MSI 845E Max Review

EXTREME OC COGNOSCENTI will tell you that Intel's 845D chipset, and in particular the Abit BD-7 based on it, is the choice for maximum speed. It is not unusual to see 4+ GHz scores on various Japanese websites (See here for example). The 845E faces very high expectations.

Official Intel specifications for the 845E include support for 533/400 FSB, 266mhz DDR, ATA 100 (Intel will avoid ATA-133, opting instead to support Serial ATA in the future), USB 2.0 (*6 ports), and more. Intel rose coloured spex)

It is the unofficial specs we are interested in.

To test the 845E, we obtained an MSI 845E Max motherboard (rev 1.0, bios 1.0). Our board only adds 2-channel Realtek audio to the basic Intel chipset specs, but you can obtain this board with LAN, RAID, and other options. For details see here and here.

We partnered our board with a Pentium 4 1.6a and a stick of Samsung 333MHz DDR. This particular stick of RAM, it should be noted, works perfectly stable at 400mhz CAS 2.

As you would expect, this board works perfectly at stock frequency and voltages. At 1.6GHz, it performs within a percentage point of other 845E boards. Any comparison of this board to others at stock speeds would amount to splitting hairs. Give MSI credit for making a board that is rock solid and employs no dirty overclocking tricks to get a jump on the competition.

Scores in Graphics
Sisoft 1600/266 score
WCPU UID 1600/266 score

Overclocking is where this board really starts to shine!

If you want to jump on the OC bandwagon, but bios menus and the possibility of completely destroying expensive computer components frightens you, then stick to MSI's Fuzzy Logic 4. With this Windows application MSI makes it easy and relatively safe to explore the limits of performance.

Using the BIOS to overclock is much more rewarding offering considerably more options. MSI's AMI BIOS is not quite up to the levels of Abit's, but with each generation of motherboards MSI seems to close the gap. In the BIOS, we discover that the FSB/Memory divider can be set to 1:1 or 3:4. The 3:4 divider means that we can successfully run the CPU 2.1ghz using a 133mhz Front Side Bus (FSB), and the memory will run at 354mhz DDR. Support for this memory speed is not on Intel's official specs. A good stick of 333MHz DDR like the Samsung we used should handle this speed. At 354MHz DDR we leave Rambus PC800 behind us.

Scores in Graphics II
Images Here WCPUID 2100/354 score
Sisoft 2100/354 score

Not bad, but our MSI board had lots left to show us. At a completely stable 150mhz FSB, the memory ran at 200MHz (400MHz DDR). We did not increase voltages to CPU, Ram or AGP for any of the tests, mainly because we opted to use the stock Intel CPU heat sink and fan unit. Only with more robust cooling (liquid Nitrogen or water-cooling) will we reach the limits of this board. Our clockspeed limits during this test came at 166MHz FSB with synchronous Ram (333MHz DDR). The highest speed of 2.65Ghz was plagued by frequent hard resets rendering this setting useless.

Scores in Graphics III
WCPUID 2400/400 score
Sisoft 2400/400 score

With the MSI 648E Max we can run our P4 1.6a at 2.4 GHz, and with our memory set at 400mhz we easily eclipse Rambus PC800 memory. In fact, we are in the Rambus PC1066 ballpark!

MSI has created a highly desirable part. I have absolutely no reservations about recommending the 845E Max to anyone building a system. Considering that this board was an early revision with the very first BIOS, the results are even more impressive. When combined with some high calibre memory and a P4 Northwood, one can expect to get a tremendous amount of added value.

The second discovery the 845E Max offers is that the Intel 845E chipset, and probably 845G, are capable of much higher memory performance than their specifications indicate. Once again we see that P4 performance scales very well with increased memory speed. I have yet to test a VIA P4X333 based board, but the Intel 845E is more than a match for the SiS 645/645DX. For now, the 845E reigns as the P4 DDR speed champ.

Mileage, as always, varies when overclocking. µ