grounded, and our Swiftech MCX462 had no problems bumping into any neighbouring capaciters.

Motherboard manufacturers may have gotten wise to the GeForce 4 Ti4600 compatibility issues (i.e.: They didn't fit without breaking a capacitor or two), and the Ti4600 had no problems fitting into this board.

The BIOS

You're going to have to excuse the blatent cut and paste from our previous KT3 review, but the BIOS remains unchanged with the Ultra2.

MSI makes use of the, now familiar, AMIBios. In the past, the AMIBios wasn't very tweaker friendly, but it's pretty good now, and anyone used to the AwardBios will feel right at home.

Standard features are present, and you of course have access to ALL the onboard features on the BIOS. Don't use RAID? Great, just disable it. This option was missing from our Asus board, and we're happy to see it here, since the Promise controller does add a significant amount of time to the POST process.

Probably what's most important for anyone who'd purchase a KT333 based board is the memory control. You can choose to run your ram asyncronous with your FSB, or if your ram can handle it, HCLK+33.

No overclocking board (yes, MSI does market this as one in the manual, but of course there are no guarantees) would be complete without the ability to make FSB and multiplier changes in the BIOS. Simply tab the FSB clock, and manually enter any value in (increments of 1 are available), and you're off to the races.

Overclocking

Overclocking was a mixed bag for us with our last KT3, but more people have had success with the CE revision. How did we fare this time around? We worked in increments of 10, and here are our results...

12.5 x 140 = Pass
12.5 x 150 = Fail

Ok, so it looks like the multiplier may be adding too much strain to the system. Since we unlocked our XP 2000+ a while ago, we dropped the multiplier back to 10. We would have left it higher, but I wanted to just get a post...

10 x 140 = Pass
10 x 150 = Fail

This was getting interesting. I was fairly certain that 150FSB would be attainable, so we dropped down the multiplier to 9, which was the absolute lowest I would go without comprimising the performance too much...

9 x 140 = Pass
9 x 150 = Pass
9 x 155 = Fail
9 x 154 = Pass

Previously, the KT3 wasn't able to hit 150FSB, but now we got as high as 154. I did manage to get up to 165FSB, but that meant lowering the multiplier down to 7. Honestly, I'm not convinced the lower multiplier trade-off is worth it, but that's up to you to decide.

Update: Well, the focus of this article was the motherboard in general, and not overclocking. Since this is a popular topic for most of you, we gave it another shot, with the sole purpose of reaching the highest possible FSB we could. In order to do so, we jacked the vCore to 1.85v, and slapped on our Swiftech MCX462, with an 80mm Delta fan. We lowered our ram speed to run asycronous witht he FSB (HCLK), and set the timings to as conservative as possible. I removed the RAID array, and placed a single drive on the standard IDE, and disabled all non-essential hardware.

The end result was a 6x190 overclock. Not too shabby. It wasn't totally stable though, as I'm fairly certain the ram is holding us back. I'm pretty sure those of you with quality PC3000 ram, such as Corsair XMS, will hit 190 easy, and 200FSB isn't totally out of the question.

Test Setup

AMD Athlon XP 2000+
MSI KT3 Ultra2-R
512MB PC2700 Crucial DDR
2 x 60GB 7200rpm Maxtor Harddrives, Promise RAID
Visiontek Xtasy GeForce 4 Ti4600

AMD Athlon XP 2000+
MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU
512MB PC2700 Crucial DDR
2 x 60GB 7200rpm Maxtor Harddrives, Promise RAID
Visiontek Xtasy GeForce 4 Ti4600

Windows XP Professional
Via 4-in-1 v4.38
nVidia Detonator 28.32

SiSoft Sandra
PC Mark 2002
Quake 3: Arena
3D Mark 2001SE

Rather than bogging you down with a dozen benchmarks at different speeds and resolutions, we're going to keep things simple. When applicable, only 640x480 scores will be displayed, as that resolution will eliminate the video card as the bottleneck for game benchmarks.

