Time has finally come for us here at NordicHardware to post our Canterwood roundup. This article has taken an awful long time to complete due to the fact that this far this article has brought us nothing but trouble. Defective memories, crashed discs and so forth – just about everything that could go wrong went wrong. It’s a good thing that we are such a positive bunch that not even the national debt of Sweden could make us loose our focus and that is why, even though the whole world seemed to be against us, we did not give up.
Time has finally
come for us here at NordicHardware to post our Canterwood roundup. This article
has taken an awful long time to complete due to the fact that this far this
article has brought us nothing but trouble. Defective memories, crashed discs
and so forth – just about everything that could go wrong went wrong. It’s
a good thing that we are such a positive bunch that not even the national
debt of Sweden could make us loose our focus and that is why, even though
the whole world seemed to be against us, we did not give up. The fruits of
our labour is a tidy little review of no less than six Pentium 4 motherboards
all constructed around the Canterwoodchipset. From time to time these boards
differ from each other but basically they offer the same features, i.e. 800MHz
FSB support, Dual Channel DDR400 and lots of other features. More on this
on the following page where we will give you a humble introduction to this
chipset. But first, let’s meet the candidates:
Before we look closer at these boards we’ll give you a brief introduction
to the i875P chipset.
The introduction
of Intel’s 875P chipset means that a lot of the functions that earlier were
controlled by circuits from third party manufacturers are now integrated in
the chipset. These functions are mainly controlled by the very interesting
southbridge 82801E(B/R) which we will return to in just a moment. The new
northbridge 82875P does actually not differ very much from Granite Bay’s northbridge,
which was launched already in autumn.
The major difference is that the northbridge now got support for 800MHz FSB
processors and Dual Channel DDR333/400. In the optimal situation, where you
got a 800MHz FSB processor together with two DDR400 memory modules, you would
at least theoretically get an impressive 6.4GB/s memory bandwidth. Of course
the AGP 8x support is available here too, which Intel first launched officially
with Granite Bay. To increase the performance even more, Intel has equipped
their Canterwood with something that is called Performance Acceleration Technology,
PAT.
This technology together with tighter timings on the north bridge is what
is going to give the chipset an advantage over the cheaper Springdale chipset,
which in other ways is almost identical. One other major difference is that
Canterwood supports ECC memories, which is a major factor in professional
coherence’s. Below you can see a schedule over the chipset’s structure and
features.
As
you can see in the figure above, it is the earlier mentioned southbridge named
ICH5(R) which handles the peripheral equipment. ICH5 exists in two versions
where an R in the end of the label indicates that the southbridge, except
its two channel S-ATA support, also got support for S-ATA RAID. The ICH5R
version of the circuit will therefore be a little more expensive thus we will
most likely not see it on low priced motherboards.
Furthermore the new southbridge has also support for 6 channel sound (AC97)
and up to 8 USB 2.0 ports. Even a 10/100 NIC is controlled by the southbridge,
but as we soon will see some manufacturers have not settled for this and therefore
equipped their boards with GigabitLAN instead, which is supported by the northbridge.
Intel’s Gigabit solution is rather costly for the manufacturers and therefore
they have chosen to use a cheaper third party version for this. You can of
course find hyperthreading this time also and considering the approaching
mass launch of HT processors, the technology will soon be quite common even
for the consumers who are concerned about prices. i875P is really an impressive
chipset.
The changes are not unexpected but the fact that they have managed to squeeze
in so much functionality in the chipset makes Intel well worth some praise.
The integration is very welcome through the consumer’s point of view because
you get more for your money and extra cards become almost superfluous, as
long it’s not about special cards for video editing or similar.
That’s the end of the theoretical class and it is time to see how the manufacturers
have implemented the chipset. First we take a look at ABIT’s IC7-G.
As we can see
from the compilation above the IC7-G is packed to the brim with features offered
by Intel’s new chipset and it doesn’t stop there. This board is supposed to
be ABIT’s flagship, at least until the release of a MAX3-board, but for the
time being there is a lot of "hush-hush" regarding the prospective
follow-up of the praised IT7-MAX2.
The icing on the cake is that ABIT has equipped the board with Intel’s own
GigabitLAN-circuit that are of very high quality, but is also expensive and
this, of course, jacks up the price quite a bit. IC7-G is, however, available
in a less expensive variant called IC7 where the GigabitLAN-chip is removed
along with the extra S-ATA-controller. This takes the price down to somewhere
in the neighborhood of 1500 SEK, a considerably lower price.
Price
and Accessibility
Since IC7-G is
a more extravagant version of the IC7 the price is substantially higher. In
comparison to ABiTs most prominent competitors like ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI,
we see that this price is without doubt in parity with the prices of the other
manufacturers. If you want to have a Canterwood-board with all available features
you will have to be prepared to cough up about 2000 SEK. A pretty hefty price
but "if you want the ultimate you’ll have to pay the ultimate price".
The availability of the IC7-G is very good.
The board is listed at all of ABIT’s retailers in Sweden so if you are a potential
buyer you need not feel worried about availability, if the retailers run out
of boards new ones will once again stock their shelves in a week or so.
The price is still a considerable amount higher than for example the IC7 model
and not to speak of the Springdale-based boards on the market. This is one
of the reasons no topscore is given, but then again, that’s noting we expect
of a Canterwood board.
Price/Accessibility
We
compare price with equal products and also accessibility among swedish
retailers.
Accessories
and features
The first thing
that comes to mind when you open the box is that ABIT has gone through a great
deal of trouble to pack its contents properly. The days when accessories where
thoughtlessly crammed into the box are gone. Instead ABIT has packed every
accessory in small, separate boxes and these days perfect order rules the
motherboard boxing.
The physical accessories in this package consists of a rounded ATA100-cable,
one rounded floppycable, two S-ATA-cables with matching powersupply-connectors,
one P-ATA->S-ATA converter and a bracket with two Firewire- and two USB-ports.
Including the USB- and Firewire connections on the back of the board we get
at total of six USB 2.0-ports and three Firewireports. If you want to use
the remaining two USB-ports supported by the board, you will have to acquire
an additional two-port-bracket. Naturally a manual is included, a quick setup
guide and drivers for the board.
