MSI 648 Max-F: SiS 648 Goes Mainstream

Board Layout

In general we were quite pleased with MSI's layout choices for the 648 Max-F.

We were happy to see that MSI placed the ATX 20-pin connector on the ideal side of the motherboard this time. We see that the ATX connector is located to the right of the 3 DIMM slots, almost at the very top right-hand portion of the motherboard. This greatly aids users that are constantly adding and/or removing items inside an ATX case, as the main ATX connector wires won't obstruct the process of removing said devices. We were also pleased to see the ATX12V connector located towards the top of the board, although it was at the not-so ideal left portion of the motherboard, next to the CPU socket.

We have always liked passive heatsinks over any component of a motherboard, and the North Bridge is no exception. We see a light green passive heatsink over the SiS 648 North Bridge, which is located just below the CPU Socket as most North Bridges are. While not as effective as active cooling, there are a couple important benefits to having a passive heatsink; 1) it has 0% chance of failing whereas a fan might fail. And 2) passive heatsinks are completely silent whereas active cooling solutions can get quite loud.

Passive cooling on the voltage regulators.

Out of all the layout choices MSI made with the 648 Max-F, we were disappointed that they didn't position the DIMM connectors a little further away from the AGP slot. We were barely able to unhinge our RAM from all 3 DIMM slots due to the fact that the bottom DIMM connectors touched the AGP card (we used a GeForce4 Ti4600). With a GeForce3 Ti200, we were able to extract RAM from one of the 3 DIMM slots without the AGP card getting in the way, but with larger cards like the GeForce4 Ti4600, we were unable to unhinge any RAM from any of the memory banks without the DIMM connectors hitting the AGP card, bending it at an angle.

Thankfully, MSI laid out the 648 Max-F so that we were able to fit all types of PCI cards in the 6 slots that were available; everything from USB cards to sound cards to network cards fit without issue, meaning nothing obstructed the installation/operation of a PCI card on the 648 Max-F.