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2CPU.com » News » August 2002 » MSI K7D Master L Review

MSI K7D Master L Review

Posted by: Hooz on: 08/05/2002 10:32 PM [ Print | 47 comment(s) ]

It seems that we might need to do some adjusting to our current 5 point rating scale for hardware reviews. I say that because I just awarded my second 5/5 rating in as many reviews. Then again, if you're in the market for a dual AMD workstation, the K7D Master L really is that good.

Swing by and checkout my review and see what you think.

Comment

morpheus777
Burninating the peasants

Posts: 1667
Joined: 2002-07-02

#17510 Posted on: 08/06/2002 02:53 AM

Good review... I dont know about 5/5 score, but thats my opinion, i think maybe a 3/5 or 4/5, but i am harsh on my reviewage... so im just blowing smoke... Good job Hooz.

20" iMac, 2.66GHZ Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD, ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256MB, OS X 10.5.3 Leopard Apple MacBook 1.83GHZ Core Duo, 1GB DDR2, OSX 10.4.11 Tiger

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todder
Unregistered User

Posts: 2063
Joined: 2002-01-30

#17511 Posted on: 08/06/2002 02:54 AM

Hooz, I would take it by the review that you would recomend this board obver the Tiger MP? I will be ordering inside the next week, and have been unable to make up my mind.

[COLOR="Blue"]". . . I think a general Government [is] necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this [The Constitution] is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other. " -Benjamin Franklin [/COLOR]

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Hooz
Administrator

Posts: 2337
Joined: 2000-03-29

#17512 Posted on: 08/06/2002 03:12 AM

Yes, I sold off my Tiger MP and moved the Master L into my workstation semi-permanently

As for the 5/5 rating, I always try to look at the board and its targeted market. The Master L is clearly a workstation board as opposed to a server board, so I reviewed it accordingly.

Sure, there are boards with SCSI built-in, but those are server boards (dual NICs and angled DIMM slots give that away

). You have to look at the board for what it is, and on a features/price comparison, the Master L is it for dual AMD workstation boards.

[size=1][url="http://www.2cpu.com"]2CPU.com[/url] - Because two are always better than one! Are you folding? [url="http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=3074"]2CPU.com Folding@Home Team[/url] [url="http://www.heatware.com/eval.php?id=19979"]My Heatware[/url][/size]

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mickdunde
Registered User

Posts: 716
Joined: 2001-08-17

#17513 Posted on: 08/06/2002 03:14 AM

sweet review, good job!
I think that oc-feat. are nice, but not really needed, also pcb color..., but agp pro is really nice!
*edit* ... for a workstation board!

PoD | mickdunde

Comment

morpheus777
Burninating the peasants

Posts: 1667
Joined: 2002-07-02

#17514 Posted on: 08/06/2002 03:52 AM

Should have pitched the Tiger MP for this review, and put the real competition in, maybe a Tiger MPX -4M or a K7X.... A newer mobo like the MSI one you reviewed should have beaten the TigerMP...

20" iMac, 2.66GHZ Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD, ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256MB, OS X 10.5.3 Leopard Apple MacBook 1.83GHZ Core Duo, 1GB DDR2, OSX 10.4.11 Tiger

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gatorette
SMP Newbie

Posts: 2
Joined: 2001-11-29

#17515 Posted on: 08/06/2002 04:19 AM

Great review... I now have a Tyan S2466N-4M to sell

but...

As it seems that you guys at 2cpu are going to make a lot more reviews, I wanted to tell you that there is a feature I miss in the reviews layout: fast navigation. It would be nice to have a combo box linking to all the pages of the review. For a peripheral I know, I often go straight to the conclusion and then proceed to the interesting parts. As it is designed, I need to go through all the pages to get where I want to.

life is never dull in your dreams

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todder
Unregistered User

Posts: 2063
Joined: 2002-01-30

#17516 Posted on: 08/06/2002 04:44 AM

I hope MSI and others read this stuff cus they just made back what it cost for them to send you that board. Cus i am getting this one know over the Tiger MP.

Comment

Jim_
Administrator

Posts: 3464
Joined: 2000-03-15

#17517 Posted on: 08/06/2002 05:09 AM

Originally posted by gatorette
fast navigation. It would be nice to have a combo box linking to all the pages of the review.

It's funny you mentioned that. Cory and I will be implementing such a feature in my next article (the monstrous video card one). I wouldn't make you all click through 20+ pages. That'd be cruel and unusual.

