X-bit labs

First Ever SiS746FX Based Mainboard from MSI.

Category: Mainboards

by Anton Shilov

[ 01/31/2003 | 06:36 PM ]

MSI this week announced their 746F Ultra mainboard and appeared to be the only company who has announced their SiS746FX-based solution so far. Released earlier this month, SiS746FX chipset is not currently really popular among mainboard makers and based on SiS’ usual policy in regards Socket A products, I can draw a simple and logical conclusion: MSI and ECS (who has not yet introduced their SiS746FX product) may eventually appear the only companies to utilise SiS latest Socket A solution.

Here are some technical details about the MSI 746F Ultra:

• Supports all Socket A Athlon XP/Athlon/Duron CPUs with 200, 266 and 333MHz FSB;
• SiS746FX chipset with SiS963 I/O Controller;
• 3 DIMM slots for up to 3GB of PC2100, PC2700 or DDR400 memory;
• 5 PCI and 1 AGP 8x slot;
• 2-channel integrated ATA/133 controller;
• 10/100/Mbit/s Ethernet Adapter (SiS963L);
• USB 2.0 ports;
• Integrated 6-channel AC'97 audio solution;
• Supports all the adjustment capabilities and other features all the latest mainboards from MSI can provide (PC Alert III; Fuzzy Logic 4; Live BIOS, etc);
• ATX form-factor.

As you see, nothing interesting here, just another cheap mainboard based on a very rare core-logic. Almost any KT400 or KT400A powered mainboard should be more powerful compared to the 746F Ultra, moreover, as KT400 is more popular on the market, the should be fewer compatibility problems with it.