The included software package is in traditional ABIT-spirit very thin and
consists of Winbonds Hardware Monitor for temperature-monitoring, Adobe Acrobat
Reader, DirectX 9 and a Low Format Utility used for thorough formats. Personally
I’m not bothered at all by the spartan software bundle, I actually welcome
it since bundled software seldom is worth unpacking. For those of us that
are hung up on appearances a small bonus remains to be accounted for. ABIT
namely tossed in a sweet casebadge in silver-steer components. The advantages
of this will become clear in the next section where we go head to head with
the layout.
Perfectly organized
Manual
Cables
When it comes
to integrated features the IC7-G is more than sufficiently equipped. Lets
begin with the ‘G’ that represents Intels own GigabitLAN solution. A costly
and gruesomely nice network-solution that furthermore has it’s own software
to monitor the connections to the network circuit. S-ATA hard drives will
feel right at home with this board since there are a total of four S-ATA ports
with RAID support. Two of these ports are handled by the southbridge and are
only equipped to handle RAID 0 but the remaining two, that are controlled
by a Silicon Image circuit, deliver both RAID 0 and RAID 1.
Together with the two P-ATA100 channels this makes it possible to connect
up to eight hard drives and this leaves plenty of space for future upgrades.
The audio circuit is now integrated in the southbridge and provide audio in
6 channels with the help of the AC97 codec. This solution actually produces
very nice sound and will do for everyone except the hardcore audionuts. Mounted
on the back of the board we find optical S/PDID in and out connections, a
parallel port and even a COM-port. Here we also find four USB 2.0-ports, one
Firewireport and the network connector.
The bracket we mentioned earlier gives us two additional USB-ports and two
extra Firewireports. The fact that ABIT has put USB- and Firewireports on
the same bracket is a clever move since it would have been a real bummer if
you had to use two bracket spaces in order to get additional connection possibilities.
IC7-G is in terms of functionality a masterpiece that provides the user with
the ability to connect most peripheral equipment. I have mixed feelings before
the lack of additional P-ATA-ports. Personally I would have loved to see another
P-ATA-channel but on the other hand the connection possibilities are so capable
that one more channel probably would probably have felt like overkill. All
and all the IC7-G board is rich in features and thanks to the new southbridge
the board is spared from any extra surface-mounted steercomponents. The advantages
of this will become clear in the next section where we bout the layout.
In all we think
that ABIT has made a killer job with the IC7-G when it comes to features.
The aspect of the accessories could be improved a bit. Keeping the price in
mind and pondering the fact that this board is the company’s flagship we would
want to have seen at least two rounded ATA100-cables and one ATA->S-ATA
converter more. This could assuredly be considered to be trivialities but
it could give the board an additional boost. Anyway, the final score is bound
to be quite high so the staff over at ABIT probably don’t have to worry about
their jobs just yet.
Accessories/Features
We
look at the amount and usefulness of included accessories and integrated
features.
IC7 differs from
IC7-G in several ways. IC7 is almost 600 SEK cheaper. Of course this has a
reason. IC7 has for an example not GigabitLAN or any integrated NIC at all.
Also the Silicon Image S-ATA controller is missing. Also the accessories are
fewer which we’ll find out soon.
Price
and Availability
The price is
without doubt the boards biggest advantage. A Canterwood board for a such
a low price must be very attractive. There are only one board in this roundup
which is even near IC7’s price, the question is if there are any better "budget-alternatives".
Today there are Spingdale based boards for about 1000 SEK, even if they have
more or less no features at all the price is very attractive. When it comes
to availability it is the same thing here as for the IC7-G, very good.
Great job ABIT!
Price/Availability
We
compare the price to equal products and even the accessibility among retailers.
Accessories
and Features
IC7 is packed
in the same well thought sort of way as its big brother, IC7-G. The only difference
between those two is the P-ATA->S-ATA converter with belonging power supply.
Accessories IC7
When it comes
to integrated features the two boards are identical except for two details
mentioned earlier. IC7 does not have any NIC and offers only two S-ATA ports
which is controlled of the southbridge (RAID 0 support). The total lack of
NIC’s and support for only two S-ATA and two IDE channels lowers the grade
a lot. The accessories for IC7 has the same disadvantages as IC7-G. It gets
even more boring because IC7 does not have any P-ATA->S-ATA converter.
This forces an end-user with many IDE drives to buy converters or a separate
controller-card. Accessories/Features is shortly not IC7’s strong side, the
major disadvantage is the lack of a NIC.
Accessories/Features
We
look at the amount and usefulness for included accessories and integrated
features.
Both
IC7 and IC7-G are manufactured on a black PCB which we recognize from the
IT7-Max2 motherboards. As the boards don’t differ especially much concerning
design and layout, we have chosen to put together this and the BIOS section
of the review, since otherwise we would get two pages of repetitions. The
pictures below are taken of both IC7-G and IC7, which is why you’ll sometimes
see and sometimes miss a G.
Let’s start with
the two big differences between the boards before we move on to the things
they have in common. IC7-G has an Intel GigabitLAN network circuit while IC7
completely lacks networks circuits. This is without doubt quite a drastic
step and we think that ABIT could have implemented some cheaper 10/100 variety
instead of completely ignoring a networks circuit on the IC7. Difference number
two is that IC7-G apart from the two S-ATA-ports, enabled by the southbridge,
also has a Silicon Image controller circuit, which gives the user two more
S-ATA ports with RAID(0/1) support. On the picture below you’ll see where
the controller circuit is situated and also the two S-ATA ports which it controls.
Silicon Image controller circuit + S-ATA 3&4
The base is well
situated and there is a nice amount of space to work in. The 12V contact which
we have complained a great deal about in reviews of other boards has finally
been moved and is now situated just next to the DIMM spot number one. This
makes it much easier to reach the contact and does not risk the 12V cable
getting stuck in the cooling fan anymore. Furthermore it is pretty much easier
to pull the cables as the ATX-contact is also situated next to the DIMM spots.
The sideways situated IDE contacts we first saw on BH7 returns in IC7.IC7-G.
The AGP spot
differs a bit from earlier types as the constructors have chosen to skip the
AGP-lock completely this time. Instead of a usual AGP spot they have placed
a AGP Pro-slot. Thanks for this, the most current-devouring graphics boards
can be used together with ABIT’s Canterwood board. The northbridge is cooled
by an active cooler. The sound level won’t be a problem, since it is kept
low. On the picture furthest to the right, you can see the new southbridge
which controls most of the integrated functions.
