Motherboard Products:
Intel mATX
The Intel mATX motherboard suppliers have been slow to ramp up production of boards supporting the Core 2 Duo processors. We just recently received several motherboards in this category based upon the new Intel G965/Q965 chipsets that are now in testing. We are also expecting a few Intel 946GZ based boards early next year that will offer full support for the upcoming Intel E4xx series of Core 2 Duo processors with an 800MHz front side bus. We also hope to see SIS chipsets in this sector by early next year that will provide some additional competition to the VIA chipsets in the budget market.
The Biostar P4M890-M7 PCI-E motherboard is based on the VIA P4M890 and VT8237R+ chipsets featuring the UniChrome Pro onboard graphics capability. The board offers support for 4GB of DDR2-400/533 memory, two Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s ports, a single ATA133 IDE connector, Realtek ALC658 audio, and Fast Ethernet 10/100 support via the Realtek RTL 8201CL. This uATX based motherboard offers good performance and is value priced at $49.
The Foxconn G9657MA motherboard is a full featured product that is based on the Intel G965 and ICH8 chipsets. The board features a single x16 PCI Express slot, one x1 PCI-Express slot, and two PCI slots. There are four Serial ATA 3Gb/s ports, a single ATA133 IDE connector, and one e-SATA 3Gb/s port via a J-Micron chipset. HD Audio is provided courtesy of the Realtek ALC883, and Gigabit Ethernet supplied by the Marvell 88E8056 chipset. So far, just about all of the G965 motherboards perform the same and we are awaiting a major video driver update from Intel before publishing results. The current X3000 video performance is on par with the GMA-950 engine used in the 945G chipsets, but this should change for the better with the next driver release.
AMD Mini-ITX
One of the most interesting motherboards we have seen in the labs recently is the Albatron KI51PV-754 motherboard. We found the performance of this motherboard to be very good overall. The potential market for this system spans from vehicle installations to HTPC to medical/industrial systems. If you are looking for a Mini-ITX board we suggest you seriously consider this offering from Albatron.
The board is based on the NVIDIA GeForce 6150 and nForce 430 chipsets. It supports current socket 754 processors and has a single memory slot for DDR333/400 memory. Audio is provided by the Realtek ALC655 and the board features a Marvell 88E3016 10/100 Fast Ethernet PHY and a Marvel 88E8055 Gigabit LAN chipset. There are four Serial ATA 3Gb/s ports, two ATA133 ports, and a single PCI slot. The board has both a DVI and D-SUB output ports and can support HDTV (component video) output capability via an optional cable for the onboard header.
Power Supplies
We have not looked at power supplies in awhile but have recently received several interesting and high quality units from OCZ Technology, Corsair, and Ultra Products among others. Hopefully, we will be able provide some interesting impressions of these units after we complete our motherboard roundups this month.
One unit that caught our eye was the Ultra Products X-Finity 800 Watt power supply. The unit has a very nice black anodized aluminum finish and is based on the Andyson server line. The unit is heavy, well constructed, features Ultra's After Spin Technology and is supplied with their FlexForce cable design. We found the cable design to be an immense help in ridding our test bed unit of power supply cable clutter. The cables were easily routed under the motherboard and along the drive bays. While we are not fans of the titanium color, we are fans of the cabling system. Hopefully the unit's performance and quality lives up to its appearance.
Final Remarks
In the upcoming weeks we will also have a workstation motherboard roundup featuring the AM2 NVIDIA nForce 590SLI and Intel 975X chipsets, HTPC motherboard roundup, and some interesting new product reviews. This concludes our final article in this series, and we will take a look at some interesting memory technologies and provide an update of various new product releases shortly.
Intel mATX
The Intel mATX motherboard suppliers have been slow to ramp up production of boards supporting the Core 2 Duo processors. We just recently received several motherboards in this category based upon the new Intel G965/Q965 chipsets that are now in testing. We are also expecting a few Intel 946GZ based boards early next year that will offer full support for the upcoming Intel E4xx series of Core 2 Duo processors with an 800MHz front side bus. We also hope to see SIS chipsets in this sector by early next year that will provide some additional competition to the VIA chipsets in the budget market.
The Biostar P4M890-M7 PCI-E motherboard is based on the VIA P4M890 and VT8237R+ chipsets featuring the UniChrome Pro onboard graphics capability. The board offers support for 4GB of DDR2-400/533 memory, two Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s ports, a single ATA133 IDE connector, Realtek ALC658 audio, and Fast Ethernet 10/100 support via the Realtek RTL 8201CL. This uATX based motherboard offers good performance and is value priced at $49.
