The L in K7D Master-L stands for LAN, though the argument could be made that it stands for loaded. This board comes with several features not offered by any of the other boards in this round-up, as we'll see soon.

The K7D Master-L has all the standard bits: four DIMM sockets, ATX and P4 power connectors (the latter located next to the AGP slot, if you were having trouble finding it) and two 64-bit/66MHz PCI slots. There are only three 32-bit PCI slots (the Tyan and Iwill have four) but the K7D Master-L does have an AGP pro slot to keep those graphics workstation types happy. Other niceties include on-board audio and like the Gigabyte, a 10/100 Ethernet port courtesy of an Intel NIC chip.

The board's on-board audio comes courtesy of the AC97-compliant audio controller in AMD's south bridge chip. A VIA VT1611A chip handles DAC/ADC duties.

The K7D Master-L has some nice, tall heatsinks on the voltage regulator components near the CPUs and an active heatsink on the north bridge. I've made my feelings on north bridge fans clear, but like the Gigabyte, MSI's implementation is good. The heatsink itself is pretty tall, and the fan looks better than most. Going on looks alone, I would suspect the Gigabyte heatsink might cool slightly better, but either of them is well beyond the active north bridge heatsinks on most other boards, and should certainly be up to the task at hand.

One unique feature that isn't immediately obvious from the board picture is MSI's D-LED. This is a diagnostic tool consisting of four dual-color LEDs mounted near the audio port cluster. The four LEDs form different color sequences as the system goes through sixteen different initialization steps prior to booting the operating system. If the system hangs before booting the OS, you can look up the LED sequence in the manual and determine what's causing the problem. The K7D Master-L is the only motherboard in the round-up to include a feature like this one. You probably won't care about it at all if your system is booting properly, but you'll certainly be glad you have it if you run into hardware problems.

Unique attributes of the K7D Master-L aren't limited to the board, however. In fact, some of the more interesting features aren't on the board at all. First off, there's the D-Bracket, shown below. It's an additional backplate that contains two additional USB ports and another cluster of D-LED lights. Having the lights on the backplate means one can troubleshoot problems without even opening up the system's case.

Even more impressive is MSI's inclusion of a USB 2.0 card. Separate USB cards used to be standard operating procedure in the days of the B1 south bridge, but even with the working chipset USB, MSI's card offers four external ports (and a single internal port) of USB 2.0 connectivity.

Now that I've covered all the possible features of the K7D Master-L, I'll expand on the "see below" notation above for the street price. It appears MSI sells two models of this board: the K7D Master-L and the K7D Master, which lacks on-board Ethernet. However, from here things get confusing. Both the D-Bracket and the USB 2.0 card are optional on the K7D Master-L. I'm honestly not sure if one can buy a board that contains only the D-Bracket or only the USB 2.0 card, or if those components always come together.

Depending on the answer to that question, there are either two or four possible configurations of the K7D Master-L, with no obvious way to distinguish between them. This makes comparative pricing and shopping for a board difficult. Is Vendor B's board cheaper than Vendor A's because he has a better price, or because Vendor B's board lacks USB 2.0 and/or the D-Bracket?

For example, I found several listings for the K7D Master-L with a USB 2.0 card in the $209-215 range, but no mention was made of the D-Bracket, so it may or may not be included at that price. If you decide to shop for a K7D Master-L, I recommend contacting your favorite reseller by phone to ensure you're getting everything you want.

In addition to the motherboard and the previously mentioned USB card and D-Bracket, the K7D Master-L comes with a drivers CD, a floppy cable, an ATA-100 cable and a user manual. The manual is approximately 115 pages long, and it covers hardware and drivers installation, BIOS settings, and installation of the D-Bracket and USB card.

The K7D Master-L's BIOS is closer to the Gigabyte than the Tyan, though it falls short of the former in some areas. While it offers the same memory timing settings as the GA-7DPXDW-P, the MSI BIOS has no console redirection. Emergency PC health thresholds are limited to a single CPU shutdown temperature setting that applies to both CPUs. The shutdown temperature is configurable from 50C/122F to 70C/158F in 3C increments. I'll cover overclocking options in detail later, but of the boards reviewed here, I'd give the MSI top honors for overclocking.

The CD included with the K7D Master-L has a large assortment of software. It appears that the CD has drivers for multiple motherboards, but the menu autodetects which motherboard it's running on and displays the appropriate drivers for that board. A variety of utilities are included, from Acrobat Reader to Trend anti-virus software to VNC. There is also a program called X-Setup, which is described as "the ultimate in system configuration or 'tweaking' as some people would say."

MSI-specific utilities include a Live Update program that can check MSI's web site for BIOS updates, then retrieve and install them from within Windows. You can do the same for motherboard and video drivers and even the video BIOS (though I suspect the last two options are reserved for MSI video cards). Another MSI utility is PC Alert III, though I would recommend you avoid the version on the CD; for me, that version caused the motherboard to reboot as soon as it was run, which was especially annoying since the program installs itself to run automatically at startup.

I had more luck with the latest PC Alert III software on the MSI web site. It displays CPU and chassis temperatures, as well as core voltages for both processors and 5V, 3.3V, 12V and -12V rails. Oddly, only one fan speed was shown when I ran the program, though I had two processor fans plugged into the motherboard. You can also set alerts for fan speed and CPU temperature, though it appears that the software can only trigger a warning, not a system shutdown. There is also a client/server version of the package that allows remote monitoring.

Another interesting MSI utility is FuzzyLogic, an overclocking utility with some system monitoring functionality built in as well. The CD came with Fuzzy Logic III, but when it erroneously reported the board's memory speed, I found Fuzzy Logic 4 on the MSI web site. Basically the utility allows you to specify a front-side bus speed yourself, or click a button and have the program test for the highest stable bus speed itself. Either way, the program will then run in the startup tray and change the bus speed when it runs during the boot process.

In building the K7D Master-L, MSI started with the 760MPX chipset and just kept piling on the goodies, both hardware and software. If you look at everything you get with the top package (on-board audio, Ethernet, D-Bracket, USB 2.0 card) it's an outstanding array of extras. Based on the included hardware and software, MSI seems to be shooting for the enthusiast and graphics workstation market over the server market. I think it's safe to say they've hit the target.