Six Dual Xeon Motherboards on the Cheap

MSI E7505 Master-LS2 (MS-9121): A Flexible All-rounder

The design of the WTX model is much more appealing. Its power connections are located next to the regulators, thus leaving plenty of room for AGP and PCI components.

The big WTX board from MSI, the Master-LS2

Revision: 1
BIOS Version: 1.2B3 (10/07/03)

This board is special. In the center of the E7505 Master-LS2 is a mini-PCI slot.

Special feature: the mini-PCI slot

This small interface lets you use cards in mini-PCI format. MSI offers four options:

  • MS-9518 with Adaptec AIC-7892B SCSI controller
  • MS-9514 with TI TSB43AB FireWire chips from Texas Instruments
  • MS-9513 with ATI Rage XL graphics chip

This WLAN module is an example of a mini-PCI card

By using a mini-PCI graphics card and suitable CPU coolers, this board can be installed in 1U server casings (height: 1 ¾", or 44.45 mm). The mini-VGA card has an 8 MB graphics memory and operates at a clock speed of 125 MHz. This is plenty for the work of an administrator under Windows Server 2003 or Linux. With the help of the dual-monitor support, a second screen can easily be set up to enter parameters or monitor events.

The P64H2 bridge controls the parallel PCI-X slots

The Master-LS2 comes complete with a P64H2 Southbridge and four 64 bit PCI slots. All slots allow a working clock speed of 100 MHz tops. The green slot can also be used for SLI Logic's MegaRAID SCSI 320-0 card. More on this later.

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