Over the coming months, a portion of the motherboard market will focus its energy on AGP8X and DDR 333 and DDR400 support. Toward this end, the VIA KT400 chipset serves as a good stopgap solution, with it’s vaunted 8X support and it’s name suggesting DDR400 support. MSI’s KT4 Ultra is MSI’s successor to their successful KT333 based KT3 Ultra. We’ve been eager to test KT400 boards to see how well the new chipset would push RAM and 8X performance. We found that while the chip specs sound good on paper, in use, it yields both some excitement and disappointment.
KT400 Chipset
One thing to note is that VIA does not officially state that the KT400 chip will run your PC3200 (DDR400) RAM stably. Best results and stability are still achieved with DDR333. Still, when you peek inside the KT4 Ultra BIOS (and indeed the BIOS of other KT400 boards) you will find the 400Mhz option available. The real highlight of the KT400 chipset are the AGP8X and 8X V-Link interfaces – which we were very glad to see anyway since the Xabre400 and R300 (RADEON 9700) are both 8X ready, and we can expect the same from nVidia’s next offering.
Layout and Basics
|
Motherboard
Specifications |
|
Chipset |
VIA
KT400
+VT8235 Southbridge |
|
Bus
Speed Options |
200/266MHz |
|
Voltages
|
100-280MHz in 1Mhz increments |
|
Memory
Support |
Supports six memory banks using three 184-pin
DDR SDRAMs (Up to 3GB) |
|
Expansion
Slots |
Six 32-bit PCI bus slots (support 3.3v/5v PCI
bus interface). |
|
USB
Support |
6 USB 2.0 ports (4 Rear / 2
Front) |
|
Integrated
Components |
- C-Media
8738MX 6-channel + SPDIF out.
- Serial ATA Interface
(Optional)
- LAN
10/100/1000MBps
(Optional)
- 1 extra pinheader for Bluetooth connect
connection (Optional) |
|
Bios |
AMI BIOS |
|
Onboard
IDE |
An
IDE controller on the VT8235 chipset
provides IDE HDD/CD-ROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA133/100/66
operation modes. |
As you can see from the specs, the KT4 Ultra is capable of supporting all the optional features found on many of MSI’s current boards: Bluetooth via MSI’s Bluetooth enabled bracket, 5.1 Audio via expansion S-bracket, Firewire via bracket. Our sample was loaded with everything except for the Bluetooth bracket. In fact, 2 D-brackets were supplied – one of the brackets had the second USB port covered with a label stating “do not remove when using Bluetooth”.
 |
| Bluetooth & C-Media Brackets |
  |
| C-Media Chip & LAN Chip |
Layout wise, the board is fairly spacious and easy to work with. MSI’s design puts the main IDE channels higher up on the board, and hence closer to where your drives are located relative to the installation of the board.
Two major layout flaws stand out while working with the board.
Firstly, the CPU is rotated such that installing a CPU cooler is difficult on most ATX cases because your have to work between narrow gap formed by the PSU and the cooler. I know many of you use cases with motherboard trays, but if you don't have a tray you would find it a lot harder, if not impossible, to add and remove your CPU cooler. On the flip side of the argument, this design actually places the CPU in the one place where no other components are obstructing the installation of your fan. If you have a monster fan with an awkward clip anyway, this board will let you try and get that monster on without obstruction from nearby capacitors.
 |
| Limited Space btw HSF & PSU |
The second major flaw is the one everyone complains about time and again: the memory slots are just too close to the AGP slot. When using a regular sized video card like the RADEON 9700, you can get at DIMM slot 3 fairly easily, but slots 1 and 2 will literally rub against your video card if you open them fully. If you're gung-ho about it, you can add and remove RAM even with the video card in the way, but you have to be more careful, and it's a lot more awkward. Larger, full sized cards like a 128MB GF4 Ti4600 card block all three slots.
  |
| Chipset Fan & View of DIMM Slots/Radeon 9700 |
Aside from this nothing else really bothered us, not even the power connector's funky location that forces you to loop the power cable over or around the CPU.
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