The PCI spots
are five, which gives a good amount of expansion possibilities. If you buy
a IC7, one is for example already set off for the networks card. There is
certainly not any lack of Firewire or USB neither. On the picture in the middle
you’ll see the internal connections for these and on the picture furthest
to the right you’ll see the back panel’s contacts for this. Totally three
Firewire-ports and eight USB 2.0 can be connected. ABIT also offers optical
entrances and exits. The picture to the right below is taken of IC7, which
is why you can’t see any network socket. This has apparently been pasted over
with a silvery sticker.
5xPCI
USB+Firewire
IC7=No
LAN
The motherboard
layout on this board is actually really good. There is absolutely nothing bad
situated, I find nothing but well placed components. That the most stuff has
been integrated in the south bridge makes life easier for ABIT’s technicians
and a bit more fun for us users. The 12V contact could have been placed better
perhaps, but to complain about this seems like finding faults where there
are none. IC7(-G) is designed for the final user in mind and this has to result
a top grade.
Layout/design
We
look at the physical but also aesthetical design of the board. User friendliness
is a very important factor.
It’s not
much that differs between the two IC7 boards’ BIOS either, hence we made the
choice to combine this section as well. The BIOS is of course a Phoenix Award
BIOS as always with ABIT. The most of you also recognize the main menu, and
you ought to know that it’s chiefly under the SoftMenu heading that we can
find the real candy.
Soft Menu
Here we can find
the most important options for overclocking of the system and CPU, except
for the memory settings of course. The FSB may as usual be set manually with
1 MHz intervals between 100 to 412 MHz, which is simply more than enough.
However, the motherboard needs to be flashed with the latest BIOS version,
since the default BIOS has a limit of approximately 300. The CPU voltage options
are like they should be – 1,535V-1.90V with 0.025V intervals should probably
make voltage modding a redundancy.
Regarding the voltage to the memory, it isn’t very impressive. 2.5V-2.8V is
something of a disappointment, especially since certain memory modules as
the ones from GeIL likes higher voltages. Hopefully, this will be corrected
in the next version of the BIOS. The AGP voltage can also be increased and
the values for this are 1.5-1.65 with 0.05 intervals. The memory ratio is
dependent of the bus speed of the CPU, but naturally DDR400 is the fastest
although it requires a 800 MHz FSB CPU.
If a 533 MHz FSB processor is used, DDR400 cannot be utilized and DDR333 must
be used in return, which on the other hand is more than adequate for such
a CPU. And of course, we’re solely talking about Dual Channel DDR. Last but
not least, we have the AGP/PCI clock frequencies. An array of options can
be set for these or simply just be locked. If we choose to fix the frequencies
for these, we can also specify at which speed they will be locked. 66-96 MHz
is optional, but for the sake of stability we recommend locking them around
66 MHz, at least until we’ve found the optimal configuration for the system.
Overclocking
Below is a tiny
table of the most important settings.
BIOS
settings:
FSB
frequency:
100-412MHz (1MHz intervals)
Multiplier
setting:
–
AGP
frequency:
Lockable
and definable between 66-96MHz
CPU
voltage:
1.525V-1.90V i 0.025V intervals
DIMM
voltage:
2.5V
– 2.8V i 0.05V intervals
AGP
voltage:
1.5V
– 1.65V (0.05V intervals)
In the Advanced
Chipset Features section we have the ability to set memory preferences. The
fastest timings are 2-5-2-2, whilst the slowest are 3-8-4-4, of which the
latter is extremely dawdling and hardly desirable. Beyond that, the section
looks like they generally do and it has the standard options for AGP Aperture,
AGP 4x/8x and so on. Temperature and voltage monitoring is located in the
PC Health section. It is also possible to set a limit, which imply that the
computer will automatically shut down if the CPU reaches the stated temperature.
The integrated features aren’t few and have thus been placed in a separate
section with sub-menus, in which optimizations and configurations of the different
features can be done with ease.
Advanced Chipset Features
PC Health
OnChip PCI Device
ABIT has once again delivered a horribly good BIOS that features everything
you could possibly want. The only complaint we have is actually that the memory
voltage should be able to go even higher. This is hopefully something we’ll
see in a future BIOS version. This fact made it quite hard to decide which grade
to set, but since BIOS isn’t perfect, we unfortunately can’t give a perfect
grade either.
BIOS/Settings
We
look at the layout of the BIOS and the settings at hand, both for ordinary
use and overclocking.
Overclocking
The two IC7 boards turned out to be excellent overclockers,
just as we suspected. The same goes for our 2.4 GHz CPU that shocked us quite
well with its overclocking ability. Since the limitations in the overclocking
was represented by the CPU in both cases, we chose combine this section too.
Both boards clocked equal with same pleasant stability and performance. Check
out the results below.
Almost
one GHz for free. Talk about a processor worth its price! To achieve this
result, we raised the CPU voltage to 1.65V and the memory voltage to 2.8V.
The AGP/PCI clock was of course locked and the memory ratio was set to 5:4.
Lastly, we had to tune in the memory at a tad more generous timings so it
could handle the higher speed. The settings were 2.5-3-6-3 and the whole speed
Dual Channel DDR. Of course, we also ran a couple of benchmarks in the overclocked
condition, but those are to be seen in the end of this review.
The impatient can always use the navigation menu to go there instantly.280
MHz FSB is only a little portion of what the IC7/IC7-G has to give (both boards
clocked equal). We managed to boot even higher, although 280 MHz FSB was the
highest speed out CPU could handle and still retain its stability, without
raising the voltage or use a more advanced cooling solution. The cooler we
used in this test was a Speeze Pantherstream, primarily because of its ease-of-use.
There’s no doubt that both of ABITs Canterwood boards would have taken the
processor a step further with a better cooler.
It
has been awhile since we had this much fun when overclocking a motherboard.
In most cases, it takes a couple of hours or so, an uncountable number of
reboots and perhaps a little bit of CMOS resetting too. But not with IC7/IC7-G.
ABITs SoftMenu and superb motherboard design make life easier for us overclockers.
The only thing we can think of as an impediment is that the slightly low memory
voltage can cause some minor problems regarding the optimal overclocking for
the memory bus. Other than that, we haven’t got any complaints.