The Foxconn G9657MA motherboard is a full featured product that is based on the Intel G965 and ICH8 chipsets. The board features a single x16 PCI Express slot, one x1 PCI-Express slot, and two PCI slots. There are four Serial ATA 3Gb/s ports, a single ATA133 IDE connector, and one e-SATA 3Gb/s port via a J-Micron chipset. HD Audio is provided courtesy of the Realtek ALC883, and Gigabit Ethernet supplied by the Marvell 88E8056 chipset. So far, just about all of the G965 motherboards perform the same and we are awaiting a major video driver update from Intel before publishing results. The current X3000 video performance is on par with the GMA-950 engine used in the 945G chipsets, but this should change for the better with the next driver release.
AMD Mini-ITX
One of the most interesting motherboards we have seen in the labs recently is the Albatron KI51PV-754 motherboard. We found the performance of this motherboard to be very good overall. The potential market for this system spans from vehicle installations to HTPC to medical/industrial systems. If you are looking for a Mini-ITX board we suggest you seriously consider this offering from Albatron.
The board is based on the NVIDIA GeForce 6150 and nForce 430 chipsets. It supports current socket 754 processors and has a single memory slot for DDR333/400 memory. Audio is provided by the Realtek ALC655 and the board features a Marvell 88E3016 10/100 Fast Ethernet PHY and a Marvel 88E8055 Gigabit LAN chipset. There are four Serial ATA 3Gb/s ports, two ATA133 ports, and a single PCI slot. The board has both a DVI and D-SUB output ports and can support HDTV (component video) output capability via an optional cable for the onboard header.
Power Supplies
We have not looked at power supplies in awhile but have recently received several interesting and high quality units from OCZ Technology, Corsair, and Ultra Products among others. Hopefully, we will be able provide some interesting impressions of these units after we complete our motherboard roundups this month.
One unit that caught our eye was the Ultra Products X-Finity 800 Watt power supply. The unit has a very nice black anodized aluminum finish and is based on the Andyson server line. The unit is heavy, well constructed, features Ultra's After Spin Technology and is supplied with their FlexForce cable design. We found the cable design to be an immense help in ridding our test bed unit of power supply cable clutter. The cables were easily routed under the motherboard and along the drive bays. While we are not fans of the titanium color, we are fans of the cabling system. Hopefully the unit's performance and quality lives up to its appearance.
Final Remarks
In the upcoming weeks we will also have a workstation motherboard roundup featuring the AM2 NVIDIA nForce 590SLI and Intel 975X chipsets, HTPC motherboard roundup, and some interesting new product reviews. This concludes our final article in this series, and we will take a look at some interesting memory technologies and provide an update of various new product releases shortly.
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mino - Sunday, December 3, 2006 - link
Well, Sempron 2600+ goes for as low as $35... seems peanuts to the board...VooDooAddict - Sunday, December 3, 2006 - link
You see any other mini ITX boards that are 64-bit capable and have onboard video with DVI and 3D capable of running vista?Compare to other Mini ITX boards and you'll see it's comperable.
I would have liked to see it AM2 with the prospect of using the SFF edition X2s and aking the PCI slot PCIe x16 instead.
orion23 - Sunday, December 3, 2006 - link
I'm sure this has been asked before, but so what....Why is it that Anandtech doesn't review other critical products that are needed for a complete PC building project?
Many times we are told which motherboard, processor or GPU is the best, but other important parts such as the PSU or the CPU cooler are never reviewed here, reason why so many of us have to go elsewhere to look at some mediocre reviews done by some not so reputable sites.
Come on Anandtech, review a few more, different components from time to time, besides, it wouldn't hurt you to put more than 1 article a week.....
yyrkoon - Sunday, December 3, 2006 - link
Owning one of these boards, I feel compelled to share my opinion of it.When I purchased it through newegg, I was very enthusiastic, about getting it via UPS. When all my parts finally arrived (less than 24 hours later) I pieced the parts together, and TRIED to install XP pro. The series of problems I ran into along the way, were as follows:
1) Hooked up a USB DVD/CD writter, to boot from, and before I could even get into bluescreen setup part of XP, the system would hang. I chocked this up to the system not being able to run from a USB opitcal drive (after playign with the BIOS a few times, I'd like to add), and finally gave up, and put the optical drive on the secondary IDE connector.
