MSI 694D Pro Dual Socket-370 Apollo Pro133A ATX

AnandTech Motherboard Rating

Performance

Although the board has been in the market for six months, the 694D Pro still delivers decent performance, and we will be using it as a reference point for other dual socket motherboards. 

Price

At a price of less than $120, the 694D Pro is very attractive.  The price of the board is even at the same level as common i815E motherboards, even though they’re only single processor boards.

Stability

MSI has been famous for their product stability, and once again it is demonstrated on the 694D Pro.  The board crashed only once in 36 hours, which is very stabile.

Quality

The quality of the 694D is around average - not as high as some of the MSI boards we have reviewed. 

Features

The board has a lot of features for you to safely overclock your system without compromising stability, and also provides Firewire and a second IDEcontroller.. 

Unfortunately, the 686A South Bridge does not have Ultra ATA 100 support, and the on-board Promise controller does not feature any RAID configuration. 

Layout

The layout of the board is a bit above average.  The placement of the DIMM slots and power supply connectors are very well done, but some capacitors are too close to the CPU sockets, and the IDE connectors block the use of longer AGP / PCI devices.

Availability

MSI products are widely available online and in local computer stores.  However, finding dual processor motherboards will require a bit more effort, but not much.

Documentation & Software Bundle

The manual is a bit above average.  It has some detailon setting up motherboard, but it does not have as much as some other manuals.  The CD contains all the software and driver utilities you need, but no additional software.