Overclocking
Here
we evaluate the mainboards theoretic overclocking potential by the means
of practical tests.
The third motherboard
comes from the manufacturer DFI, which has provided us with a board from
their Lanparty series. The concept of Lanparty signifies, precisely as the
name indicates, that the boards are meant to be desirable for consumers who
likes to show off their computers at LANs or other events. To attain this,
a vast amount of effort has been put on the design and accessories. We’ll
get back to this later. Our motherboard is DFI’s Lanparty board for Intel
processors, but the company is also offering boards intended for AMD CPUs
(among other things based on the KT400A chipset). Regarding the specifications,
they don’t differ much from ABIT’s IC7-G. The main divergence is that DFI
is equipped with a P-ATA RAID controller. This is nothing new and we’ve
seen it many times before, but this time the controller is somewhat special
since it supports RAID1.5. This function allows an imitation of RAID0+1
with only two harddrives, which otherwise requires four (of which two of
the disks are backing up what is written on the disks in the RAID0 array).
So what does a Lanparty motherboard cost compared to other Canterwood boards?
Price
and Accessibility
The price tag
on DFI’s Lanparty is somewhat higher than for ABIT’s IC7-G. This gives the
board a terribly high price, but if you’re looking for a true flagship with
Intel’s GigabitLAN and a maximum of features, you have to be prepared to
pay for it too. The availability for DFI’s Lanparty boards is really good
and all the Swedish retailers have it in stock. The grade gets a tad lower
than for ABIT’s IC7-G because of the relatively big difference in price.
Price/Accessibility
We
compare price with equal products and also accessibility among retailers.
Accessories
and features
As the name
indicates, the intended buyers are habitual LAN visitors and modding enthusiasts,
which is clearly visible by judging from the bundled accessories. The fact
that the board is delivered with a whopping amount of extras is concluded
already on the size of the box. When opened up, we can see that DFI cared
to present the accessories in a tasteful and practical manner. Just like
with ABIT, everything is nicely wrapped up in separate boxes. The software
is slightly more extensive than with ABIT though; In addition to necessary
drivers, fullversions of InterVideo Wincinema (WinDVD+WinRip), MacAffe Virusscan
and Winbond Hardware Monitor can be found along with a compact disc with
a small press kit. On the image of the CDs, a Lanparty sticker and a case
badge are also observable.
Prim and proper
Manual etc.
Cords and brackets
In terms of
cables, there are a lot of them enclosed with the Lanparty package. We are
given two S-ATA cables with belonging power cords, one S/PDIF bracket, one
gameport bracket, 2 pcs of rounded ATA133 cables, which reacts on UV light
and at last a 5.25" front panel with connectors for headphones, microphone
and two extra USB ports. The greatest surprise was probably the enclosed
sling which makes carrying around the computer a breeze. I have one myself,
although from the GearGrip manufacturer (the two products are exactly the
same) and I have to admit that it has made all transports of the computer
much easier, particularly since my case is about the largest you can find
these days.
Rounded UV cables
FrontX panel
Carrying case
The FrontX panel is also a nice affair with all of its features,
but unfortunately it isn’t very appreciably attractive aesthetically. The
rounded cables on the other hand are both functional and good-looking and
we praise DFI for their choice of including two IDE cables instead of one,
like ABIT. To conclude, we give you a wealth of photos of how the board is
looking in UV light. Thank God these pictures already were included on the
PR CD-ROM, so I won’t have to take pains by photographing this beauty myself
Regarding features
and accessories, DFI has really managed to patch together a smashing package.
Not only is it very extensive, but above all, everything’s presented in
such a tasteful way. Along with a fairly large window and some UV lightning,
the Lanparty board will spruce up any super-modded case. Physical accessories
come in abundance and we have everything we’d like, and a tad more. If we
really are to find any flaws, we find the lack of a P-ATA->S-ATA converter
disappointing. The hardware features that the board is offering are great
and far from few. The fact that the board has been equipped with an extra
P-ATA RAID controller comes in handy for those who still have a lot of P-ATA
units. The RAID 1.5 function is also an extremely nice bonus. However, DFI’s
board lacks Firewire, which is a pity on otherwise such a complete package.
Except for the lack of Firewire and the P-ATA->S-ATA converter, this
packages is still by far the most impressive we’ve seen in a long time.
The integrated features aboard the board are also terribly good and almost
perfect.
Accessories/Features
We
look at the amount and usability for integrated features and enclosed
accessories.
DFI’s
mainboard is also manufactured on a black PCB but to enhance its aesthetic
qualities they have colored all its larger contacts orange. I personally
though it looked nice, however Undac for example though it looked hideous.
The holder
is located pretty good so there’s alot of space around it on all sides,
except above it where there are a bunch of capacitors. However this should
not be a problem. The 12V contact is located exactly as on the ABIT board.
Not much to criticize there. The ATX contact is located next to the corner
besides the DIMM places. This is good because now the large ATX cable
can’t do that much harm.
The northbridge
on the board doesn’t have an active cooler, instead it has a rather large
passive heatsink. This is more than enough however it may affect the overclocking.
The southbridge is exactly as on the ABIT ICH5R and therefore it supports
SATA RAID0.
LAN
US
As for the AGP places and the memory banks we can easily
establish that there is nothing to complain on.
Here we have plenty of space even for the largest graphic cards. DFIs
AGP lock separates itself from the ones we are used to. Personally I think
that DFIs alternative is better although AGP locks are generally troublesome.
On the picture in the middle we se the connections to
the S-ATA ports, the floppy contact and the two IDE channels which is
run be Highpoints 372N RAID controller. This controller is somewhat different
compared to to RAID0, RAID0+1 and RAID1 since it has support for RAID1.5
which is equivalent to RAID0+1 but with only two harddrives instead of
four.
DFI has probably
glanced a little on ABITs MAX mainboard when they designed the Lanparty
board. For instance it also has Power and Reset switches mounted directly
on the PCB .Something we reviewers and of course fault-localizers will
have most use of.
If you haven’t had enough of all the integrated features one can build
the system further since DFI gives us five PCI places to fill. On the
I/O-panel there are the normal ports; USB, LAN, PS/2 and so on. No ports
for Firewire though. How they could skip ports for Firewire on a so otherwise
complete system is a riddle for me. Oh well, time to summarize everything.
