MSI produces three versions of the MSI 845 Ultra, with the ARU being the most advanced. It's loaded with extra features such as onboard RAID, USB 2.0 support and additional security.

Built on a red PCB, the 845 ARU is a compact, very well built ATX board, with good expandability featuring one AGP 4X slot, five PCI slots and a single AMR slot. The onboard audio is provided by the CMI8738 chip, a good option that brings the audio quality to a decent level and supports 5.1 speaker systems.

Although the Intel 845D Northbridge only supports a maximum of 2GB of DDR memory, there are three memory slots to provide some degree of flexibility in achieving this. The chip itself is kept cool by a heatsink and fan.

Two features that make the 845 ARU stand out are its onboard RAID and USB 2.0 support. A Promise PDC20276 integrated chip controls the UDMA 133 RAID setup, which allows for some very quick transfers of hard drive data, while a header controls the four USB 2.0 ports provided on a bracket. These are in addition to the two board-mounted and two bracketed USB 1.1 ports.

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Also provided are two manuals; one for the board, the other for the RAID setup. There's also a motherboard driver CD and a floppy with the Promise RAID drivers and some other useful tools. Two UDMA100 cables and one floppy cable round out the extras.

The MSI Ultra 845 ARU is a well specified board built to a compact design.