MSI 845PE Max2-FIR (845PE)

MSI 845PE Max2-FIR Ver. 1: Basic Features

MSI's 845PE Max2-FIR motherboard comes with a very interesting and unique combination of features that no other motherboard manufacturer has been able to provide before.

The most unique feature present on the MSI 845PE Max2-FIR is the LAN chip. MSI chooses Intel's RC82540EM Gigabit LAN chip, supporting up to 1000Mbit/s bandwidth. It's interesting to note that this is the first motherboard that we've seen that uses this particular Intel Gigabit LAN chip. Unfortunately most users won't be able to take advantage of this technology for a while, but at least MSI is thinking ahead.

MSI chooses C-Media's popular CMI8738 audio chip for onboard sound. It's more common to see Realtek sound chips than C-Media chips on motherboards these days.

The I/O configuration of the MSI 845PE Max2-FIR isn't anything special, as it comes with some plain features like two PS/2 ports, one serial port, one parallel port, four rear USB 2.0 ports, a LAN port, and Mic In, Line In, and Line Out, which are driven by the onboard sound. It's good to know that motherboard makers are finally starting to come around and include multiple rear USB 2.0 and LAN ports as standard. Soon enough rear FireWire will be standard and it won't be long before we start seeing RAID and Serial ATA integrated into Intel, SiS, and VIA's South Bridges.

MSI goes ahead and adds a very common RAID chip, the Promise PDC20276 controller. This controller is accessed by two yellow onboard IDE connectors that support two channels each (a max of four IDE devices total) as well as RAID 0 (striping) and RAID 1 (mirroring). MSI doesn't add any Serial ATA here, and this is pretty understandable as onboard Serial ATA chips have to use the limited bandwidth of the PCI bus. Ideally, motherboard manufacturers would just wait for chipset manufactures to release chipsets with native support for Serial ATA, which would allow Serial ATA devices to eat up bandwidth available directly through the chipset's own I/O links, which offer much more bandwidth (anywhere from 200 to 1000MB/s more bandwidth with today's chipsets, even more in the future). Taking into account the Primary and Secondary IDE connectors, the MSI 845PE Max2-FIR is capable of supporting up to eight IDE devices total. This is a good feature to have if you want to connect more than "just" a DVD drive, CD-RW drive, or two hard drives (in RAID perhaps). This setup by itself is pretty high-end, as most people who wouldn't want to configure any of their drives in a master/slave setup will be happy with MSI's IDE and RAID support.

Just like all 845PE motherboards, the MSI 845PE Max2-FIR provides support for USB 2.0. This is made possible through Intel's ICH4 South Bridge, which offers support for as much as six USB 2.0 ports. Very few 845PE motherboards we've tested utilize an additional onboard USB 2.0 chip for more on-board ports, so there's nothing new here.

Another technology we like to see included is FireWire support. There are no rear FireWire ports, but MSI does add in three, well-positioned FireWire headers located at the bottom of the motherboard and powered by VIA's VT6306 FireWire controller.

MSI includes a two-port FireWire bracket for your use.