What can
I say? The layout on DFI Lanparty is really really good. It is in the
same class as ABIT, so the grade should be the same right?
Layout/Design
We
have considered the physical but also the esthetical aspects of the
board’s design. User-friendliness is also an important factor.
DFI
uses a Phoenix AwardBIOS just like some other boards in this roundup.
Personally I like this sort of BIOS very much since I think it’s very
easy and quick to use. What DFI did to adapt the BIOS to this very motherboard
we will now look into.
The main menu
In the
submenu Frequency/Voltage we find overclocking settings. Here we find
all the necessary settings such as voltage, AGP clock and FSB speed.
Genie-BIOS
The maximum
FSB speed we can set the motherboard on is 400MHz, presumed that you’ve
flashed with the latest BIOS. The memory speed can be set between 266/320/400MHz
Dual Channel DDR. This presumes however a 800MHz FSB CPU. Vcore can
be increased up to 1.85V, which should be enough for most people. Furthermore
vcore can be increased with intervals of 0.05V, which limits the the
possibilities of choice even more. When it comes to DIMM voltage, it’s
a bit too restrictive. 2.7V is the maximum value, which is too low as
some voltage demanding memories hardly need a powerful extra boost in
overclocking. The AGP voltage can also be increased, but even here the
possibilities are kept at a low level. 1.6V is the highest we can set
it, which is a minimal increase of 0.1V compared to the basic value.
BIOS
settings
FSB
frequency:
100-400MHz (1MHz intervals)
AGP
frequency:
fixable
CPU
frequency:
1.5V – 1.85V (0.05V intervals)
DIMM
frequency:
2.6V
– 2.7V(0.1V intervals)
AGP
frequency:
1.5V
– 1.6V (0.1V intervals)
Advanced Chipset
Options is the section where you set the timings of the memory. The fastest
are 2-5-2-2 while the slowest are 3-4-8-4.
Advanced Chipset Features
PC Health
Integrated
The lanparty
board has very good BIOS settings, assumed that you’ll update to the
latest version. On shipping BIOS you could for example only increase
the FSB to a maximum of, which DFI luckily has fixed. Personally I would
have liked to see some more options on the voltage front, especially
when it comes to the DIMM voltage, but hopefully this will be fixed
in an upcoming BIOS. Concerning menus, they are as easily navigated
through as always when dealing with Phoenix AwardBIOS. Time to take
a look at overclocking.
Bios/Settings
We
look at the design of BIOS and it’s setting possibilities. Both
for regular usage and overclocking.
Overclocking
To overclock
DFI’s Lanparty board was also a piece of cake. Unfortunately the result
was not as sharp as with the IC7 board, which probably is caused by the
lower DIMM voltage and possibly also because the north bridge actually
isn’t actively cooled.
At 271MHz the clock stopped for the Lanparty board. A respectable speed
by a so far very promising motherboard. At tests of this kind I can
do nothing but praise the voltage/reset-buttons, which DFI have mounted
on the board’s PCB. In my eyes this is a feature, which should become
industrial standard. Apart from this I haven’t got very much more to
say about the board. Assumed that DFI will correct the low memory voltage
in coming BIOS, DFI’s Lanparty board continues to make the impression
of a very complete motherboard. Let’s look at the next candidate in
the form of EPoX EP-4PCA3.
Overclocking
Here
the theoretical overclocking potentials of the motherboard are valued
through practical tests.
Highpoint
374, 4xATA133 channels with RAID support (0/1/0+1)
SATA
controller:
2x
150MB/s via the Southbridge with RAID 0 support
Networks
circuit:
Broadcom
10/100Mbit
Audio
circuit:
6-channels
C-Media circuit, AC97 Codec
FireWire
(IEEE-1394):
–
USB
2.0:
4
ports on the back panel + possibility to 2×2 via brackets (not included)
Price:
~220$
EPoX 4PCA3+
looks something like a medium board according to the specifications. Decent
accessories and features at an acceptable price, but whether the first impression
is the right one remains to be seen.
Price
and Accessibility
4PCA3+ is a
board with the price set on one or two levels above the cheapest boards in
the test, but with a big margin to the major boards like ABIT IC7-G and DFI
LanParty Pro875. The accessibility is also good, as usual with EPoX boards
we must say. The Canterwood-chipset is still a relatively expensive chipset
and even if the price is decent, there are multiple cheaper boards in this
segment, especially the Springdale-based ones but even other Canterwood-boards
Price/Accessibility
We
compare price with equal products and also accessibility among retailers.
Accessories
and Features
The package
with accessories follows the same pattern as ABIT IC7. Two S-ATA-cables
with electricity supply, one I/O-shield, two rounded ATA133-cables, one
floppy cable and one gameport bracket. And of course the necessary drivers
are included in the package. The software package isn’t anything special
either. In addition to the installation software the package includes the
sanctifiers PC-Cillin and the out-of-date Norton Ghost 7 from 2001. It’s
really a pity that they didn’t put more energy on the packaging. The costs
must be held low, that’s right, but one extra bracket to be able to use
more USB-ports, as an example, couldn’t possibly raise the price that much?
The integrated
features is built up by an integrated 6-channels soundcard from C-MEDIA,
two S-ATA ports which we can thank the southbridge ICH5R for (Yeah, they
have RAID 0 support), 10/100MBit networks circuit from Broadcom, up to 8
USB 2.0 ports (although, some more brackets is needed to be able to use
more then the 4 which are on the back panel) and last but not least a Highpoint
374-controller. As a matter of fact this is a really nice one with its four
ports which one can connect up to eight ATA66/100/133 units. If you are
a little peckish to use RAID, also that’s possible since the circuit supports
RAID0/1/0+1. That EPoX didn’t bother about the Firewire support is a little
unfortunate when it shouldn’t have been too much of a problems to integrate
such a chip and still hold the affectivity of the costs. All by all the
accessories/features-part of 4PCA3+ is pretty the same as the one on ABIT
IC7’s, but the integrated Highpoint controller and the integrated LAN circuit
raises its level a few steps.
Accessories/Features
We
look at the amount and usefulness of included accessories and integrated
features.