2) System still wouldnt make it into the blue screen part of setup (hanging before), and I was starting to get worried, until I finally figured out the SATA drive was was what was causing the issue, so I disconnected it, and viola . .
3) Keep in mind, #2 was happening during WinPE, so was in no way driver related. Anyhow, after finally getting the OS installed on the IDE drive I placed in it, I reconnected the SATA drive, and it showed up . . .
3) After about a week, I finally decided that booting from an IDE HDD, was un acceptable, and emailed technical support . . . 2 days later . . .no reply. So calling technical support, I was greated with a friendly rep, who then instructed me how to IN CORRECTLY setup my system. However, this representative, gave me his dirrect email address, and we corresponded over the course of about 5 days, until I finally found a working solution (on my own, with a bit of help from him). Keep in mind, that "Jimmy" was very helpfull, and without his help, I may have not been able to fix this issue in such a short time period.
Long story short, the SATA drive needs to be connected, you MUST enable SATA RAID in the BIOS, and in the RAID BIOS configuration, if you only have one HDD attached, you MUST set it up as a JBOD volume. If you do not have the drivers on a floppy, or do not have a floppy in your system period (like me), part of the pre install process, it would BEHOOVE you to slipstream the SATA drivers, and RAID drivers from the install CD provided with the motherboard.
Once I had all this working, I set out to OC the system, and finally arrived at a top OC of around 2.76GHZ (on a AM2 3800+ single core), but keep in mind, there is no chance of raising voltages for memory, or CPU, unless, perhaps, you hard mod the board. Also, for the board to be fairly stable, I had to drop the multiplier to 10x vs. 11x, although my memory (Corsair 5-5-5-18 6400 XMS) was able to run at 4-4-4-12 timings, at 880MHZ DDR2.
Other things I've noticed about this board and Asrock:
1) technical support informed me that this board does not support NCQ, but is a SATA2 board, funny, NCQ is part of the SATA2 specification I thought . . .
2) this system has not been stable, and running for more than 9 days at a time, and typically, it likes to crash, hang, or force a reboot about once every 4-5 days.
3) Asrock does not seem to have the driver support of other well known companies, this board was released, 3 weeks later, all drivers were appearantly perfect, and havent been updated since.
Now I do realize, this is a budget board, however, comming from using 100% ABIT boards, perhaps I'm a bit spoiled ? I mean sure, having only paid $54 USD for it, perhaps I can not expect too much ? My advice . . . would be to stay away, if you can afford at least $30 more, buy a Gigabyte board or something, which is what I should have done. Sure, I'd have $30 less today, but atleast if this were an ABIT, or Gigabyte board, I'd have the odd BIOS update, or driver to look forward to.
mino - Sunday, December 3, 2006 - link
AsRock as usual. One gets what one pays for. ...Had similar experience some time ago - have SiS748 running at FSB/DDR333 speeds as 400 is completely unstable, also any TV tuner(AIW or PCI) crashes the system on regular basis.
yyrkoon - Monday, December 4, 2006 - link
Well, one fairly cool thing is that I just installed Vista RC2 (had to do some fenagling to get the ISO, but was easy to get CD-KEYS from MS), anyhow, once Vista installed, the majority of my devices were auto detected, and installed. Matter of fact, the only device that wasnt detected, was a 4-5 year old Ultra 100 Promise PCI ATA controller (which i easily fixed by going to Promises site, and installed their XP drivers for it).Graphics sub system weighs in at a 5.9 score with a 7600GT, but overall score is 4.2 because of the HDD Installed it on (ATA 100). I must say, I'm enjoying Vista, although performance wise, it needs a bit of work to catch up to XP pro. Games play slower, and my 3xRAID0 array that benched at over 100MB/s in XP pro, only does 78MB/s in Vista :(
BUT Aero looks awesome !
crydee - Sunday, December 3, 2006 - link
Are you going to do a review of that PSU with respect to SLI G80 or in specific cases?Jedi2155 - Sunday, December 3, 2006 - link
Are you guys doing a review of the Striker Extreme?I was very interested in that board. Even though I already purchased a eVGA 680i board (I was under a time constraint to get my new system up), I was wondering if I made a mistake and should've waited for the Striker to get in stock...Buy.com had it for $350-20 google checkout which meant the striker was on sale for $330. Unfortunately it wasn't in stock :(.
MemberSince97 - Sunday, December 3, 2006 - link
WhereTF are the new AMD/775 Boards....