For our memory benchmarks, all setting were configured for maximum performance. We did have to back down to CAS2.5 for 166FSB (HCLK+33) for our tests to complete successfully.

SiSoft Sandra Memory

As expected, the 166 memory speed provides a nice boost over the 133 speeds. To be honest though, the improvements were not as high as I had hoped. You've probably have heard that the bottleneck for the KT333 is not the chipset itself, but rather, the CPU. The Athlon is still designed for the 266FSB, and it simply isn't optimized to feed the KT333 as it should.

SiSoft Sandra CPU Arithmetic

SiSoft Sandra CPU Multimedia

I think it's pretty obvious that performance is within a few percentage points of one another. Although the differences are slight, the KT3 Ultra2 does seem to be a little speedier than its older brother.

PC Mark 2002

A recent release by , we've decided to incorporate PC Mark 2002 into our motherboard and CPU testing for future reviews. It provides tests that benchmarks a PC for typical SOHO use. Here's a snip from their site:

PCMark"2002 is a completely new, multipurpose benchmark, suited for benchmarking all kinds of PCs, from laptops to workstations, as well as across multiple Windows® operating systems. This easy-to-use benchmark makes professional strength benchmarking software available even to novice users. PCMark2002 consists of a series of tests that represent common tasks in home and office programs. PCMark2002 also covers many additional areas outside the scope of other MadOnion.com benchmarks.

Pretty much no difference. To be honest, we don't really put a whole lot of stock into this particular benchmark, but it is a free download, so you can test it yourslf and compare with our results.

3D Mark 2001SE

3DMark®2001 Second Edition, is the latest installment in the 3DMark® series. By combining DirectX®8.1 support with completely new graphics, 3DMark2001 SE continues to provide benchmark results that empower you to make informed hardware assessments.

We used a resolution of 640x480, and 16Bit colour. FSAA was off, and decided that these settings will allow the benchmark to tax the main subsystem as much as possible. The newer Ultra2 edges out the Ultra by a mere seven 3D Marks. The difference isn't much, but since we're talking pure numbers, it's there nevertheless. Let's see if the trend continues for Quake 3...

Quake 3: Arena

Although it's getting long in tooth, the Quake 3 engine is still a useful tool in gauging overall system performance. Like our 3D Mark benchmark, 640x480 resolution was used, and set to the "Fastest" setting. We used the v1.31 point release, and the timedemo was demo four.

The new and improved Ultra wins again by a whopping 1fps. Now, for the record, we ran the benchmark 5 times, and the older MSI board scored consistently in the 226 - 228 range, whereas the newer MSI board consistently scored 227 - 230.

Final Words

Although we were generally satisfied with the KT3 Ultra2-R, there are a few notes you should consider before investing in the KT333.

By now, the PC2700 specification has been ratified for several months. The majority of PC2700+ ram you see right now are probably certified for PC2700. Certainly, this would be the ram to get. However, you should keep in mind that the KT333 is still handcuffed by older Athlon processors, which itself is still a 266FSB part. It's only capable of 2.1GB/sec, and the KT333 (2.7GB/sec) is left twiddling it's thumbs. You should know that the KT3 Ultra2 is able to handle the newer 166 (333) Thoroughbreds, so it'd still be a worthwhile purchase.

On that note, if you're thinking of picking up a KT333, this may be the time to get one. The KT400s have been somewhat problematic, but according to several online resources, VIA may trim its product line to the KT400 and the KT266As. Naturally, there will be a slew of remarking and/or handicapping of KT400s going on, but the KT333 may become a rare breed.

Pros: Good performance, extra USB ports, including USB 2.0, solid construction, stable, good software bundle.

Cons: Long boot times with RAID enabled.

Bottom Line: Feature-wise, MSI does not skimp here. Everything from ATA133 RAID-to-USB2.0 is here. Overclocking was successfull, unlike the previous KT3, and for the money, it's tough to beat MSI's quality.

If you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.

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