EPoX continues
their tradition to use the very boring green PCB, even on their Canterwood
boards. This becomes extra evident when the other mainboards in this roundup
has been equipped with aesthetically more pleasing appearance. Anyway,
you should never judge the book by its cover as you all know, so instead
we browse to chapter three where there is written something about mainboard
design if I’m not completely wrong.
As usual
we start with the socket which is placed on the very top of the mainboard’s
edge. The sockets position is good, apart from some condensators which
are located a bit too close to it. This is a common phenomenon though,
and most of the bigger radiators shouldn’t be too hard to assemble. The
12V-contact is terribly placed though. We find it below a few condensators
next to the back panel and to creatively need to pull the 12V-cable around
half the chassi doesn’t make anyone happier. Immediate risk that something
gets stuck in the fan if you aren’t enough careful with the cables. The
ATX-contact and the DIMM-slots are better located though. To have the
ATX-contact as high and as close as possible to an edge is worth striving
for, since you gladly have as few cables as possible in the lower part
of the case.
The area
between the AGP-port and the DIMM-slots is however pretty messy. Here
there are some dangerously located condensators. The DIMM-slot’s hooplocks
makes no problem since they are located enough far away from them, though.
Although, the northbridge heatsink and the already mentioned condensators
are irritating. Cards equipped with bigger heatsinks might hit the northbridge’s
heatsink and to often change AGP-cards raises the risk to accidentally
break one of the condensators when you finger around the AGP-lock. The
cooling of the northbridge is less exclusive and constitutes of a quite
big, passive heatsink.
On the pictures
below we see the Highpoint controller which controls four extra IDE-ports.
Of course these have RAID-support and thus you can totally connect up
to eight IDE-units on it. Next to the red IDE-contacts we also find the
two S-ATA-ports the board is equipped with. Even a POST-display can be
found here. During the boot procedure different codes are being presented
here which will help to identify eventual problems during the boot-up.
Even the
internal USB-connections can be found next to the Highpoint controller.
As if it wouldn’t be enough already, the FloppyDrive-contact can be found
in this corner too. The amount of PCI-slots is five, exactly as on the
other boards. The back panel has the usual connections. There are four
USB-ports and we have to survive without any Firewire.
The layout
on the EPoX-board leaves me with divided feelings. The 12V-contact is placed
more or less catastrophic and the same goes for the Floppy-contact, but
then there aren’t much more to whine about. Sure, the lower right corner
is a little too cluttered with contacts and such, and there is probably
a risk with the narrow surrounding of the AGP-port, but this wont be a
problem for the majority of the users. Overall the layout passes, but
EPoX still has some to learn from other boards in this roundup.
Layout/Design
We
have considered the physical but also the esthetical aspects of the
board’s design. User-friendliness is also an important factor.
Time
has come to take a look at the third Phoenix AwardBIOS today.
Like always
we start with the most interesting section, one that EPoX has given
the name PowerBIOS.
Power BIOS?
The
FSB is adjustable in the range 100-355MHz and that is good enough for
even the more extreme user. When it comes to memoryratio we find the
same setting as those of the other candidates we’ve looked at this far,
i.e 1:1/5:4/3:2. The AGP is adjustable in the range 50-80MHz and you
can also fixate it. This far things seem to be exactly the way we want
the to be. Voltage is generously provided and we can pump out a maximum
of 3.2V through our expensive brandname-sticks. The AGP-voltage is adjustable
up too 2.2V. In both cases this is done in 1MHz intervals. And now for
the big disappointment, CPU-voltage. The maximum value is 1.6V and we
can adjust this setting in 0.0125V intervals. I think this restrictive
setting makes the BIOS of this board less attractive. This setting is
a bit strange given EPoX’s reputation and the other generous voltage-intervals.
Anyway, lets move on from this anxiety-ridden topic for a while.
The fastest
memorytimings is once again 2-5-2-2 while the slowest are so slow that
no one ever will use them. The remainder of this BIOS complies with
the standard-setup and contains a PC-Health section, one for the integrated
functions and so on.
BIOS
FSB
frequency:
100-355MHz (1MHz intervals)
AGP
frequency:
Lockable
and definable between 50-80MHz
CPU
voltage:
max 1.850v, 0.0125v intervals
DIMM
voltage:
max
3.2v, 0.1v intervals
AGP
voltage:
max
2.2v, 0.1v intervals
Exactly
what EPoX was thinking of when they decided to use 1.6V max voltage
on the CPU is beyond me. This leaves very little room for overclocking
and I dont understand how this setting can originate from the same
place as the otherwise generous voltage settings. Hopefully this
blunder will be adjusted in a comming BIOS but for now the only avaliable
BIOS is the one shipped with the board. Before this issue is resolved
I can’t bring myself to give a real topscore and that’s to bad because
the rest of this BIOS is really great.
EDIT:
Just a few hours after this review was finished we found out that EPoX
had released a new BIOS-version for 4PCA3+ where the CPU-Voltage was
upped to a maximum of 1.85V. This fact puts the BIOS in a totally different
light and the final score is upped a bit due to this. Unfortunalety
we didn’t have the possibility to redo the overclocking-tests once more
with the new BIOS – this means that the overclocking section remain
unchanged even though the new BIOS should improve the results considerably.
Bios/Settings
We
look at the layout of the BIOS and the settings at hand, both for
ordinary use and overclocking.
Överklockning
Even
the EPoX board clocked real well. 275Mhz was the best result and the soul
reson we didn’t get any higher was that the CPU-voltage was way to low.
As in the other tests memoryratio was set to 5:4 and the timing was set
to 2.5-3-6-3 where applicable.
The
EPoX-board gives the apperance of being a real bigwig when it comes to
overclocking but they have dug their own grave by limiting the vcore voltage
to a maximum of 1.6V. With higher vcore voltage I’m sure this board would
clock at least as high as ABITs IC7/IC7-G but what good does that do without
proof? We have to hope that this problem is fixed in a future version
of the BIOS because otherwise this is a very nice board.
Overclocking
Here
we evaluate the mainboards theoretic overclocking potential by the
means of practical tests.
