Written By:
Date Posted: May 3, 2002

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.

Out of the Box, you get two IDE ribbons, one floppy ribbon, a GREAT users guide (which includes everything you would ever want to know about the card and software), 4 USB 2.0 and 2 USB 1.1 ports, a RAID manual, and driver disks.

The drivers disk comes with great and useful applications like Pc-cillin, Pc-Alert, the Live Update software (to update the BIOS), and Adobe Acrobat.

Driver installation was a breeze, just putting in the drivers disk auto runs the standard MSI driver loading program where in just a few clicks the board's drivers are loaded and functional.

Installation of the board was very easy, and the motherboard fit perfectly in my mid tower case. The bios MSI provided with the board is also very nice, packed with easy to use features and great options to chose from.

You can chose from Standard CMOS features, Advanced BIOS features, Advanced Chipset Features, Power Management Setup, PNP/PCI Configuration, Intergrated Peripherals and Hardware Monitor setup on the left menu.

The Advanced Bios involves the boot configuration of the computer and other miscelanious features. One thing I'd suggest if you get this board is to enable Quick Boot, which skips the Motherboard's check of the RAM as the computer loads up, which can take quite a long time.

The chipset Features Setup lets you tinker with the Ram Frequency and other Ram , Chipset, and AGP options.

The Hardware Monitor Setup lets you overclock the computer in a multitude of ways. You can tinker with the CPU speed (unless your CPU doesn't allow it), and the Front Side Bus along with the voltages of the AGP and DDR slots. Almost standard these days, MSI includes CPU Temperature and System Temperature in this section of the bios, along with CPU and system fan speed.

Another cool thing MSI did with the BIOS was include "High Performance Defaults", which are preset configurations set in the motherboard to increase the performance of the computer, but not guaranteeing system stability.

The BIOS MSI included with their board is very nice and approachable by the hardware newbie while interesting and useful to the power user.

The Benchmark setup was:

- 1.9 Ghz Pentium 4 478
- 512 pc 2100 DDR Sdram
- MSI 845 Ultra-ARU motherboard
- Western Digital 60 gb / 133 / 7200 rpm Hard Drive
- Plexwriter 12/4/32
- Windows XP Professional
- Direct X 8.1

As you can see, the Benchmarks show that the motherboard handles all tasks well. The PC Mark 2002 score of 4386 shows that even without an oc'ed processor, the motherboard does very well.

We also ran 3D Mark 2001 to test the computer's 1024x768 graphics capabilities with the MSI G4MX440-T.

We also used SiSoftware's Sandra to test the CPU's Multi Media and Memory Bandwith.

Final Words

The MSI 845 Ultra-ARU is a great card packed when every feature you'd need, ample expandability and great features. MSI went all out and included made the 845 Ultra-ARU appeal to anyone looking to buy a socket 478 Pentium 4. With the great support and manuals provided by MSI, ANYONE can set the board up, install it, and get the computer running in no time. As our tests show, the board performed well with the given CPU (1.9ghz), and the 512 PC2100 DDR Sdram. We've seen the board go for around $130.00 - 140.00, and for that price you wont find all these features.

Pros
- Great Performance
- Nice Price
- Good features
- Well placed interfaces

Cons
- Only 3 memory slots
- Onboard sound

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