Written By:
Date Posted: July 15, 2002

It seems like every motherboard released these days comes with onboard audio. The onboard audio on some boards, such as those with nForce chipsets, is nice. The onboard audio that comes on the K7D Master-L is to be avoided. During music playback it will crackle and pop. It is almost torture to watch a DVD, as the audio will drop off and sometimes not be in sync with the action. With quality sound cards available for under $50, I see no reason to use the onboard audio unless you plan on putting the board in a server, which doesn't need sound.

The IDE and floppy drive connectors are parallel to the PCI slots on the K7D Master-L. I am not a fan of this orientation because it can force you to drape IDE cables over your RAM in a smaller case, which would lead to unnecessary heat and airflow obstruction. It is a very minor issue, but may lead to problems.

The ATX cable connector on the K7D Master-L is in the "normal" position, right behind the PS/2 and USB plugs. With most motherboards this orientation causes the cable to drape over the CPU, interfering with airflow. This isn't an issue with the K7D Master-L, since neither of the CPU sockets are near the connector.

If you plan on using dual CPU's, an AGP Pro card, or both, you have to feed extra power to the motherboard via the ATX 12V power plug located above the AGP pro slot. If your power supply doesn't have the necessary connector you will need to buy one. The carries the connector, which gets its power feed from two four-pin Molex connectors. Your best bet, however, is to buy a high quality power supply, since low end power supplies are known to cause lockups, random errors and reboots in Athlon machines. Rather than give the obligatory "Go with Enermax" comment, I recommend Fortron Source power supplies, which are available at Coolerguys also.

While the K7D Master-L is not geared toward overclockers, MSI had the foresight to place mounting holes in the mainboard. These holes are for use with high-performance heatsinks such as the Alpha PAL 8045. The holes are also for use with waterblocks. So do big heatsinks fit on the K7D Master-L? The Alpha 8045 doesn't, although the Thermaltake Volcano 7 will.

As you can see in the picture above, the Volcano 7 is a tight fit, but manages to sit on the socket without pushing any capacitors aside.

Issues with IDE connector layout and lack of space around the sockets aside, the K7D Master-L sports a very impressive layout and nice list of features. The onboard audio had its share of problems, but any true audiophile should be using a real soundcard anyway. The fact that the ATX connector isn't near the CPU sockets is quite nice. Now that we have examined the layout and features, lets take a look into the BIOS.

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