Introduction
Introduction
It was only natural for most manufacturers to update their Intel 845 DDR motherboards once Intel themselves announced a move from a 400 to a 533 MHz FSB for their Pentium4 line of processors. MSI (Micro-Star International) had made a solid showing with their initial Northwood-compatible Pentium4 motherboard, the 845 Ultra ARU. Indeed, my reviewing colleague and friend, Ryszard, liked it so much that he awarded it an Editor's choice award.
What do you want out of a motherboard ?. There are a whole host of motherboard manufacturers who are vying for your hard-earned cash. What must they do to ensure that you part with your cash in their direction ?. MSI and ABIT have recently shown that they feel the best approach is to make the motherboard as feature-rich as possible without sacrificing stability.
I've enjoyed the slight shift away from performance as the defining factor for motherboards. Manufacturers are slowly realising that features count too. The motherboard is the hub of all PC-related operations, so additional features can only be regarded in a positive light.
Today I'm casting my reviewing eye over MSI's top-of-the-range Intel 845E motherboard, the 845E Max2-BLR. The 845E chipset largely differentiated from the I845D by offering official 533MHz FSB support for the Northwood B Pentium 4s, and by specifying a new Southbridge, the ICH4. This revised Southbridge offers USB2.0 as standard, one of the features many manufacturers had previously incorporated via an additional on-board controller.
So, with all I845E motherboards already benefiting from USB2.0 support, manufacturers now have an even harder task of making their motherboard stand out. To this end, much like ABIT with their own MAX series of motherboards, MSI have decided to be innovative by not only supplying the usual expected extras such as on-board LAN, decent on-board sound and RAID, but to also include a first for P4 motherboards, true Bluetooth support.
With a wealth of extras, I was only too keen to have a good look at this motherboard. Let's see what I thought of it on the following pages.
