The Bundle and Presentation
Packaging and general appearance have become increasingly important recently. Bland boxes and bare motherboards just don't sell any more.
The reflective covers are good to look at and give the end-user a reassuring feeling of quality. You can see my reflection in the pictures, no flash was used. The back of the box highlights some of the options available on the motherboard, although MSI are keen to state that they are options and not standard equipment.
The label on the side of the box illustrates what you actually get in the box. Funnily enough, this is the second time that MSI have shipped us an incorrect label, this motherboard also contains Bluetooth support.
A little difficult to tell from the above picture, but you do receive a comprehensive bundle with the KT3 Ultra2-BR. You receive the standard ATA cables (ATA133, incidentally). 2 manuals in all. A general manual which is well written and easy to follow amd a RAID booklet for the on-board Promise RAID. A software CD is provided. One contains MSI's in-house 5.1-channel DVD software, the other contains various utilities and drivers. A driver disc containing the various hardware drivers and utilities is also included.
MSI are fans of add-on brackets to ensure you get the most out of your motherboard. We receive two additional brackets here, a 'S' bracket and a 'D' bracket.
The audio bracket contains S/PDIF digital output connections through both optical (left) and coaxial (right) jacks. Line-Out for centre / subwoofer and rear channels is also provided, giving true 5.1 support.
The revised D-bracket, rather unsurprisingly called D-Bracket2, kills two birds with one stone. The 4 LEDs provide up to 16 combinations that can troubleshoot booting problems, the various combinations of lights translate to various errors. These can be cross-referenced with the manual to determine the particular error. Not quite as elegant as a debug LCD, but a definite step in the right direction. Two additional USB2.0 ports are supported, too. These are powered from the revised VT8235 South Bridge.