[url="http://www.2cpu.com"][size=1]2CPU.com[/url] - Because two are always better than one! [url="http://www.jimkirk.org"]jimkirk.org[/url] - Not a Myth any Longer. Just a Dad.[/size]

Comment

Jemmott
Unregistered

#17518 Posted on: 08/06/2002 05:41 AM

hooz, any hint of the reported 25MB/sec bandwidth limit on the 33/32 pci slots? (mpx chipset issue)

Comment

Hooz
Administrator

Posts: 2337
Joined: 2000-03-29

#17519 Posted on: 08/06/2002 05:59 AM

My HDDs are connected in the machine via an Ultra100 card from Promise (32/33 slot). I ran disk benches on my drives and didn't see any difference than the same drive on the motherboard controller, or another motherboard controller. Then again, I probably wasn't hitting the mysterious limit with my drives either.

Upaboveit will get to the bottom of it, rest assured.

Comment

Astrophel
SMP n00b

Posts: 84
Joined: 2002-05-30

#17520 Posted on: 08/06/2002 05:59 AM

Originally posted by morpheus777
Good review... I dont know about 5/5 score, but thats my opinion, i think maybe a 3/5 or 4/5, but i am harsh on my reviewage... so im just blowing smoke... Good job Hooz.

I think you and I are just mad that we bought Tiger MPXs before reading this review.

Comment

Hooz
Administrator

Posts: 2337
Joined: 2000-03-29

#17521 Posted on: 08/06/2002 06:07 AM

Originally posted by morpheus777
Should have pitched the Tiger MP for this review, and put the real competition in, maybe a Tiger MPX -4M or a K7X.... A newer mobo like the MSI one you reviewed should have beaten the TigerMP...

If you read my Tiger MPX review, you'll see that the MPX really doesn't perform any better than the MP does. With identical components on the two boards, it will be a statistical wash.

It's all about the features and the price.

Comment

ShaneBrooks
Unregistered

#17522 Posted on: 08/06/2002 06:08 AM

Nice review. The AC97 and audigy comments really show MSI have their shit together on this one better than most others. Its nice to read a review with a couple of pages of commentary on the product before the bevvy of benchmarks. Personally the detailed comentary is of much higher value than the benchmarks - which serve for me just to show the board is working as it should. The real world is often far removed from the bench marks.

I found myself sneering at my Tyan S2466-4M MPX for a bit until I realised everything you said about the MSI applies in my case to my Tyan. ie - its 100% stable, never had a BSOD and runs all my (limited) hardware 100%.

Naturally all that may change when DoomIII comes out and I try to upgrade my G450 to some huge damn mother humper video card... but for now life is good.

Comment

Jemmott
Unregistered

#17523 Posted on: 08/06/2002 06:23 AM

great review Hooz.

Comment

jbbenson
Got Fruit?

Posts: 82
Joined: 2001-05-15

#17524 Posted on: 08/06/2002 06:52 AM

Any chance on future reviews, you could make mention of the number of on board fan headers?

Other than that, great review!

Comment

Black Jacque
SMP Qualified

Posts: 168
Joined: 2002-05-04

#17525 Posted on: 08/06/2002 07:34 AM

I think this review is way too generous.

I've got the board and these are a few of my pet peeves:

1. The "Safety Zones" around the CPUs have either been violated or drawn too closely. Big heatsinks with 80mm fans like Alpha PALs and AX-7s won't fit without cutting metal.

2. Everyone with air cooling sees a temperature difference of 5 and 12 deg C between CPU1 and CPU2. CPU2 always appears to run hotter.

3. The D-Bracket shipped with the board is crap. It takes up a scarce PCI slot and the cables to the LED header and USB headers drape over the length and width of the mobo.

4. The mobo fan and rpm sensor plugs for the CPU fans are not located within close proximity to the CPU sockets. The PS fan socket should be closer to the top (PS-side) of the board.

5. It would have been nice for the memory slots to be located below the IDE and Floppy sockets to avoid draping cables over them.

6. There is no six.

A few things I'd like to know, and not mentioned in the review are:

1. What heat sinks were eventually installed?

2. What was the base configuration of the box for the benchmarks. For example which WD JB-series HD was used? Were WD JB's used on the other mobo's? What video card was used for the benchmark? Were the benchmarks made with the native sound or was the Audigy sound card mentioned slotted?

3. What was the BIOS rev used for the benchmark? The 1.1 rev is infamous for problems.

Iwill DK8N, 2xOpteron 246s', Swittech 6400-Vs, 4x512Mb Mushkin 2-3-2 EEC, Nvidea 6800GT, WD 74Gb Raptor (boot), 4xSeagate 7200.8 400Gb SATA (RAID 5), Highpoint 1821 RocketRAID. NEC 3530A DVD/RW.

