Microstar was one of the first motherboard manufacturers to represent the potential of the highly criticized Socket-370 motherboard standard in AnandTech's labs with their BX based MS-6153 board. The board, albeit submitted for evaluation in an engineering sample status, stood strong and plainly put, put to shame the competition to come. Although the popularity of the company isn't as great as Intel, ASUS or AOpen, the leaders of the industry, the quality of their products obviously doesn't suffer. Everyone has to start somewhere, right? Microstar's goal is to make it to the top just like every other motherboard manufacturer, however unlike some, Microstar is definitely putting a greater effort into making that dream a reality.

When asked to preview their upcoming Slot-1 motherboard based on the newly announced Intel 810 chipset how could AnandTech refuse to take a look at Microstar's MS-6182? Now that we've placed the MS-6182 on a pedestal, let's see if Microstar can rise to our expectations as AnandTech takes a look at the upcoming MS-612.

New Anand Tech Report Card Rating
82/C+

The Good

As with all 810 boards, the 6182 only features two 168-pin 100MHz SDRAM DIMM slots. The amount of memory rows a motherboard is capable of addressing is defined by the chipset, in this case, the 810 chipset. The 4 rows (two double sided banks) supported by the chipset is reflected by the two DIMM slots on the 6182; the chipset also defines the memory bus frequency to be locked at 100MHz, regardless of the FSB frequency, so the only requirement is that you have PC100 compliant memory, there is no need to seek out the most reliable SDRAM at 133MHz+ since it'll only be running at 100MHz on this board (as well as any 810 board, once again, independently of the FSB speed).

The 6182 is fully PC'99 compliant, easily recognizable by the colored I/O ports towards the back of the motherboard. The positioning of the ATX power supply connector is both out of the way and ideal for cooling as it doesn't obstruct the flow of air to/from the CPU's heatsink while making sure that you don't have to stretch your ATX power cable across the entire board to get to the port. The board is a jumperless board, and features an on-board USB2 connector port for a front panel USB port. The USB2 connector on the board can be disabled by a single jumper, while all other configuration options can be made through the BIOS setup. Probably at the request of Intel, the 6182 performs a B21 state detect that basically instructs the motherboard to only allow FSB settings less than or greater than/equal to 100MHz depending on whether or not you have a 66MHz or a 100MHz FSB CPU respectively. It wouldn't make any sense for Microstar to allow for the number of FSB settings they did with the 6182 and not allow the user to bypass the B21 state detect, so Microstar outfitted the board with a few extra jumper settings that essentially force 66/100MHz FSB detection, as well as a few other speed settings (i.e. 133MHz). The settings available through the BIOS include all of the "ABIT BX6R2" settings, ranging from 66 to 153MHz, as well as a very useful 95MHz FSB setting for those Celeron 300A users that just can't seem to hit 450MHz.

Like the ABIT BX6 Revision 2, the 6182 features a configurable core voltage setup for Pentium II/III and Celeron processors, and also brings a new feature to the table, the ability to configure the voltage of the L2 cache on the processors. The manual voltage selection/configuration (up to 10% increase over the original core voltage) makes the 6182 a definite competitor to ABIT's once exclusive market, it'll be interesting to see what ABIT comes up with next to keep the attention focused on them, if anything. Needless to say, the MS-6182 is overclock ready, and unofficial encouraged, with the voltage tweaks set in place to hopefully improve stability for hard core tweakers.

For the true gamers and users that don't feel comfortable with a CPU dependent "soft audio" controller, Microstar made it a point to outfit the 6182 with hardware audio support driven by the Creative Labs ES1373 controller.  The ES1373 is the equivalent of the SoundBlaster PCI 64 card, and produces excellent sound given that it is designed as an integrated "low-cost" audio solution.  If audio is something you'll be playing on a regular basis (i.e. if you listen to MP3s while you work or if you're playing a game) you'll want to have a motherboard with hardware audio rather than use the AC'97 codec provided by the 810 chipset since the audio won't rely on your CPU to drive it. 

The software bundled with the 6182, as with most newer MSI boards, includes MSI's SoftCooler, a Software CPU Cooling Device that allows the processor to essentially "rest" while it is waiting for user input to begin processing another item, and depending on your CPU usage patterns, this software may significantly reduce the heat production and power consumption of your CPU.  For most gamers, and high-end users that are always doing something with their PC, don't expect SoftCooler to do all that much for you, although it is nice to know that it is included.  The bundled CD-ROM includes all the basic driver files, in addition to the SoftCooler utility mentioned above, and Microstar's in-house developed System Monitor software that basically outputs the same information values (voltages, etc...) under Windows 9x for careful monitoring of your system.

The stability and performance of the 6182 was top notch as we've come to expect from Microstar, however as we were prepared for after the BX revolution, the performance of most 810 boards should be within 1 - 2% of one another. 

The Bad

Unfortunately all of these added features come at a price, and estimates of the price of the 6182 place it well above the $100 mark most 810 boards should be under.  You get what you pay for, but for most users that are looking for a cheap system or an 810 upgrade, the 6182 may be little out of your league.  The User's Guide is basically a regurgitation of spec sheets and provides no information as to how to setup/install the motherboard, a definite con for first time builders/novice users. 

Other than those two complaints, the 6182, like the boards before it, left AnandTech with a feeling of satisfaction absent from most motherboard tests.

USB Compatibility

• Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root (USB2) Ports: 2

• Front USB Cable Provided (USB2)? No

• Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2

• USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes

• USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes

Recommended SDRAM

Recommended SDRAM: Mushkin SEC -GH PC100 SDRAM; Memory Man SEC -GH PC100 SDRAM
SDRAM Tested: 1 x 64MB Mushkin PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 64MB Memory-Man PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 256MB Corsair PC100 SDRAM DIMM (for compatibility testing only)

Manufacturer: The Memory Man
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.memory-man.com

Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.mushkin.com

The Test

In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you shouldn't base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.

AnandTech Motherboard Testing Methodology

The Final Decision

As the second 810 based motherboard AnandTech has reviewed, we can already expect that the MS-6182 will make any owner a happy one. It follows MSI's traditional set of values and goals as a motherboard, and it represents what a well rounded 810 board should be made like. The only downside to all of these qualities is the estimated price tag of the 6182, if you can find it for under $125 - $130, you'll be getting a good deal, otherwise it'll probably be one of the more expensive 810 boards on the market. At the same time, it'll probably stay on the top of the list of 810 boards to get for quite some time, it's only real competition coming from companies like AOpen and of course, ABIT, the king of innovative features.

Does the 6182 get the recommendation? In one word, absolutely. This puts the MS-6182 up for an AnandTech Editor's Choice award, we'll see if it wins next month in AnandTech's motherboard roundup.

How it Rates

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.