MSI 694D Master-S Dual CPU Motherboard
Apr 11th, 2001 | By Archive
MSI 694D Master-S Dual CPU Motherboard
Date
: 04/11/01 – 01:58:56 PM
Author
:
Category
: Motherboard
Manufacturer: MSI
Price: N/A
Introduction
Dual cpu’s got popular when Abit released their famous BP6 motherboard which supported two Celerons PPGA and even two P3′s if you modded the board. After the BP6, Tyan got pretty popular with their Tiger 100 board and later on their Tiger 133 board, both dual Slot 1 motherboards. Asus also had a good dual cpu board, the P2B-D, but because it was so expensive, it never got as popular as the competition.
When the Socket 370 or FC-PGA socket was introduced by Intel, people started looking for a good dual cpu Socket 370 board because although you could use a socket370-slot 1 convertor on the existing boards, the design would not let you use big, bad mofo heatsinks :).
A few months after the release of the FC-PGA cpu’s, MSI released the 694D or MS-6321 dual cpu board. This board had its problems (remember the different PCB’s and the lack of certain jumpers on some boards?) but still got pretty popular because it was the only solution available at that time. I own one of those boards myself and I am still using it without any problems in one of my RC5 power crunchers ;).
Not so long ago Abit brought us the sequel to the once so popular BP6, called the VP6. This board is very overclocking minded, comes with onboard RAID and offered great performance and stability. But what about MSI? What happened to them?
About two months ago, Angelique – PR Manager for MSI Europe – contacted me and asked if I wanted to have a look at their new dual cpu board. Since I am a long time dual cpu user, I immediatelly agreed and a few days later UPS delivered the board.
Interested in what this board looks like and what it can do? Let’s have a look shall we?
The specifications
Lets see what MSI has to say about the Master-S-6362 before we go on:
MSI, a leading mainboard manufacturer, today announced the release of the 694D Master-S mainboard based on VIA’s 694X DP chipset. The 694D Master-S conforms to the ATX form factor and supports dual Intel Pentium III (FC-PGA) Processors up to 1GHz. The 694D Master-S has a total of four DIMM slots and supports a maximum of 2GB of PC133/100 SDRAM. Expansion slots are available for 5xPCI, 1x CNR and 1 AGP Pro universal slot, providing great expandability and upgradeability. Furthermore, the onboard Adaptec’s Ultra160 dual channel SCSI controller makes this product the best choice for today’s high computing density.
With a design rich in features and specifications, the 694D Master-S will surely be appraised by computer users. The major features of the 694D Master-S includes:
Supports Ultra160 SCSI
The onboard Ultra160 SCSI controller provides 160 MB/s data transfer speeds and the first standardized SCSI I/O subsystem test to verify system configuration.
Supports Ultra ATA 100
The Ultra ATA100 Bus Master interface provides an excellent and faster connection for IDE devices.
Supports 4 USB port
The 694D Master-S features 4 USB ports to offer greater capacity and excellent flexibility.
Fuzzy Logic3
A smart automatic overclocking tool exclusively from MSI, Fuzzy Logic3 automatically adjusts the CPU to its best condition in real time under the OS to accomplish the overclocking function with AI. While system hanging is a common experience in overclocking, Fuzzy Logic3 will detect the problem and automatically restart the system, making the system always run at its best
Live BIOS
An useful software tool from MSI, Live BIOS examines the BIOS version automatically with the latest version available on the web, links to the site for users to download the latest version of BIOS and updates the BIOS. With an ‘automatic and user-friendly’ interface, Live BIOS allows BIOS download and update to be completed under the OS easily.
D-LED
D-LED has a combination of 4 LED light signals to represent 16 different troubleshooting functions during boot up, allowing users to find the cause of any possible failure quickly and easily.
PC Alert III
This useful software detects system temperature, the status of voltage, fans and all other key components onboard. If any problem occurs, it will alert the user to correct the problem, reducing the risk of system damage.
PC 99 and PCI 2.2 Specification Compliant and Certified
-CPU
Two Socket 370 for dual Intel(R) Pentium(R) III 233MHz~1GHz
-Chipset
VIA(R) 694DP / VT82C686B chipset
-FSB
66 / 100 / 133MHz
-Main Memory
168-pin SDRAM DIMM x4, maximum 2.0GB
-Slots
AGP Pro x1, CNR x1, PCI x5
-Audio / Video
Integrated Sound Blaster/ Direct Sound AC97 Audio
-On-Board IDEUltra DMA 33 / 66 / 100
-DimensionATX Form Factor (24.9cm x30.4cm)
The features
WAW! That’s the first word that I thought of when I opened the (huge) white box and saw the motherboard with all its features. This is one fully featured dual cpu board if you ask me :).
