MSI KT4 Ultra

[youngbuck]

I'm thinking of sending my Shuttle mobo back cause it's a piece of crap, and will get an MSI KT4 Ultra.

Go ahead an look at

As you will see, the sounds ports on the motherboard go horizontal. My case has vertical holes. So what do I do? Just take that part of the cut out? Or cut a hole in there?

-YB

 

[Tiger]

Personally I would stay away from it until they have ironed out the problems with bios updates. If you like beta testing go for it. Just seen the first reports of problems with this board and the guy returned it and bought a KT3. There isn't much improvement over the KT3 because there isn't the memory around to support the mobo anyway.

 

[youngbuck]

Ok, then I'll stick with the KT3. Do you think MSI's KT3 is better quality than Asus' equivelant?

-YB

 

[ReTiCuLeX]

I got the KT400 its a POS .

 

[youngbuck]

Why's it a POS? I'm thinking of getting the Asus AV7333 now, but am not completely sure yet.

People in the Asus mobo section are saying that teh Asus is considerably higher quality than the MSI.

 

[Fever]

POS = Piece of (s)d(h)u(i)n(t)g

Like I said over at the Asus board, I'd recommend the A7V333.

 

[youngbuck]

Yea i know what pos stands for.

 

[taxme]

I'd say KT4 Ultra is pretty far from POS. And the memory is there also, Corsair PC3200CL2 exists and is readily available in several stores.

I am comparing MSI KT4 to a true POS, Gigabyte GA-7VRXP that I owned for a week or so. Yesterday it first lost IDE2 and then shut down for the final time never to recover again. Today I got MSI, and I am pretty happy with it. Takes FSB much easier and gives better mem bandwidth than GB. There is nothin really wrong with the board. Even BIOS made good impression. No stability problems and everything is working like a charm.

The mobo has a back panel that will fit the board's connector setup. Your case just needs to have removable back panel mask.

My setup in sig.

 

[Tiger]

Hate to cross swords taxme but some of your statements are not correct;

1stly there is no official standard for 400MHz RAM. The Corsair is purely high performance 2100 (266) and there is no guarantee that the mem is going to perform to the full capability of the chipset.
2ndly this memory is not commonly available. If you mean commonly available in the USA perhaps but not in the rest of the world.
Its difficult to assess any mobo after a few hours of use. Takes weeks to put a new board through its paces.
There are some opinions that most of the manufacturers are going to drop this chipset because of mem problems and wait for the Hammer configs to come out.

 

[taxme]

Hate to cross swords taxme but some of your statements are not correct;

1stly there is no official standard for 400MHz RAM. The Corsair is purely high performance 2100 (266) and there is no guarantee that the mem is going to perform to the full capability of the chipset.
2ndly this memory is not commonly available. If you mean commonly available in the USA perhaps but not in the rest of the world.
Its difficult to assess any mobo after a few hours of use. Takes weeks to put a new board through its paces.
There are some opinions that most of the manufacturers are going to drop this chipset because of mem problems and wait for the Hammer configs to come out.

I stand corrected, what you say about the standardisation status of 400MHz ram you are quite correct.

On second point, if the mem is available in Finland, then I'd argue that it is pretty commonly available. The only downside to Corsair mem is the price. As with all extreme equipment the easiest way is to order it through web and that most certainly is feasible for most people who are into tweaking their systems.

For the third part, right again. I am merely stating that there are far worse boards available like my former Gigabyte. And MSI just made good first impression in comparison to that and the board that preceded KT4 in my comp MSI K7T 266. Also KT4 seems to perform pretty well in benchmarks.

 

[Tiger]

taxme you are right on the availability of the mem. I see that it's now available here in the UK. 256MB currently the same price as I paid for my KT3 and £20 more than the current price of the KT3. It would be the frosty Friday that I paid more for my mem than the mobo.
On the other boards - I have used G-byte boards to build commercial systems in the past and have been very impressed with their reliability. I have had a number of the later models, 266 mainly, come in for repair and in most cases the board has failed. Perhaps they have a QC problem or they are using substandard systems.
I apologise for being a bit sharp above.

 

[djeff]

Hmmm. I got my new KT4-SR up and running two days ago (swapped out from a MSI 266a) and I'm loving this board.

Got the new new board with my locked 1600+ AGOIA Y running nice and stable at 1780 MHz (169 fsb), and I haven't even pushed it yet - I'm certain it will easily go further. Been running Fold@home for a day and a half at this clock with no problems or errors.

With the SLK-800, my temps are right around 41c at this speed under a full load. My only complaint is the ThermalTake smart fan II is a bit louder than my old setup (at full speed), but that's expected for pushing 76cfm. I plan on drilling my case so I can run the lead to the fan externally so I can quiet it down a bit the majority of the time.

Anyway, without one crash at this clock speed, and taking into consideration I never even formatted my hard drive from the 266a, I'd have a hard time calling this board a 'beta'. The serial RAID will probably also be a good feature to have when it becomes more available.

Anyway, here's a vote from someone who's been very happy with the performace of this board thus far.

 

[djeff]

As you will see, the sounds ports on the motherboard go horizontal. My case has vertical holes. So what do I do? Just take that part of the cut out? Or cut a hole in there?

-YB

Almost forgot - the KT4-SR came with a bracket for the back of my case to accommidate the horizontal sound ports. On my Inwin case, I popped the old bracket out and pushed the one included with the board in - took less than 3 minutes, and it fit nice and secure.

 

[Spiked]

Um.... Did anyone happen to actually notice the difference between the specs of KT3 and KT4??? WHAT HAPPENED TO RAID??? THE PIC OF BOARD ABOVE SEEMS TO BE BARE! (areas open for saudering... missing raid, usb (extras i guess)... and well, the whole top right corner!)