It's that time of year again. Computex is almost upon us and that usually means some major product introductions are getting ready to occur. On May 21st, Intel will launch the P35 chipset, the successor to the P965 chipset introduced last June. We have been testing several P35 (Bearlake) based boards in both DDR2 and DDR3 configurations. We cannot reveal benchmarks yet, but let's just say there are a few surprises in store on launch day. Unfortunately, AMD's new AM2+ design along with the Barcelona/Agena family of processors are not quite ready for public display, but rest assured we think the wait will be well worth it.
While the new product introductions always grab the lion's share of attention, it also means that today's top performing products are well on their way to becoming tomorrow's value based solutions. This is always good for those of us with limited budgets and the lack of desire to upgrade every six months but who want excellent performance per dollar. We are now seeing the second generation of P965 motherboards selling near the $100 mark and they are still providing very good performance and features.
More good news is that the products based on these now "mature" chipsets are well tuned and most of the bugs have been sorted out. Case in point is the Infinity 965-S from DFI and the P5B Premium from ASUS which are two excellent P965 motherboards that were recently launched. While targeted to different audiences and price segments, they both offer top performance and features with a certain level of maturity not found in earlier designs. In fact, our P35 motherboards will be compared and graded against these two P965 boards shortly.
Today we will present some of the motherboard products that we are currently testing and will provide reviews of in the near future. While this is not a complete listing and does not include all of the boards in the upcoming uATX opus, it should provide a good indication of the products we are currently excited about. If you can't wait for the full reviews and one of these boards has the features you're looking for, consider inclusion in this preview a general recommendation of the product. (Naturally, you'll still have to wait for the P35 parts.)
One of the most interesting articles we have worked on in a long time will be an upcoming chipset shootout with all currently available chipsets for the Intel Core 2 Duo product including the new Bearlake series. The chipset determines many of the features a board will include, as well as many of the performance aspects. As such, we think the chipset roundup will prove enlightening. With that said lets take a quick look at some of these product offerings.
Motherboards: Intel Performance
The continuing introduction of new chipsets from both Intel and NVIDIA for the Intel Core 2 Duo processor series has created an enormous amount of product introductions in recent weeks. So much so that our labs are once again stacked with motherboards that we are in the process of testing and analyzing. Intel currently holds the overall performance crown with the Core 2 Duo and the continued rollout of new motherboards for this impressive processor series is still amazing.
The DFI NF-680i LT is based upon the recently released NVIDIA 680i LT SLI chipset that we reviewed a few weeks ago. The board supports LGA775 socket processors, features three PCI Express x16 slots (dual x16 SLI support, x8 physics support), one x4 PCI Express slot, and two PCI 2.3 capable slots. Besides the six native Serial ATA 3Gb/s ports, DFI has also included two Serial ATA 3Gb/s ports via the Silicon Image 3132 chipset. The board also features DFI's new Karajan audio module featuring the Realtek ALC885 8-channel HD audio codec. In initial testing we have reached 9x420FSB with our retail QX6700 and general performance has been very good, although DFI is still tweaking memory performance and overclocking capabilities on the quad core and 4MB cache Core 2 Duo CPUs. We will be comparing this board to our other 680i and 650i boards shortly.
The MSI P6 Diamond is based upon the NVIDIA 680i chipset that has proven itself over the course of the last few months to offer excellent performance when tuned properly. As with most new Core 2 Duo chipsets introduced since last year, the 680i had a bumpy introduction but the latest boards based on this chipset have matured greatly since the launch. The P6 Diamond is no exception to this rule and early testing has revealed a board with a lot of potential and performance that scales very well.
The board supports LGA775 socket processors, features four PCI Express x16 slots (dual x16 SLI support, quad x8 SLI support), one x1 PCI Express slot, and two PCI 2.3 capable slots. Besides the six native Serial ATA 3Gb/s ports, MSI has also included two Serial ATA 3Gb/s ports via the new Silicon Image 4723 chipset and one e-SATA port via the Silicon Image 3531. The board also features Creative's X-Fi 8-channel HD audio codec and has proven to be a welcome relief when compared to the Realtek codecs in gaming. In initial testing we have reached 9x420FSB with the QX6700 and 7x510 with our E6600. Overall performance has been very good although MSI is still tweaking the BIOS. We were hoping for beta Quad 8800GTX SLI drivers but gave up so the board review will be up shortly.
While the new product introductions always grab the lion's share of attention, it also means that today's top performing products are well on their way to becoming tomorrow's value based solutions. This is always good for those of us with limited budgets and the lack of desire to upgrade every six months but who want excellent performance per dollar. We are now seeing the second generation of P965 motherboards selling near the $100 mark and they are still providing very good performance and features.