Apart from the fact that the Master-S has support for two Pentium III cpu’s up to 1GHz (NO dual Celeron/Celerimine) support, comes with 4 DIMM’s (8 memory banks) that support a total of 2GB PC66/100/133 RAM (with or without ECC), 5 PCI slots and a CNR slot, MSI also equiped this board with an AGP Pro slot that ensures support of high powerful video cards that need an AGP Pro slot and more important this beauty comes with an onboard Adaptec AIC 7899 Ultra160 SCSI controller!!
This means you can have transfer speeds all the way up to 160MB/s (!!) … Of course you will need ultra-expensive hard drives that are able to run at those high speeds. Unfortunately I don’t own drives like that, but still I found this feature very handy to connect my Plextor cd-rom and cd-writer to it. Normally I hook them up using a PCI SCSI controller so with the onboard controller I gain a free PCI slot.
Next to the onboard SCSI, the 694D Master-S also comes with 4 USB ports to make sure you have enough expansion options. If you want you can also use the onboard audio card but if you want quality sound I suggest you use an add-on card.
If you are buying this board as a server board, don’t spend your hard earned $$$ on a $150 soundcard, because then the onboard stuff will perform just fine!
Like all MSI motherboards, the Master-S comes with the D-LED feature, a very nice technology that reports what the problem is (in case you encounter a problem). The system uses 4 LED’s that can either go red or go green. Each combination stands for a certain failure … so you want 4 green LED’s in order to be a happy camper :).
Although my MSI Master-S does NOT come with onboard RAID, MSI still supports UDMA100 hard drives through the two IDE channels. If you want onboard IDE RAID, then you might be lucky. The box shows some options like onboard IDE RAID, onboard FireWire and onboard LAN. My sample did NOT come with these features but I suppose MSI will release boards that do come with those options, just like they did with the 694D – 6321.
I see you wondering why I did not say anything about the BIOS yet. Don’t worry, I kept it for last so lets see what I have to say about the BIOS that comes with the MSI 694D Master-S.
The BIOS is very similar to the one that comes with the older MSI 694D-6321, which is not a bad thing because the BIOS offers a lot of tweaking options and more important, it offers the ability to adjust the FSB and the core voltage of the cpu’s (seperately). Unlike the Abit VP6, you can set the core voltage seperately for each cpu which I think is a good thing because one cpu will overclock to a certain speed at default voltage whereas the second cpu will need a 0.1v boost for example. Because you can set is seperately there is no extra heat generated which is always good! I also like the fact that the core voltage can be upped by a max of 0.4v, which is 0.1v more then any other dual board out there (apart from the 694D).
On the other side, the VP6 has a neat feature that is not available on the MSI … You probably know what I am talking about heh? I am talking about the Soft Menu III that Abit implemented on the VP6 and that offers the possibility to increase/decrease the front side bus in 1MHz incredements. This lets you get the most out of your cpu’s so I would like to see this feature on the MSI also.
The layout
The engineers at MSI really did the best they can to give this board a good layout, which is very important to get a good airflow and a tidy look. Unlike the 694D, MSI has installed the two socket 370 sockets in a straight line and not in an ‘L’ shape like they did with the 694D. This gives more clearance between the cpu’s and the memory slots and that means you can use bigger heatsinks without running the risk to damage or block memory slots.
The memory banks, all four of them, are located on the top right side of the board with only the two IDE ports and the floppy port next to them. The ATX power connector is also placed at the top right because it is very annoying, ugly, disturbing, bad for airflow, -INSERT FLAMING-, …to have that thick ATX cable running over the board!
In between the memory banks and the sockets are 8 medium size capacitators and 4 big size capacitators that ensure perfect stability at any given moment. The VIA northbridge is also located in there and does not come with a fan on the heatsink … I think you should add a fan to it just to be on the safe side, although I never expierenced any stability problems with the motherboard.
In short: this board has a perfect layout to fullfil all our wishes!
The test
Installing …
It’s not an easy task to test a dual cpu board because if you run normal benchmarks on these boards, there will not be a noticable speed improvement compared to a single cpu setup. Instead of running the usual number of benchmarks on the 694D Master-S, I decided to give it a more practical test also: I was going to use this board to build my home LAN server with.
