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Usually, I don't care to comment on the packaging of any mainboard, after all, it is the board that we are interested in. In the case of the MSI KT3 Ultra, the package (as shown on the top page) is worth mentioning since its metallic red finish is fancy enough to qualify as Christmas tree decoration. Similar to what we have seen with some Soyo boards, the KT3 box also features a little handle. Opening the exterior box reveals a solid drawer made of elaborately folded red cardboard and the only thing missing from a family heirloom showcase is the red velvet inside.

USB Bracket, D-Bracket and S-Bracket as included in the Deluxe Edition. What is missing is the BlueTooth module

Secular considerations of appearance aside, the interior reveals shipping contents of luscious proportions. Starting with the documentation, we have the manual with its red and silver cover, an additional ATA 133 RAID guide and the manual in pdf format on the driver CD. The driver CD further contains several utilities like DMI browser, Fuzzy Logic overclocking tool (a spin-off of Soft-FSB), PC-Alert for HW Monitoring (a make-over version of MBM5), BIOS Live update and PC-cillin antivirus. These tools are interesting enough to play around with them, especially Fuzzy LogicIII which allows overclocking without the risk of having to clear the CMOS because the system won't boot anymore. There are a few caveats to FuzzyLogic, though, that we will get into a bit later.

Compared to earlier MSI manuals, the KT3 documentation is certainly a step up even though it seems awfully difficult to add a checklist for components and to correct mistakes that have stood out through generations of MSI mainboards. The hardware and setup descriptions are excellent, some of the BIOS stuff is ok while some other descriptions defy any effort to beat sense into them. Examples are the memory latency descriptions that are more or less randomly thrown together DRAM terms bar any logic. Even simple parameters like CAS latency are documented incorrectly. The AGP timing explanations are the exact opposite from the truth in that 1 WS is faster and not slower than the default. The explanations of Spread Spectrum Modulation are plain and simply nonsense but then, nobody is perfect and the bottom line is not to believe everything that is written in the manual.

Hardware accessories of the KT3 are overkill as the only way to describe the wealth of features added to the package. The USB 2.0 bracket with 4 ports (backwards compatible with USB 1.1) and the D-bracket containing 2 USB 1.1 ports along with MSI's D-LED diagnostics provide no less than 8 USB ports including the two ports integrated in the ATX I/O panel. In addition, MSI throws in the so-called S-bracket as an SPDIF interface to the AC97 sound.

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