More good news is that the products based on these now "mature" chipsets are well tuned and most of the bugs have been sorted out. Case in point is the Infinity 965-S from DFI and the P5B Premium from ASUS which are two excellent P965 motherboards that were recently launched. While targeted to different audiences and price segments, they both offer top performance and features with a certain level of maturity not found in earlier designs. In fact, our P35 motherboards will be compared and graded against these two P965 boards shortly.
Today we will present some of the motherboard products that we are currently testing and will provide reviews of in the near future. While this is not a complete listing and does not include all of the boards in the upcoming uATX opus, it should provide a good indication of the products we are currently excited about. If you can't wait for the full reviews and one of these boards has the features you're looking for, consider inclusion in this preview a general recommendation of the product. (Naturally, you'll still have to wait for the P35 parts.)
One of the most interesting articles we have worked on in a long time will be an upcoming chipset shootout with all currently available chipsets for the Intel Core 2 Duo product including the new Bearlake series. The chipset determines many of the features a board will include, as well as many of the performance aspects. As such, we think the chipset roundup will prove enlightening. With that said lets take a quick look at some of these product offerings.
Motherboards: Intel Performance
The continuing introduction of new chipsets from both Intel and NVIDIA for the Intel Core 2 Duo processor series has created an enormous amount of product introductions in recent weeks. So much so that our labs are once again stacked with motherboards that we are in the process of testing and analyzing. Intel currently holds the overall performance crown with the Core 2 Duo and the continued rollout of new motherboards for this impressive processor series is still amazing.
The DFI NF-680i LT is based upon the recently released NVIDIA 680i LT SLI chipset that we reviewed a few weeks ago. The board supports LGA775 socket processors, features three PCI Express x16 slots (dual x16 SLI support, x8 physics support), one x4 PCI Express slot, and two PCI 2.3 capable slots. Besides the six native Serial ATA 3Gb/s ports, DFI has also included two Serial ATA 3Gb/s ports via the Silicon Image 3132 chipset. The board also features DFI's new Karajan audio module featuring the Realtek ALC885 8-channel HD audio codec. In initial testing we have reached 9x420FSB with our retail QX6700 and general performance has been very good, although DFI is still tweaking memory performance and overclocking capabilities on the quad core and 4MB cache Core 2 Duo CPUs. We will be comparing this board to our other 680i and 650i boards shortly.
The MSI P6 Diamond is based upon the NVIDIA 680i chipset that has proven itself over the course of the last few months to offer excellent performance when tuned properly. As with most new Core 2 Duo chipsets introduced since last year, the 680i had a bumpy introduction but the latest boards based on this chipset have matured greatly since the launch. The P6 Diamond is no exception to this rule and early testing has revealed a board with a lot of potential and performance that scales very well.
The board supports LGA775 socket processors, features four PCI Express x16 slots (dual x16 SLI support, quad x8 SLI support), one x1 PCI Express slot, and two PCI 2.3 capable slots. Besides the six native Serial ATA 3Gb/s ports, MSI has also included two Serial ATA 3Gb/s ports via the new Silicon Image 4723 chipset and one e-SATA port via the Silicon Image 3531. The board also features Creative's X-Fi 8-channel HD audio codec and has proven to be a welcome relief when compared to the Realtek codecs in gaming. In initial testing we have reached 9x420FSB with the QX6700 and 7x510 with our E6600. Overall performance has been very good although MSI is still tweaking the BIOS. We were hoping for beta Quad 8800GTX SLI drivers but gave up so the board review will be up shortly.
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baronzemo78 - Thursday, May 3, 2007 - link
Any news when the new Bearlake X or any boards that have support for dual x16 pci express electrical for crossfire?kmrivers - Friday, May 4, 2007 - link
Actually I found some stuff out today. The 975X replacement will be the X38 boards.The intel version, which is a direct replacement to the Bad Axe 2 is the Intel DX38BT 'Bone Trail
Source: http://www.thetechrepository.com/showthread.php?t=...">http://www.thetechrepository.com/showthread.php?t=...
Here are some details on it:
DX38BT Product Highlights:
* Based on the next-generation X38 Express chipset (MCH)
* Intel Duo/Quad/Extreme (dual and quad) Core support at up to 1333MHz FSB, dual channel DDR2/DDR3 memory support with Fast Memory Access technology
* Intel ICH9 southbridge, 12 USB ports, supporting up to 6 additional PCI Express 1.1(a) lanes [physics card upgrade support], GBit LAN
* 2x PCI Express 2.0 16x ports (backwards compatable with PCI Express 1.1 specification), Crossfire is supported
* 6x SATA 3.0GB/s ports, Intel Maxtrix Storage Technology (RAID)
* Intel High Definition (HD) Technology
* Full overclocking/overvoltage options via BIOS and NEW Windows GUI utility for overclocking, including auto-tune capabilities
I have no idea where TPR got this information. Here are some details on the Bearlake chipsets:
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4588">http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4588
Chadder007 - Saturday, May 5, 2007 - link
PCI Express ....2.0? Good Lord, are they going to pull another AGP on us again???vailr - Thursday, May 3, 2007 - link
I'd like to see a short summation of P35 boards having:1. No legacy parallel port
2. 4x DDR2 memory slots
3. Minimum of: 3 PCI card slots
4. Intel Matrix Raid
The 2 P35 boards known to have these 4 features are:
Asus PK5, and variants
Abit P35, and variants
Any others?
