MSI's K7T - KT133 Motherboard
AMD's Duron Set Up The MSI Way!

April 11, 2000 By Sean 'BiZ' Mueller

LiteON Full Tower ATX Case w/ 300W PS(supplied by Outside Loop Computers), AMD Duron 650 @ 650MHz. and Overclocked , MSI K7T Motherboard, 128MB of Samsung GH SDRAM @ 133MHz/CAS2, 18gig WD Expert 7200 RPM ATA66 Hard Drive, Leadtek Winfast GeForce2 GTS w/ NVidia 6.18 Detonator3 Drivers, Asus 48X CDROM, Win98, DirectX 7.0a

 

Benchmarks with the MSI K7T Appearances can be deceiving...

I tested the system at both 650MHz, as well as at the maximum somewhat stable speed of 715MHz. While I experienced no problems at all at the default speed, once the bus speed was raised above 100MHz, strange things would occur. While the MSI would idle all day at 115MHz, no 3D apps / strenuous benchmarks could be completed. Q3 could be benched at 110MHz, so I've provided those. I don't think it's the fault of the motherboard, or cpu, per say but more of the VIA/AGP GART/GeForce2 combo. As some of you might have noticed, this trio isn't exactly known for their stable operation. Hopefully as the chipset/drives mature, things will change, and allow for easier over-clocking.  Please click on all images for full viewing.

SiSoft Sandra 2000

K7T @ 715MHz. CPU Multi-Media

These scores are not too shabby for AMD's "scrub" CPU, on a VIA based motherboard. The 715MHz benchmarks were done with the memory at 143MHz/CAS 3. There are two limiting factors to the memory, in those benchmarks. My Samsung GH memory was never meant to run at that high a speed, hence the CAS3 rating. And the MSI board doesn't give the option to set the Bank Interleave. This setting can greatly improve performance (just ask any Abit owner) and hopefully it'll be added in a future bios revision. I also feel a greater degree of stability could have been gained had MSI allowed a greater range of voltage adjustments. This isn't a "huge" factor for the 1.5v Durons, but when it comes to the higher clocked T-Birds, it could very easily become the limiting factor. Especially for big time Overclockers.

ZD Winbench

For those of you looking for a bit of a better reference, as far as real world performance is concerned, here's the ubiquitous Winbench99 results. I've never partaken of a 40 player death match in Winbench99, so for me, these results don't carry too much weight. The results aren't too shabby though, I'm sure they'll manage to get somebody's under-ware in a bind.

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3DMark2000

Another benchmark that everyone likes to see, but isn't exactly a measure of real world performance. It is pretty good for bragging rights, however. Complete default settings, 6.16 Detonator drivers (yeah, I know...).

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Quake 3 Arena 

You knew these were coming. No need to say anything...

Well, I never intended to do a video card review. But the Duron/MSI/GF2 w/Detonator3 drivers is one hell of a combination. Almost 100fps at High Quality, 32bit color, and at 1024x768. I'm sorry, but that's just flippin' crazy. If you're like me, and have been playing Q3 at 800x600 with all the options cranked down on a wOnderMX 5 Ultra 2000 video card, you really need to bash your head with a big rock. Then you really need to start selling some of that blood (or other fluids...) that's leaking, so you can afford to pick one of these GF2 things up. Trust me on this. I'm by no means an nVidiot, but this card is real damned fast, and belongs in your box. Of course, I've never played with Foofoo5 5500 either... So who knows. Maybe I'll gush over that too. But like I said, this isn't a video card review.

The verdict is in

For my first KT133 experience, I've got to admit, I was pretty impressed. This motherboard pretty much handled everything I stuck in it. GF2: Check. Massively over-clocked Voodoo3 AGP: Check. Crappy generic Ethernet card: Check. Vortex2 powered sound card: Check. Shoot, when was the last time you ever heard of a Via based motherboard being compatible with not only a GeForce2, but a Voodoo3 and a Vortex2 at the the same time? Well, not all three at once. That would require an extra AGP port. Or at least some physical exertion. Anyway, the only things I didn't like about this motherboard, was that it was missing a few bios tweaks. I'm tempted to complain about the lack of a multiplier adjuster but supposedly you can get them on the K7T's that are just now hitting the shelves. I'm not going fault the MSI for not being able to over-clock my lil' Duron to new found heights (max was 748MHz, max stable was 715MHz), because as everyone knows when it comes to over-clocking... Your results may vary.  So then, I guess what I'm saying is, that If what you want is a stable, full featured, Socket A motherboard, you could do far, far worse then the MSI K7T. It's got plenty of room to grow, plus pretty blinkin' lights. And that, my friends, is a pretty potent combination :).

We (well... mostly me), the fine folks of HotHardware.com, give the MSI K7T a HotHardware Heat Meter rating of....

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