MSI KT3 Ultra ARU (7)
Overclocker 19 Feb 2002

Conclusion

MSI KT3 Ultra is definitely one of the better performing Athlon boards currently available. We tested the performance of the board using various softwares and found out that the KT3 is optimised for gaming at high resolutions. Quake3 results indicates that this board is almost the same in performance as most of the KT266A boards except when you run it at DDR333 mode. Although we see some improvements in performance when operating in DDR333 ASYNC mode, the gain is merely less than 5% which is not apparent. Of course you may want to lower the CPU multiplier and run it at a higher 166Mhz and above to take advantage of the 1/5 divider or wait for a Athlon that runs 166Mhz fsb.

Features-wise, this board has one of the best features, USB 2.0, ATA-133, 6 ch audio support Dolby Digital, Promise ATA-133 RAID. It also included overclocking features in the BIOS. We tested the overclocking and were able to run it steadily at 155Mhz FSB using an AthlonXP 1500+ o/c to 1800+.

Installation is very straightforward, we did not encounter any major hiccups so far. The only trouble we had is probably the instability when running at Ultra timings at DDR333. It was resolved later when we discovered that the chipset's heatsink/fan is not adhered properly to the chipset resulting in minimum contact for heat dissipation through the heatsink on top. 

In conclusion, this board is rich with features. The disappointment could be the marginal performance gains when running at DDR333 and the absence of LAN port. Overall, the KT3 Ultra is a feature rich and high performance board that has most of all the features needed for today's high performance machine.

Discuss
Related review : Gigabyte 7VRXP KT333

Below, we list down some pros and cons of this board :

Pros:

• USB 2.0
• ATA-133 RAID
• CPU ratio, FSB (1mhz), Vcore, AGP, DDR voltages adjustable
• DDR333 support
• 6 channel audio

Cons:

• Marginal gain in performance from DDR266 to DDR333
• No Onboard LAN
• Chipset's heatsink not attached properly to chipset

Ratings

Here are my ratings out of 5 stars.

Product Excellence 2002

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