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The AMI BIOS:
The BIOS that
comes supplied with the MSI KT4 Ultra-FISR is no stranger around
here. It seems that virtually every motherboard this
reviewer tests comes with some form of the popular AMI BIOS.
Some boards offer the standard settings often found in
average workstation models and others include a version of
the BIOS that has every conceivable setting you could
imagine. MSI falls right in the middle with the KT4,
offering the user a balanced selection of settings to tweak
the system for optimal performance. We'll spotlight
some of the board's more important strengths and weaknesses.
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The BIOS of the KT4 had a
plethora of setting in the DRAM Timing Control Screen for
tweaking the system RAM for best operation. The timing
could be set By SPD which gets its parameters from an EPROM
on the RAM, Auto, and Manual. The Frequency was
adjustable from 266, 333, and 400MHz. DDR, although 400MHz.
is not officially supported, since there is no standard yet
in place for the technology. We also found the
Frequency/Voltage Control screen to have an adequate
selection of settings for overclocking the
system.
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The CPU Ratio, or Multiplier,
was adjustable from 6X through 15X, especially useful when
using an unlocked Athlon processor. The CPU VCore was
adjustable from 1.575V through 1.7V in increments of .25V.
Some of you may look at this and think something doesn't
look right, shouldn't the processor normally run at 1.75V?
The answer is yes, if you are running an Athlon based on the
Palomino core. We tested the system with a
"Thoroughbred" processor which has lower voltage
requirements than the "Palomino" processor and the BIOS
scaled the voltages accordingly.
Adjustments were also available for both DDR and AGP
voltage. The DDR Voltage adjustment had three options, 2.6V, 2.7V,
and 2.8V while the AGP Voltage selections were 1.6V, 1.7V, 1.8V.
In the end, MSI supplied the KT4 Ultra with the necessary
tools for optimizing and stabilizing the motherboard whether overclocking the board or not.
Before we move on to the benchmarks, let's take a closer
look at the KT400 from VIA and see how it compares from
previous iterations of VIA Chipsets.
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A
Quick Overview of the
MSI
KT4 Ultra-FISR Motherboard's Key
Technologies |
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Looking Good... |
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Introducing The KT400
Chipset:
The most important component of the MSI KT4 Ultra-FISR is the
KT400 Chipset.
The first thing you may notice is that the change from the
KT333 to the KT400 is more significant than the transition
from the KT266A to the KT333. When the KT333 was first
introduced, the majority of changes from its older
counterpart were in features rather than performance.
It's true that the KT333 added support for 333MHz DDR-RAM,
but that is where the performance changes basically stopped.
The rest of the upgrades came in feature improvements such
as support for USB 2.0, the rest of the chipset remained
relatively unchanged. It is clear why soon after the
KT333 was released, a lot of us were wondering where the
performance gains were.
With the introduction of the
KT400 chipset, VIA employed three major changes over the
KT333. The first and most obvious change, as its name
implies, is the "unofficial" support for 400MHz. DDR-RAM.
The only reason that 400MHz. DDR is "unofficial" is because
no standard has been set forth for VIA to comply to.
The question that remains is why has a standard not been set
yet? Are we reaching the limitations of the
technology? Only time will tell, but a lot of us are
eager to see how things unfold.
The KT400 is the first of VIA's chipsets to be AGP 3.0 compliant, allowing for full
AGP 8X support. This gives the MSI KT4 Ultra-FISR the
ability to take advantage of the latest graphics cards to
employ AGP 8X, such as the Radeon 9700. This increases
the systems overall capacity to 2GB of bandwidth compared to
the KT333's 1GB maximum.
To add to overall performance,
VIA also increased the rate at which the Northbridge and
Southbridge communicate. With the KT266A and KT333
chipsets, the maximum rate of communication was 266MBs per
second. The design of the KT400 has been improved to
double the rate at which the Northbridge and Southbridge
communicate to 533MBs per second.
So what we're seeing is that
unlike the difference between the KT266A and KT333 chipsets,
we should see not only increased features with the KT400,
but performance should show an improvement as well. As
we've noted in several system reviews in the recent past,
the increase in memory speed from 333MHz. DDR to 400MHz. DDR
should have very little impact on system performance.
The most notable changes to have an effect on performance
should be the increase in V-Link bandwidth and the AGP 3.0
implementation. It will be interesting to see where
the major performance gains will be seen.
Naturally, in order to accurately test this motherboard's
capability at DDR-400 speeds, we were going to need a stick
of PC3200 RAM or higher to get the job done. Our friends at
Geil
were kind enough to supply us with a 512MB module that was
more than capable of satisfying our testing needs.
Recently they shipped us a stick
of PC3500 DDR RAM that is
capable of running at DDR 433MHz. (216MHz. x 2) at 2.5-3-3.
This is a quality module that comes refitted with copper heat
spreaders to keep the RAM chips running at a steady, even
temperature. When we first got our hand on this
module, we were taken back by how heavy it was. GEIL has implemented some serious quality standards when it
comes to the packaging and construction of their DIMMs.
In a short while we'll get to see if these standards spill
over to the performance of the stick itself. So let's
roll up our sleeves and get this show on the road!
Overclocking and Sandra 2002 Pro |