
Good product with a few minor flaws

This motherboard is great for replacing faulty mATX socket 478 motherboards, for example the Emachines Imperial G\GVs that are known for failures. MSI have pretty much added everything the Intel 865G\ICH5 chipset is capable of, including 4GB of dual channel DDR400 support, 800FSB, AGP8x, Hyperthreading, 2 SATA150 ports and 8 USB 2.0 ports.
It is well laid out apart from one item, which I discuss below. The SATA ports are in "IDE" mode to make installing Windows easier on an SATA drive, although this prevents use of NCQ.
There are a few negatives however. Frame buffer for the 865G's onboard graphics can only be set to a maximum of 16MB. Secondly, the 4-pin 12V connector is in an awkward spot, at the corner of the CPU cradle opposite the PSU position in a standard ATX case. Finally, despite MSI including the ability to overclock the FSB and control AGP\PCI bus frequencies, there is no Vcore or VDIMM adjustment at all. Why include half the possible options? Still, not much overclocking can be expected from a value-oriented chipset like this one.
Final thoughts: stable, fast platform for AGP socket 478. Recommended.
Review ID: 10000000007622950

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