Introduction

The MSI K7T Turbo-R

KT133A: The preferred Athlon chipset

Even though motherboards based on the KT133A chipset have only been available for a handful of months, KT133A has caught on quickly in the Athlon enthusiast market. With its support of the faster 266MHz front side bus and ATA/100 protocol, KT133A offers approximately a 10% performance increase over VIA's older KT133 chipset.

Rounding out the package is price; KT133A motherboards sell for a slight premium over KT133 boards, and unlike motherboards based on AMD's 760 chipset (the best DDR chipset currently on the market for the Athlon platform, including ALiMAGiK1) KT133A doesn't require DDR SDRAM. We've already looked at ASUS and ABIT's offerings for the KT133A chipset and were pleased with their performance; we've been testing the K7T Turbo-R the past few weeks and are now prepared to give you the full review.

MSI: Athlon supporter since day one

MSI has been one of the most ardent supporters of the Athlon platform since its inception a year and half ago. With the exception of the KX133 chipset (which, in hindsight was a very smart move on their part), MSI has released new products based on each new chipset for the Athlon platform. The last Socket A motherboard we reviewed from MSI, the K7T Pro, was an extremely reliable solution but got caught up in the clock multiplier frenzy of last summer. Back then, there were only two classes of Socket A motherboards: those with clock multiplier adjustment, and those without. Thankfully, the K7T Turbo-R we're reviewing today has it, but we're a bit disappointed with how it's turned out. We'll discuss this in a bit more depth later in this review but first lets take a quick look at the board's features:

Features

VIA KT133A chipset

FSB @ 200/266MHz

Supports PC100/133 SDRAM, & VCM Technology

3 168-pin DIMMs for a maximum memory size up to 1.5GB

2 x UltraDMA 33/66/100 IDE Ports

Promise 20265R Onboard

Support IDE RAID 0 or 1, Can connect up to four additional IDE devices

1 AGP/6 PCI/1 CNR Configuration

Chip Integrated DirectSound AC'97

ATX Form Factor: 30.4cm x 23cm

With six PCI slots, onboard IDE RAID, and 200/266MHz FSB support, the K7T Turbo-R's specs are very impressive. Lets see how the rest of the board stacks up.