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There is no
denying that
AMD has done very well with their Athlon line of
processors. A few years ago, back in the K6 days,
AMD CPUs were found only in low-end desktop systems.
The terms "high-performance" and "K6" were never used in
the same sentence. Things began to turn around a bit
with the K6-2 though. Performance was better than
the K6, and new proprietary features were added like AMD's
3D Now!. Then the K6-III hit the market, and while
it wasn't a best seller, it's price / performance ratio
was relatively good when compared to similarly clocked
Intel Pentium processors.
At that point,
the on line hardware community started buzzing after
hearing rumored specifications of AMD's next desktop
processor, the K7, which later became known as the Athlon.
No longer was AMD playing catch-up to Intel. The K7
was a completely new architecture that would incorporate a
high performing bus, and be designed for top performance
at high clock speeds. Then the processor launched
and for the first time since they became the dominant
player in the desktop space, Intel had fight to recapture
the "Speed Crown". The battle that ensued resulted
in a slew of new products from both AMD and Intel, and
when the dust settled AMD walked away with a much larger
piece of the desktop CPU pie, than anyone would have
forecasted.
Not happy with
their new found loyalists in the desktop space, AMD set
out to make and in-roads in the server market. They
released a new multi-processor capable chipset and began
qualifying their Athlon XP CPUs to work in SMP systems.
The eventual end result is what we are reviewing here
today, the
MSI
K7D Master AMD 760-MPX based Dual-CPU motherboard,
populated with two Athlon MP 2000+ processors.
CLICK ANY IMAGE FOR AN ENLARGED VIEW.
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Specifications / Features of the
MSI
K7D Master |
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Double Your
Pleasure... |
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Special Features:
- Supports Dual Socket
A (Socket-462) for AMD Athlon MP processors
- Supports Single
Socket A Athlon XP/ Athlon / Duron processors
- Support AGP PRO
- USB 2.0 PCI Card
- Intel 82559ER LAN
Controller (Optional)
CPU:
- Supports Dual Socket
A (Socket-462) for AMD Athlon MP processors
- Two Socket 462 for
AMD Athlon MP Processors 1900+ or higher
Chipset:
- AMD 762 chipset.
(North-Bridge 949 BGA)
- Supports 266MHz high
speed, split transaction system bus
- AGP PRO 4x and PCI
Advanced high performance memory controller
- AMD 768 chipset.
(South-Bridge 492 BGA)
- Host (primary) PCI
bus utilizes a 66MHz, 32-bit interface
- Enhanced IDE
controller. (Through to ATA-100)
- LPC bus to connect
peripherals such as super IO and BIOS
- Extensive ACPI-compliant
power management logic
- IO APIC controller
FSB:
Main Memory:
- Four 184-pin DDR
DIMM - Maximum memory size up to 4GB. (Registered
DDR only)
Slots:
- One AGP PRO slot
- Two 64-bit/66MHz PCI
slots
- Three 32-bit/33MHz
PCI slots
On-Board IDE:
- An IDE controller on
the AMD 768 chipset provides IDE HDD/CD-ROM with PIO,
Bus Master and Ultra DMA 66/100 operation modes
- Can connect up to
four IDE devices
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Audio:
- Chip Integrated
- Direct Sound AC'97
Audio
Network: (optional)
- Intel 82559ER LAN
controller
- Integrated IEEE
802.3 10-BaseT & 100-BaseTX PHY
- Wake-On-LAN and WFM
2.0
On-Board Peripherals:
- 1 Floppy port
supports 2 FDD with 360K, 720K, 1.2M, 1.44M and
2.88Mbytes
- 2 Serial ports (COM
A + COM B)
- 1 Parallel port
supports SPP/EPP/ECP mode
- 1 IrDA connector for
SIR/ASKIR/HPSIR
- 1 Audio/Game port
- 4 USB 2.0
USB 2.0: (PCI 5 port USB card)
- Compliant with USB
specification Revision 2.0 (Data Rate
1.5/12/480Mbps)
- Compliant with Open
Host Controller Interface specification for USB Rev
1.0a
- Root Hub with 4
external and sharing with 1 internal downstream
facing ports
BIOS:
- The mainboard BIOS
provides AMI "Plug & Play" Flash BIOS which detects
the peripheral devices and expansion cards of the
board automatically
- The mainboard
provides a Desktop Management Interface(DMI)
function which records your mainboard specifications
Dimensions:
Mounting:
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The MSI K7D
Master doesn't ship with an elaborate hardware and
software bundle. This isn't the type of product that
needs to ship with multiple hard drive cables or external
plates for digital audio. We're talking all business
here.
Included with
the MSI K7D Master, you'll find a single 80-Wire UDMA/100
hard drive cable, a floppy cable, a driver and utility CD,
a very complete user's manual and a USB 2.0 PCI card.
At first, finding the USB 2.0 PCI card seemed like a very
nice bonus, until we realized it was included to
compensate for a potentially defective on-board USB 1.1
controller. The first revision of the AMD 768
Southbridge used on the K7D Master (and a slew of similar
products) had a problem with the USB portion of the chip.
The BIOS,
Layout and Quality
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