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aruprc
SMP Newbie

Posts: 49
Joined: 2002-06-14

#17526 Posted on: 08/06/2002 09:03 AM

Originally posted by Hooz
It seems that we might need to do some adjusting to our current 5 point rating scale for hardware reviews. I say that because I just awarded my second 5/5 rating in as many reviews. Then again, if you're in the market for a dual AMD workstation, the K7D Master L really is that good.

Swing by and checkout my review and see what you think.

If there is any dual board after the ASUS P2BDS that deserves this credit it is the MSI K7D. Have built five systems so far with this board and no dissapointments at all. This board is rock stable and no doubt that it is a high quality board.

Thanks for the review.

Comment

morpheus777
Burninating the peasants

Posts: 1667
Joined: 2002-07-02

#17527 Posted on: 08/06/2002 09:29 AM

Originally posted by Black Jacque
I think this review is way too generous.

I've got the board and these are a few of my pet peeves:

1. The "Safety Zones" around the CPUs have either been violated or drawn too closely. Big heatsinks with 80mm fans like Alpha PALs and AX-7s won't fit without cutting metal.

2. Everyone with air cooling sees a temperature difference of 5 and 12 deg C between CPU1 and CPU2. CPU2 always appears to run hotter.

3. The D-Bracket shipped with the board is crap. It takes up a scarce PCI slot and the cables to the LED header and USB headers drape over the length and width of the mobo.

4. The mobo fan and rpm sensor plugs for the CPU fans are not located within close proximity to the CPU sockets. The PS fan socket should be closer to the top (PS-side) of the board.

5. It would have been nice for the memory slots to be located below the IDE and Floppy sockets to avoid draping cables over them.

6. There is no six.

A few things I'd like to know, and not mentioned in the review are:

1. What heat sinks were eventually installed?

2. What was the base configuration of the box for the benchmarks. For example which WD JB-series HD was used? Were WD JB's used on the other mobo's? What video card was used for the benchmark? Were the benchmarks made with the native sound or was the Audigy sound card mentioned slotted?

3. What was the BIOS rev used for the benchmark? The 1.1 rev is infamous for problems.

BINGO!!!!

20" iMac, 2.66GHZ Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD, ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256MB, OS X 10.5.3 Leopard Apple MacBook 1.83GHZ Core Duo, 1GB DDR2, OSX 10.4.11 Tiger

Comment

thor
SMP Qualified

Posts: 304
Joined: 2000-07-02

#17528 Posted on: 08/06/2002 10:59 AM

The (expensive) SLK-800 heat sinks fit well and perform well.

There appears to be an incompatibility with an ATI Radeon 32MB SDR PCI video card. When I had it installed (in the 33MHz slots) with the latest drivers, I would get random lock-ups when I was moving the mouse or scrolling windows. Especially when I was burning a CD or other simultaneous things of that nature.

(BTW, I had an Elsa Gladiac installed in the AGP slot at the same time.)

Comment

Mr Bill
two by two, hands of blue

Posts: 2946
Joined: 2002-02-16

#17529 Posted on: 08/06/2002 11:16 AM

Maybe these problems arise with faster clocks. I am currently seeing:
Chassis = 34C
CPU1 = 41C
CPU2 = 43C
I'm running two instances of F@H for load. I have to say I am really pleased with this board. Its very stable. I agree with Hooz, it deserves a high rating. My only complaint is that I could not put Alpha 8045's on it and had to settle for the TaiSol's.

My SMP rig [URL="http://personal.palouse.net/billshan/ghost.htm#A_Merlin"]Merlin[/URL]

Comment

aruprc
SMP Newbie

Posts: 49
Joined: 2002-06-14

#17530 Posted on: 08/06/2002 04:03 PM

Originally posted by thor
The (expensive) SLK-800 heat sinks fit well and perform well.

There appears to be an incompatibility with an ATI Radeon 32MB SDR PCI video card. When I had it installed (in the 33MHz slots) with the latest drivers, I would get random lock-ups when I was moving the mouse or scrolling windows. Especially when I was burning a CD or other simultaneous things of that nature.

(BTW, I had an Elsa Gladiac installed in the AGP slot at the same time.)

The new BIOS 1.3 solves the problems with ATi Radeon cards.

Comment

Psionicist
Just a member.

Posts: 68
Joined: 2002-07-27

#17531 Posted on: 08/06/2002 05:15 PM

Hey, thanks for the review.

I am buying this thing!

Nuff said.

