Specifications
Specifications
| Motherboard | MSI 945GT Speedster-A4R |
| CPU Support | Intel Core Duo, Core Solo, Celeron M |
| Northbridge | Intel i945GT |
| Memory Support | 2 slots, DDR2 only. Supports DDR2 533MHz and 667MHz. 2GB max, dual-channel - 1.8V |
| AGP | None |
| PEG | x16 from i945GT |
| Southbridge | Intel ICH7R |
| Audio | 8-channel high-definition feed from ICH7R to Realtek ALC880 CODEC |
| Audio Connectivity | 5 ports on I/O, optical S/PDIF-Out |
| PCI | 2x 32-bit 33MHz PCI 2.1 slots |
| PCI Express | 1 x16 slot and 1 x4 slot |
| IDE | 1 ATA100 compliant port from ICH7R |
| IDE RAID | None |
| SATA | 4 SATA2 ports from ICH7R |
| SATA RAID | RAID0, 1, 0+1, and 5 from ICH7R (Intel Matrix Storage Technology) |
| Additional SATA RAID | None |
| Networking | Dual Gigabit PCI-Express Ethernet Controllers. Intel 82573L |
| USB | 8 USB 2.0 ports from ICH7/R. 4x I/O USB 2.0 and 4x onboard |
| FireWire | 2 ports from VIA 6307 2-port controller, one on I/O, other accessed via pin header and supplied bracket |
| I/O | PS/2, DVI, VGA, RCA (video), FireWire400, Dual RJ45, 4x USB2.0, 5-port speaker jacks, optical S/PDIF-In |
| Form Factor | micro-ATX, 244mm x 244mm |
| Expected price | £125 |
| Additional features | Extender board, Yonah support |
Yonah support is the most telling feature. MSI already has some experience in designing a desktop motherboard suited for mobile Intel CPUs. The 915GM Speedster-FA4 was architected for Intel's single-core Pentium M processors.
What's also interesting here is the extender board that MSI bundles in. More on that later.