2x
150MB/s via the southbridge with RAID 0 support
Networks circuit:
Intel
Pro 100 10/100 MBit/s
Sound
circuit:
6
channel sound via Realtek AC97 codec
FireWire
(IEEE-1394):
Texas
Instruments Firewire circuit which leaves two internal connections
for brackets
USB
2.0:
4
external ports on the backside, possibility for 2×2 extra via
brackets, 1x doubleport bracket is included
Price:
~
1400 SEK
As
we where given the board from one of Gigabytes distributors and not
from the manufacturer itself, we would sadly have
to do without the box. Despite this the content of the brown box was
the same as will be found in the stores.
Price
and Availability
Similar
to the ABIT IC7 this is the cheapest board we are looking at in this
roundup. The low price tag also match the ones of the Springdale boards,
which might present the Canterwood solution as a realistic one, even
for those who are not prepared to buy for but the minimum of expense.
The availability of the board is also very good, as already the board
is found in many retailers lists of what is to be sold, even if few
has actually gotten the board yet as it was released so recently. And
as such it might take a week or so until it will be fully available.
Price/Availability
We
compare price with equal products and also accessibility among
retailers.
Accessories
and Features
As
you surely have guessed by now the low price tag results in that accessories
is scarce. Here we find but the most essential such as the
manual, drivers, a flat cable, two S-ATA cables, a USB-Bracket and
a S/PDIF-Bracket.
If
you’ve read the other parts of the round-up you’ll know exactly what
I’m going to complain about. Where is my round cables? Why does one
always get but a single ATA cable and why do they insist on believing
that S-ATA hard drives are more common than the IDE hard drives? Is
the cost of including a P-ATA->S-ATA converter? Let us instead
take a closer look on the integrated features instead. You’ll start
with six available USB-ports with two more needing just a extra bracket.
Two internal connections for FireWire is available, but sadly the
brackets needed for them is not included. Thanks to the AC97-codec,
six channel sound is provided. The southbridge gives access to two
S-ATA ports with support for RAID 0. The network circuit is Intel’s
own but it is only a “ordinary” 10/100MBit/s Ethernet solution.
The GA-8IK1100
might not offer the largest bundle of accessories or features, but
when taking the price tag in mind the package offered is very acceptable
indeed. The integrated networks circuit makes the board getting a slightly
higher grade than the ABIT IC7.
Accessories/Features
We
look at the amount and usability of included accessories and integrated
features.
The marked
soldering points indicates that there is indeed planned space for components
not included in this rather unequipped version. These are to come in two
other versions.
Located
the upper end of the mainboard, the socket has plenty of space. The surrounding
capacitators are few and not in the way. As with many other cards though,
the 12V contact is located far from where we want it. Are whiny reviewers
the only ones who are disturbed by this? To move onward to the six DIMM-slots,
whose massive number of slots can only be used in special memory combination,
and as such not often will more than four of these slots be used.
The northbridge is fixed with a not too noisy active fan. Below it we
find the blue wonder i875p. Just like other manufacturers, Gigabyte has
chosen to equip their board with a AGP-pro slot, also making the board
suitable as a workstation as more professional 3d-cards can then be installed.
The distance between the AGP-slot and the DIMM-slots is adequate, even if
a few millimetres more would have been nice. We find the S-ATA ports in
the lower right corner together with a few soldering points. These
indicate where more integrated circuits will be placed on the more
luxurious versions of the board.
The board is equipped with the usual 5 PCI-slots. Some more unusual though
is that the board is equipped with dual BIOS, something Gigabyte has been
more or less the only ones to deliver as of yet. If something would happen
during the flashing of the ordinary BIOS, one could boot with the back-up
BIOS and try to fix the regular one. A very welcome function for those
of us BIOS-flashers. It is together with the dual BIOS where we find the
internal USB and FireWire contacts.
8IK1100 has a very good layout. One can only find a few small flaws causing
irritation which we believes Gigabyte could easily fix, and we hope they
will listen to us when it comes to this.
Layout/design
We
take a look at the physical but also aesthetical design. User friendliness
is an important factor.
Let’s
dive into the BIOS of the board.
The
FSB is adjustable between 100-255Mhz, which is more than enough even
for the more extreme user. When it comes to memoryratio we find practically
the same settings here as in the other candidates we’ve looked at so
far. The only differance is that Gigabyte has implemented DDR333 support
instead of DDR320 as the 5:4 dividers provide on the other boards. Of
course the AGP is possible to fixate, that is a must when overclocking.
But, what about the voltage settings? Vcore is adjustable up to 1.76V
in certain intervals while the DIMM-voltage is maxed out at 2.8V. Its
even possible to give the AGP a little extra juice by upping the voltage
to 1.8V.
The fastest
memory timings is once again 2-5-2-2 while the slowest is, well, real
slow. These settings are done in the Advanced Chipset section. In order
to find it you need to learn a little trick. Gigabyte has namely hidden
these settings and to get to them you have to press ctrl+F1. The thought
behind this is probably that they want to keep inexperianced users that
don’t know what they are doing from playing with the settings. This
might be a good time to ask oneself why they didnt bother to hide the
overclocking settings while they were at it. In my opinion it’s a painstaking
task to write commands every time I want to change a setting. The BIOS
is a place you want to spend as little time as possible in.
BIOS
settings
FSB
frequency:
100-355MHz (1MHz intervals)
AGP-frekvens:
fixable,
different presets
CPU
voltage:
max 1.76V varierande intervals
DIMM
voltage:
max
2.8V, 0.1V intervals
AGP
voltage:
max
1.8V, 0.1V intervalls
The BIOS-settings
on the 8IK1100 is not the best we’ve seen but they serve their purpose
well. The voltage settings could have been set a bit higher and personally
I would have been glad to adjust the timing of the memory without the
use of commands. Something that did, however, give you a reason to raise
your eyebrows is the fact that you have a separate section to handle
the boards double BIOS. Through this section you can update one of the
two BIOS with ease and you can even make backup copies of the BIOS.
This is something more manufacturers should ponder since it really makes
the BIOS flashing both safe and easy. Even though it has less impressive
voltage settings, the Gigabyte board finishes at the same grade as the
boards from ABIT and this is due to its innovative DualBIOS-feature.
Bios/Settings
We
look at the design and setting possiblities of the BIOS, both for
regular usage and for overclocking.
Overclocking
To
overclock the Gigabyte board was unfortunately not a pleasant sight.
