Microstar - MSI K7T PRO (MS-6330)
The Motherboard we used to perform our Duron benchmark was from Microstar of Taiwan. The MSI K7T PRO (MS-6330) is based on the VIA KT133 chipset, which consists of the VT8363 North Bridge Controller and VT82C686A South Bridge Controller. The VT8363 controller support up to four banks of PC 133 SDRAM and Virtual Channel RAM (VCR), fully populated to 2GB, and full AGP v2.0 capability for maximum bus utilisation including 1x, 2x and 4x mode transfers, SBA (SideBand Addressing), Flush/Fence commands, and pipelined burst. In addition the chip supports enhanced PCI bus commands such as Memory-Read-Line, Memory-Read-Multiple and Memory-Write-Invalid commands to minimise snoop overhead. The VT82C686A integrates all system control functions such as ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface); the chipset also supports the Ultra DMA-33/66 IDE transfers. Implementation of DMA/100 would have been ideal. We are certain ATA/100 implementation by Motherboard manufacturers such as Abit will occur when their version of the VIA KT133 is released. Sadly, Microstar are lacking in this department and have shipped the Motherboard with the standard DMA/66 support only. The MSI K7T Pro design is clearly a standard VIA KT133 based motherboard, and is manufactured to ensure stability and was one of the first motherboards to support the AMD Duron and Athlon Thunderbird Socket-A solution. In terms of performance, it's middle of the road, and will not appeal to performance or overclocking fans.

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