Comment

willebenn
SMP Newbie

Posts: 2
Joined: 2002-08-06

#17532 Posted on: 08/06/2002 05:27 PM

Are you using the PAL6035's with the 80mm adapters as shown in your hardware link?
What are the temps?
What would you have rated the board at on a scale of 100?

Comment

thor
SMP Qualified

Posts: 304
Joined: 2000-07-02

#17533 Posted on: 08/06/2002 06:36 PM

The new BIOS 1.3 solves the problems with ATi Radeon cards.

My board came with the v1.3 BIOS already installed. Maybe it only fixed problems with AGP video cards.

Most of my lock-ups occurred when I was burning a CD while moving the mouse around. (Although I could still get lock-ups when I wasn't burning a CD.) My CD burner is connected to the motherboard. The IDE bus and the 33MHz PCI bus are both controlled by the Southbridge. So maybe there's a problem there.

Its a shame because I'm using the card for its S-Video out. My AGP video card doesn't have S-Video. Maybe I'll have to buy one that does. I'm a little leery about getting a Radeon now because of what I've experienced. Supposedly they have the best integrated multimedia features though.

Is anyone running a Radeon in their AGP port and using the S-Video out to successfully drive a TV? (Without mysterious lock-ups.)

Comment

Hooz
Administrator

Posts: 2337
Joined: 2000-03-29

#17534 Posted on: 08/06/2002 07:10 PM

Originally posted by Black Jacque
1. The "Safety Zones" around the CPUs have either been violated or drawn too closely. Big heatsinks with 80mm fans like Alpha PALs and AX-7s won't fit without cutting metal.

2. Everyone with air cooling sees a temperature difference of 5 and 12 deg C between CPU1 and CPU2. CPU2 always appears to run hotter.

3. The D-Bracket shipped with the board is crap. It takes up a scarce PCI slot and the cables to the LED header and USB headers drape over the length and width of the mobo.

4. The mobo fan and rpm sensor plugs for the CPU fans are not located within close proximity to the CPU sockets. The PS fan socket should be closer to the top (PS-side) of the board.

5. It would have been nice for the memory slots to be located below the IDE and Floppy sockets to avoid draping cables over them.

6. There is no six.

A few things I'd like to know, and not mentioned in the review are:

1. What heat sinks were eventually installed?

2. What was the base configuration of the box for the benchmarks. For example which WD JB-series HD was used? Were WD JB's used on the other mobo's? What video card was used for the benchmark? Were the benchmarks made with the native sound or was the Audigy sound card mentioned slotted?

3. What was the BIOS rev used for the benchmark? The 1.1 rev is infamous for problems.

Okay... Let me get these in order.

1. Considering that I have seen no dual Athlon boards that will fit PAL8045's without modification, I couldn't hold that against this board. It still has more room than most, and I did mention it in the review (even had a picture).

2. I've seen differences in CPU temps on dual boards since the BX days. Truth is, if it doesn't lock-up and crash due to heat, I could care less if one CPU runs 5 degrees hotter. People get a little too wrapped-up in there cooling fetish sometimes. I've seen people spend hundreds (litteraly) of dollars on cooling gear, only to get 2-3 degrees better performance. My reasoning for big 'sinks and 80mm fans is strictly a noise issue. If they do cool better, that's just a bonus for me.

3. The bracket has some benefits. The DLED is the only thing of its kind to actually ship for free with a dual processor motherboard, and it is a Godsend for someone trying to troubleshoot the machine without a closet full of hardware to swap out. If the cables bother you, then don't use the feature, but it is there for you to use, so MSI gets extra credit.

4. I didn't have any problems reaching the fan connectors with any of the leads on my fans, how can they be too far away? I could see your point if the wires wouldn't reach due to poor placement, but they did reach, with plenty of slack left.

5. Heh. You're kidding, right? When have you ever seen a board with IDE connectors above the memory slots (besides BabyAT boards from years ago)? You're grasping at straws now. Blame it on the ATX form factor, not the board manufacturer.

6. -

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. http://www.hooz.org/misc.images/alpha_shot.html

2. G400Max on both the Tiger MP and K7D, onboard video on the i7500. Audigy was not installed for benchmarking (Unless otherwise noted, all of our benchmarks are run with onboard components only. If a board has onboard sound, we don't benchmark with another soundcard installed). Same WD1000JB was used, but since our benchmark suite for motherboards is geared towards CPU and memory performance, video, sound and HDD are pretty much moot.

3. My K7D came with the latest BIOS installed.

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MSI K7D Master L Review

Posted by: Hooz on: 08/05/2002 10:32 PM [ Print | 47 comment(s) ]

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