Friday, July 26, 2002

Technical details

The standard amount of space has been provided around the CPU socket in order to fit a P4 heatsink.

The memory slots are located much too close to the AGP port, thus introducing the chance of a retention bar coming into contact with the graphics card when installing memory.

The voltage regulation circuits are of the triple phase variety.

Eleven 2200mfds capacitors have been placed around the CPU socket.

The 12v connector is located SouthWest of the CPU, which forces users to contour power cables around it. The ATX main connector itself is placed in a more ideal position on the East side of the motherboard.

The CPU retention bar is made of plastic, so handle with care.

The Northbridge is capped with a heatsink and a fan.

Three fan connectors are included, all of which are controlled by the hardware monitoring system.

Hardware monitoring is controlled by a Winbond W83627HF circuit.

It's possible to manually assign IRQs.

Audio capabilities are supplied by a Realtek ALC650 controller.

Unfortunately the BIOS cannot be rolled-back to the last batch of valid settings by simply pressing "Insert", or a similar hot-key at start-up.

Next: Additional features

MSI 845E Max2