We liked the last Microstar board that we tested so much that we awarded it the AnandTech Editor's Choice Gold Award. What made that board so great was its feature set that was just about as good as it gets. When it was time for an Athlon board from MSI, we were definitely excited.

However, the first MSI Athlon board was nothing more than the AMD Fester reference design. While that's not necessarily a bad thing, it didn't make the MSI stand out too much. Their second attempt at an Athlon board? The K7Pro. The BXMaster was the last in MSI's i440BX line. Similarly, the K7Pro should be the last MSI Athlon board based on the AMD Irongate chipset and goes head to head with the ASUS K7M feature for feature. But is it worth it in the face of the coming onslaught of KX133 boards?

The Good

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The K7Pro is a "true" AMD 750 based solution in that it makes use of AMD manufactured North and South bridges, more specifically the 751 North Bridge and the 756 South Bridge. The AMD 751 North Bridge supports AGP 2X, the 100MHz DDR FSB frequency of the Athlon, and PC100 SDRAM support. The AMD 756 South Bridge rounds off the feature set by adding support for Ultra ATA 33/66 devices on the two integrated IDE channels.

In contrast, the newer KX133 chipset on the EPoX 7KXA and ASUS K7V-RM offers PC133 memory and AGP 4X support as the main two advantages over the AMD 750 chipset. For more information about the KX133 chipset and its advantages over the AMD 750, take a look at our review of the VIA Apollo KX133 chipset Part 1 and Part 2.

The most obvious change by MSI to the Fester reference design is a 6/1/1/0 (PCI/ISA/AGP/AMR) that fills the standard ATX board. Thanks to MSI's custom PCI arbiter chip, all 6 of those PCI slots support bus master devices. PCI slots 1 and 6 still share an IRQ, as do slots 3 and 5. Slot 4 shares an IRQ with the onboard USB controller.

Optional integrated Creative Labs ES1373/ES1375 sound is the next big change to the Fester reference design. These chipsets will provide you with solid hardware based PCI audio that is more than sufficient for all but the hardcore gamer who wants 3D positional audio.

The 3 DIMM slot memory setup is carried over from the Fester reference design and is the same that we seen on all AMD 750 motherboards. The only complaint we have here is the positioning of the ATX Power Supply connector between the Slot-A connector and the DIMM slots. By placing the ATX Power Supply connector here, larger heatsink/fan combos will have problems being used in this space. You have about 2.25" (~5.7 cm) of space to work with here, which is fine for most cooling devices but some of the more extreme units may have troubles fitting in these cramped quarters.

The voltage regulator setup is also modified from the Fester design that we've found to be extremely stable. Fortunately, MSI didn't break anything as the K7 Pro was also extremely stable. Seven 1500uF and three 2200 uF capacitors contribute to the high level of stability. A feature that we first saw on the BXMaster was MSI's D-LED, which can help diagnose a dead system, is also found on the K7Pro.

From there, the most useful changes can be found in the BIOS, which is based on the AMI Simple Setup 1.21a. The "simple" setup is nothing more than a clone of the Award BIOS that is so popular in the industry. All the tweaking options that we've come to expect from Award are included in this BIOS as well. The option to enable SuperBypass is available as long as the chipset on your particular board is the proper revision. MSI's implementation is a bit strange - you'll have to disable automatic memory timings from SPD and tweak them yourself in order to allow SuperBypass to be enabled.

But that's not the useful part of the change. MSI has implemented a very flexible set of FSB speeds. The odd 90 and 95 MHz DDR speeds are still there but are not particularly useful, but the settings from 100 - 125 MHz DDR in 1 MHz increments can really help when trying to get the most out of an overclocked Athlon. Three more speeds, 133 / 140 / 150, are also available. However, we have yet to see an Athlon motherboard run stable at any speed over 110MHz DDR FSB frequency. Combine the FSB speed flexibility with a golden fingers device and the K7 Pro quickly becomes the most powerful Athlon overclocking motherboard yet. If you're not using a golden fingers device for overclocking, the K7Pro also features core voltage adjustments in the BIOS as well. Settings include 1.40V - 1.75V in 0.5V increments.

Hardware monitoring is provided by the same Winbond 83782D that we've seen on almost every Athlon motherboard out there. All critical system voltages and three fan speeds are all monitored. Since the Athlon does not feature an on-die thermal diode, a thermistor is mounted under the CPU to monitors its temperature.

The typical MSI manual ships with the K7Pro, which means that it lacks details on installing a motherboard, but is otherwise pretty good for the experienced user, and includes information on all connector pin outs as well as the various BIOS settings.

The Bad

The biggest issue we had with the K7Pro is that it is based on a chipset that is being phased out instead of a more up to date solution, VIA's KX133. While the AGP 4X support of the KX133 doesn't offer a huge performance improvement over the AGP 2X limitation of the AMD 750 chipset, the PC133 memory support of the KX133 can definitely come in handy, especially in professional level applications that are very memory bandwidth dependent.

We initially had trouble with the SuperBypass feature of the AMD 750 chipset. Our K7Pro had the proper revision of the chipset, but we had trouble enabling it in the BIOS or through software utilities. Fortunately, we found that if you do not use memory timings from SPD, and rather manually tweak the memory settings, SuperBypass can be enabled. Unfortunately, this is a bit more complicated than it should be, but it does work.

We mentioned it above, but it's worth noting again - the location of the ATX power connector prevents the use of some large heatsinks. Also on the side of layout is the poor location of the primary IDE connector, which potentially blocks 3 PCI slots from accepting full length cards.

One other minor note about the K7Pro - MSI was initially shipping two versions of the board with different clock generator chips. All currently shipping models should have the new one that allow the previously mentioned set of FSB speeds. The different clock chips can be identified by looking at the ICS chip near the AGP slot. If it is the "-110" model, you have the same one we received, while the "-64" model features fewer FSB options.

USB Compatibility

• Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 0

• 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: 1 x 128MB Corsair PC133 SDRAM; 1 x 128MB Mushkin PC133 SDRAM

SDRAM Tested: 1 x 128MB Corsair PC133 SDRAM; 1 x 128MB Mushkin PC133 SDRAM

Manufacturer: Corsair
Purchase Website: http://www.corsairmicro.com

Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Website: 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.

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

If for some reason you're still looking for a motherboard based on the AMD 750 chipset, the K7Pro is an excellent choice. It's less expensive than most other AMD 750 boards, while stability, quality, and features are up there with the best of them. However, the KX133 chipset is now widely available and generally provides better performance without introducing any drawbacks. For now, we'll have to recommend that users looking for the best Athlon solution consider a KX133 board, but there's no doubt that K7Pro is a solid motherboard.

How it Rates