Unlike their KT400A motherboard, MSI will be spending much more time and marketing money on their KT600-based KT6 Delta-FIS2R. This is true mostly because MSI knew that the KT400A would be a short-lived chipset, and they didn't feel that it would be worth their engineering resources because of KT400A's lack of official 400MHz FSB support, in combination with the KT400A's poor overclocking performance. Looking at our results from previous KT600 reviews (Epox 8KRA2+ and Gigabyte 7VT600 1394), it seems as if KT600 motherboards are only overclocking and performing marginally better than KT400A motherboards. The biggest advantage that KT600 motherboards have over KT400A motherboards is the official 400MHz FSB support, a big selling point for Socket A motherboards.

MSI expects that their KT6 Delta-FIS2R will be able to do better than their equivalently-positioned nForce2 Ultra 400 motherboards, based on the nForce2 SPP and IGP chipsets. Despite MSI's hopes for their new KT600-based motherboard, they are still more bullish about their NVIDIA-based motherboards. In fact, MSI is currently debating how to market NVIDIA and VIA's Athlon 64 chipsets against each other, given the relatively similar chipset features, save NVIDIA's superior DSP. One interesting tidbit we stumbled upon recently was how NVIDIA and VIA's Athlon 64 chipsets were performing. Unfortunately, we cannot reveal those exact performance differences at this time, but we can tell you that it won't be all that different than today's current Socket A market.

Read on to learn more about MSI's latest Athlon XP motherboard.

MSI KT6 Delta-FIS2R: Basic Features
Comments Locked

15 Comments

View All Comments

  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 19, 2003 - link

    question:
    i have a kt600 delta-lsr.
    AIDA shows:
    --vlink is 640mhz when i use 200FSB.--
    does it mean my pci clock is 40mhz?
    thanks
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link

    The Broadcom Ethernet Controller on this motherboard IS 10/100/1000 (the BC 5788) so provides Gigabit unlike your review.

    The board layout is exceptionally good.

    The number of IDE connectors is the highest I have ever seen.

    The number of rear USB 2.0 ports (6) is also the highest and is not the "standard IO" you talk about.

    Who wants to do overclocking above 200MHz? With the Athlon XP near its limit at 200/400, you are asking for stability problems with the processor going much higher!

    Apart from that - good review!

  • Anonymous User - Thursday, September 11, 2003 - link

    What mother would you buy? KT6 Delta (6490) or NF2 Delta (6570). Just 8 dollars of difference? Thanks!
  • Anonymous User - Thursday, August 28, 2003 - link

    Here in Spain, the MSI KT6Delta is aviable at 85$, including taxes. I think it's a fine competitor to the 110$ nforce2(no ultra 400).
    Regards
  • LoneWolf15 - Thursday, August 14, 2003 - link

    P.S. MSI also has a budget NF2 Ultra 400 mainboard, without Firewire, Serial ATA, or RAID, but with onboard sound and LAN, the K7N2 Delta-L, which has a street price of about $90 and still gives dual channel 128bit memory performance. Why would anyone buy a KT600 mainboard when this is available?
  • LoneWolf15 - Thursday, August 14, 2003 - link

    Quoted:
    "For these types of users, choose nForce2 Ultra 400 motherboards from ABIT, Gigabyte, ASUS, and Epox, among others." (endquote)

    Ironic that Anandtech doesn't note that MSI also has their own NForce 2 Ultra 400 option, the K7N2 Delta ILSR, even though they mention the board as having been reviewed at Viper's Lair in this week's news. I have one and have found it to be a great board, still wondering why it rarely gets reviewed compared to ASUS, Abit, DFI, and Chaintech NF2 Ultra 400 boards.
  • Evan Lieb - Friday, August 8, 2003 - link

    I assume you're joking # 7. :)

    #8, you forgot to include the two SATA connectors controlled by the VT8237 South Bridge.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, August 8, 2003 - link

    To Evan Lieb :
    1) Good one with the performance for the K8 platform , really liked it . Not just another we know but we can't tell you ....
    2) There's something bothering me in the article
    You say the board offers support for 10 drives but it simply can't do that unless you can put 2 device on one SATA which as far asa I know can't be done . Here's my math
    2 onboarg + 1 Promise = 3 PATA * 2 = 6
    2 SATA *1 = 2
    2+6=8 not 10 .
  • Anonymous User - Friday, August 8, 2003 - link

    Considering the freshness of this product, the price I'm getting from Pricegrabber:
    http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php?mas...

    is staggering ... so cheap ...
  • Anonymous User - Friday, August 8, 2003 - link

    I didn't really read the review, I just looked at the pictures :)

    Looks like the NF2 boards are still the top dog

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now