And, will DFI delay another 6 months (like they did with their just-released 965 Infinity board) before offering their version of Bearlake board?
Mogadon - Thursday, May 3, 2007 - link
While we're on the subject of heatsinks, it seems unfortunate that Gigabyte decided to use exactly the same heatsinks on their DS3R as the DS3, considering everyone that's tried to overclock with a DS3 knows how hot they get.mostlyprudent - Thursday, May 3, 2007 - link
I was glad to see a new DFI borad, but very disappointed to see it, along with the MSI 680i board, had a fan on the chipset. Come on guys...HEATPIPES! Perhpas the fans allow for better O'Cing, but having just replaced another dead one - I'm done with boards that have chipset fans!BTW, nice article. I appreciate seeing what's coming up. With so many paper launches, it's very niec to know that AT already has multiple P35 boards for testing.
lsman - Thursday, May 3, 2007 - link
I will prefer a chipset fan.because now, I have to find some 40mm fan to screw on those "$100" mobo to OC them. The NB is very hot.
And there are many cases that ppl take their heat pipe off just to find out that only 1/3 of the chipset is cover with thermal paste.
http://www.overclock.net/faqs/100443-how-reseat-as...">http://www.overclock.net/faqs/100443-how-reseat-as...
TA152H - Thursday, May 3, 2007 - link
Also keep in mind this chipset is made on 65nm lithography, not 90 or 130 like the P965 and 975 respectively. It shouldn't give off as much heat.mostlyprudent - Thursday, May 3, 2007 - link
Interestingly, most (if not all) of the complaints I hear about passive cooling solutions on MB chipsets are along the lines "that heatsink was really hot to the touch". The temperature of the heatsink is not necessarily indicative of the temperature of the underlying chipset. Stick a little fan on top of the heatsink and:1) you won't be able to feel how hot the heatsink gets anymore because you can't touch it so easily;
2) the surface of the heatsink will likely be cooler with the fan running, but that does not necessarily mean the chipset is being cooled any better; and
3) as we've seen in the recent CPU cooler reviews here, there is not always a direct correlation between temperature and overclockability (at least not a direct linear correlation throughout the range of temps and mhtz).
Besides, we've seen from ASUS and others that their passively cooled boards have no problem keeping pace with boards that sport chipset fans. I suspect the primary motivation for using these little fans is that the chipset fans are a much cheeper cooling solution (from a design standpoint).
Stele - Thursday, May 3, 2007 - link
Passive cooling solutions have the significant advantages of being perfectly silent and, having no moving parts, are practically immune to mechanical failures - and the thermal failures resulting from that. Heatpipes, in particular, are also far more effective than plain copper heatsinks in removing heat from the component(s) - they generally have an effective thermal conductivity up to thousands of times that of solid copper of equivalent cross-section. Furthermore, heatpipes allow heat to be quickly and efficiently transported from the source of the heat (usually chipset components tucked amongst many other components/expansion cards) to another location where dissipation/cooling may be easier (e.g. in the path of airflow from CPU fan and/or in a more open space where better airflow can be obtained).If the component(s) become exceedingly hot, one possible and typical cause is that the manufacturer did not deploy a solution sufficiently capable of handling the heat dissipated under certain circumstances (some manufacturers may design their solutions with a 25-30°C ambient temperature in mind, vs. the 30-40°C more commonly found in packed casings in say, warm climates). The other reason is that some manufacturers have a target spec - say, keep NB operating at x°C or less under ambient temperatures of say, 30°C - and then go on to spec a fairly high temperature for x - say, 60°C - so that the NB operates under the maximum allowable temperature (even if barely) yet ensures that the cooling solution needed would be inexpensive and simple.
Both these are mistakes/negligence in the engineering - under-specifying the desired cooling performance of the cooling solutions to be used - and are equally possible when designing in HSFs too, so it's a bit unfair to say that all overheating proablems are entirely because of the use of passive solutions per se. Same goes for heatsink seating issues - applies to both HSF and passive solutions and depends more on operator training/care than actual heatsink used, though a little more is required for exotic heatpipe system installations than simpler passive solutions.
All told, however, a passive cooling system still has the edge over traditional chipset fans, which is why more and more motherboards are deploying them instead of tiny screaming meemies. :)