Micro-Star 850 Pro 2
Tuesday, August 14, 2001
Overall Quality Evaluation
The evaluation table below shows both the strong and weak points of the tested motherboard. No need to remind you that performance is not the sole purchasing criteria in a motherboard. Most of today's motherboards exhibit performance very close to each other, so we need additional information in order to help us distinguish the real advantages of a motherboard compared to its competitors. This is exactly where this evaluation table comes in handy.
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Feature
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Evaluation
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Design Originality
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Component Layout
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Heatsink space around CPU
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Capacitiors
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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CPU Retention Mechanism
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Amounts of Expansion Slots
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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4
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Amount of Memory sockets
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Ease of installation
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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BIOS Setup Design
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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4
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Performance
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Overclockability
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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4
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Stability
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Bundled Software
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Bundled Hardware
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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4
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Users Manual Quality
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Packing Quality
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Poor
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Good
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Average
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Excellent
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Top Grade
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5
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Features supported
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ATA100
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PC133
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Wake On LAN
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Modem ring
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Pwr Fail Res
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4
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Features supported (suite)
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Diag
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AMR
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Mouse Pwr On
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Susp. to RAM
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Susp. to Disk
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4
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Features supported (suite)
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IRDA
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SCSI
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Keyb. Pwr On
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Hardw. mon.
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Vcore adj.
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4
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Features supported (suite)
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RAID
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Alarm
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Jumperless
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L2 latency adj.
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IRQ assign.
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2
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Total Score obtainned for this motherboard
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90 points out of 100
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Features color codes: Blue = supported, Red = optional, Black = not supported
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The weak points
Can't adjust the Vio voltage
Can't adjust memory timings
Not able to set the clock multiplier in 0.5X increments
Could use another expansion slot
Can't manually assign IRQs
Strong points
Excellent Overclocking possibilities
Integrated hardware monitoring
Integrated LED diagnositic panel
Support for Live BIOS
Support for PC-to-PC networking
Conclusions
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The MSI 850 Pro 2 is one of the best Pentium 4 we've reviewed thus far. It's interesting Overclocking functions, combined with its many features have made for one compelling board. For those reasons, we're glad to award the 850 Pro 2 our "Top Grade Hardware Award".
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For more information, visit Micro-Star"s web site.
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