Here is a list of all components that were used in the system:
- MSI 694D Master-S dual socket 370 motherboard
- 2x Intel PIII 700E @ 966MHz
- Diamond Riva TNT
- 512MB Micron PC133 RAM
- Western Digital 45GB 7200rpm UDMA100 Hard Drive
- IBM 34GB 7200rpm UDMA100 Hard Drive
- Plextor 40x cd-rom
- Plextor 8/20x cd-writer
- 2x Accton 100mbit NIC
- Windows 2000 Pro + SP1 + VIA 4.25a
- Supermicro 750A Server Case
I know there are more powerful servers out there, but for my needs the above config is more than enough! The server is going to store all my mp3z, downloads, back-up’s, … and also provides all computers with internet and e-mail facilities. I have 4 other computers that are hooked up to the server and they all depend on the server for the above stuff. This means that the server has to be really stable and be online 99% of the time (1% error marge).
So after I installed all the hardware in the case and hooked up all the cables, I was ready for the first power up. I was happy to see that everything went well and I quickly entered the BIOS to setup all the hard drives and take care of the memory settings. I did not overclock the system yet because I first wanted to make sure Win2K was installed well … An hour and a half later all software was installed and the cpu’s were screaming to be overclocked!
Overclocking …
The two 700E cpu’s were both bought at the same time that I got my MSI 694D (not the Master-S) about a year ago. They were from the same batch and were both non-pretested. I decided to call my luck and go with the flow. After some testing they ran both rockstable at 933MHz with a core voltage of 1.95v each.
Almost a year later, I swapped out the 694D for the 694D Master-S and both cpu’s got a new home of course :). Eager to see if they would reach 933MHz on the Master-S, I immediatelly pushed the FSB up to 133MHz. First there was a post, then the rig booted and a few seconds later I was surfing the net in Windows 2000.
While surfing the net I was wondering … would these cpu’s go higher then 933MHz? A moment later I found myself in the BIOS again and I upped the FSB to 138MHz which resulted in dual 966MHz power!! Again the system posted and to my amazement it also booted Windows 2000 without any hickup. This was not possible with the 694D so I was very lucky to say the least.
After some torture tests and stability tests, it came to my mind that the core voltage can go all the way up to 2.05v and I was sitting at 1.95v so maybe a dual 1GHz system was closer than I thought. I upped the front side bus again and the core voltage was set to 2.05v. Please note that I used two Alpha PAL6035 coolers on these cpu’s! Do not attempt this with retail coolers because then you will toast your cpu’s big time!
The system booted @ 1001MHz, but while loading Windows I got a blue screen :’(. Whatever I tried … nothing would get me to 1GHz. Maybe a peltier would have but I didn’t feel like throwing TEC’s in my server so I settled for 966MHz.
I think I can say that the MSI 694D Master-S is a very good overclocker since I was able to get 33MHz extra per cpu compared to its older brother! Enough blabbering … lets get on with the show and show you some benchmarks.
Benchmarks
Sisoft Sandra CPU Benchmark
Sisoft Sandra Multimedia Benchmark
Sisoft Sandra Memory Benchmark
ZDnet FPU Mark
ZDnet CPU Mark
The benchmarks are revealing that a dual cpu motherboard sure whoops some ass, but it really depends on what you want to do with your system! You will not notice any speed difference if you have two office applications running, but if you run 5 applications, some 3D programs and then something else you will DEFINATELY notice a huge speed burst!! People who are doing distributed computing like RC5 or SETI will love a duallie also! I.e. in RC5 a dual cpu system gets exactly double performance of a single cpu system!! Other applications will get a boost between 20-40%. Please note that you NEED an OS that supports SMP (Symmetric Multi Processing) like Windows NT/2000, Linux, BeOS, Unix or some other poweruser operating system.
Conclusion
It seems that MSI has designed a very stable, highly overclockable and fully featured dual Pentium III motherboard. The 694D Master-S has proved to be a very tweakable board and next to that it is using a very good layout. The onboard Adaptec Ultra160 SCSI controller is a great addition, and apart from onboard IDE RAID and FSB selection in 1MHz steps, this board has it all! If you are looking for a good dual cpu board, then please check out the MSI 694D Master-S because I am pretty sure you won’t be dissapointed. If we would have an award, this board would definately win it! We are working on an award and when it is completed, chances are high that this board gets one! Thanks to MSI Europe for supplying us with this board!
Good
- Stability
- Overclockability
- Features
- Layout
Bad
- No 1MHz steps in FSB selection
- The price will probably be higher then the other boards because of the onboard SCSI controller