Additional features

TOP Technology

TOP stands for Thermal Overheat Protection, which is the acronym that MSI has coined for their CPU temperature monitoring system. According to MSI, TOP technology is the most accurate measurement that can be taken of the CPU temperature. This is because the motherboard has a thermal sensor located next to the Slot-1 interface, which is intended to be attached to the CPU heatsink. This, in theory, should give an accurate measurement of of the CPU temperature (after heat balancing from the heatsink).

A Slot-1 heat probe that actually touches the heatsink

Softcooler

MSI also includes "Softcooler," a proprietary software package developed in-house at MSI which will run in the background as you busy yourself with other tasks. What Softcooler does is monitor the CPU's idle mode, so when the CPU goes idle it immediately takes effect and cuts back on voltage. Think of it as a software "suspend" mode, which shuts on and off, transparent to the user, as need dictates. An interesting tidbit is that on MSI's website, under the description for Softcooler, one of the things that they say is "Provide system a more ideal environment for overclocking." Hey, not everyone can be an English major, right?

PC Alert Monitor Software

The last of the monitoring and maintenance features is PC Alert Monitor Software. As the name implies, this software provides information for your CPU and system temperature, the voltage to your CPU and from your power supply, the fans for the CPU, system, and power supply, and also statistics about your memory and hard drive. These features are becoming quite standard in motherboard bundle-ins, and MSI is keeping par by giving users these monitoring options.

Wake-On headers

The MSI 6147 also supports a couple of Wake-on functions, which is a thumbs-up for network administration. There is a wake-on LAN function, which would let a network administrator remotely power on a system to do maintenance work, a wake on modem function which provides the same function (but in a modem). This can allow users access their systems from a remote location.