Everything
above 256MHz FSB resulted in crashes and instability. In this case there
were also all sorts of setting possiblities to chose from, some of which
should have been able to solve the stability problem, but alas. The motherboard
simply didn’t want to go further than this. Sure, 50MHz is quite a bit,
but still it’s much lower than what the top boards are reaching without
any flaws. As there isn’t much more to say we go on to next board which
is MSI’s feature packed 875P Neo-FIS2R.
Overclocking
Here
the theoretical overclocking potential of the motherboard is valued
through practical tests.
Promise
20738 controller with 1x ATA133 connection RAID0/1
SATA
controller:
2x
150MB/s via the South bridge with RAID 0 support, 2x 150MB/s via Promise
20738 controller with RAID support (0/1/0+1)
Networks
circuit:
Intel
GigabitLAN
Sound
circuit :
6-kanals
via AC97 Codec
FireWire
(IEEE-1394):
3x
Internal, bracket with two ports is included
USB
2.0:
6
ports on the back panel + possiblity to 2x via enclosed brackets (which
are not added in the package)
Price:
~2100
As you can
see from the specifications of the MSI luxury-model of 875P Neo is packed
with goodies. You really have to look to find a more complete package than
this. As you soon will discover it’s not just the specifications that are
promising. Even the included software is namely very interesting.
Price
and Accessiblity
From a financial
point of view the MSI-board is in the same region as it’s obvious competitors
we’ve looked at earlier. This is why it feels a bit superfluous to comment
on the price once again since the arguments would be virtually the same.
The price is a tad much – that’s it. The avaliability is in roughly the
same area as the DFI Lanparty – pretty high but not quite as high as the
ABT-boards for example.
Price/Accessibility
We
compare the price with equal products and also accessiblity among swedish
retailors.
Accessories
and features
If the pricetag
is the same as that of the competitors, the accessory package is far from
standard. It’s a miracle the way this many accessories fit into the box.
There are well written manuals for both the motherboard and for the S-ATA-RAID
controller and, of course, fitting cables are included as well. There are
four S-ATA cables and you get an urge to replace all your discs for newer
S-ATA discs when you see the thin, orange cables. There are plenty of brackets
as well. S/PDIF, Firewire and USB each get one. I mentioned the software
package earlier and the time has come to take a closer look. If we’ll talk
about full versions for a minute I can tell you that the package contains
Adobe Photoshop Album, a program that you use to organize and view your
digital images with.
Then there are the classics from Intervideo, WinDVD and WinRip – the later
being a musicplayer. Farstone provides the program Virtual Drive that are
a virtual CD-drive emulator in accordance with Daemon Tools for example.
Farstone has also contributed with RestoreIT! which is a kind of recovery
application. Last but not least we have Media Dialer which is a voice service
application that you can use to call other users through your computer.
The most interesting application, Core Center, is provided by MSI themselves.
Core Center does not only monitor the system temperature and voltage, but
let’s the user overclock the CPU out of a Windows environment. We will look
closer at this feature in the overclocking section. For those of you wondering
by now I can tell you that drivers are included as well.
The integrated
features is every bit as interesting as the accessories. Neo FIS2R has everything
one could wish for. Four RAID-supported S-ATA-slots, Firewire, up to 8xUSB,
one extra ATA133-channel with RADI-support, GigabitLAN and six channel sound.
Can you ask for anything more? Well, a really fast graphics card, a 3GHz
800FSB processor and suitable memories and then you have a wicked system.
Neo FIS2R is simply begging for the best so why not sell the old discs and
only use S-ATA while you’re at it. In spite of very impressive features
och accessories MSI, just like DFI, falls precisely on the finishline when
it comes to the highest score in this evaluation. The highest score would
have to mean imaculate features and accessories, a tiny thing like a missing
P-ATA-for-S-ATA adapter would blemish the perfect score. If we had the possibilities
we would without doubt give the MSI 875p and the Neo-FIS2R a 9.9 grade point
average but unfortunalety our grading system isn’t flexible enough. 🙂
Accessories/Features
We
look at the amount and usability of enclosed accessories and integrated
features.
MSI
continues to use their red colored PCBs, and to be quite honest we think
it’s absolutely the right choice. This board also has the most of it’s
connectors color-coded and with MSI, the result is even fairly neat, except
for the sleazy color of the DIMM sockets. I can’t believe what a whiner
I am! 😉
Yet another
highly placed socket with lots of space around. Also, the 12V connector
is, in conformity with many other motherboards in this roundup, terribly
misplaced. All we want is the 12V connector to be placed right beside
the ATX connector and the DIMM sockets. Is that too much to demand? Since
the technicians at ABIT and DFI succeeded with this exploit, it couldn’t
possibly be that difficult, could it? Neo-FIS2R is MSI’s board for enthusiasts
and as such, it has to clock well to be successful. Overclocking requires
stable power supply and to ensure this, MSI has chosen to put heatsinks
on the most critical components. We’ll soon find out if this is an advantage
that will let us extort the board even more than its competitors.
The ATX contact
is located beside the IDE connectors and DIMM slots, just as we want.
Below the ATX contact is MSI’s Core-Cell circuit situated. This device
is monitoring the temperatures and voltages, but also regulates the speed
of the northbridge fan depending on system load and temperature. According
to MSI, the Cell-Core technology also allows more generous overclocking
abilities and a more reliable power supply.
The distance
between the AGP slot and the DIMM slots is more than adequate and capacitors
nearby the AGP slot are low and far away enough to not cause any trouble.
On the picture on the very right, you can see the internal Firewire connectors
in green and the USB in yellow.
And what
do we have here then? It’s as many as five PCI slots, just as on the other
boards in this roundup. The area around the southbridge, however, is very
interesting. Here we can find the four S-ATA contacts of the board, as
well as the additional ATA133 channel which the integrated Promise circuit
delivers. The backplate is abundantly equipped, but it would’ve been even
better if it contained Firewire too.
MSI has done
well with the layout of this board. The only point of annoyance is the
misplaced 12V connector, which already has been given too much attention
in this review. If a tad more energy had been put on this, the result
would have been absolutely flawless.
Layout
We
have considered the physical but also the esthetical aspects of the
board’s design. User-friendliness is also an important factor.
The
MSI board comes with an AMI-BIOS and as we soon are going to see, there
are a lot of things to play with.
The system’s bus
speed, for example, may be defined between 100 to 500 MHz in 1MHz intervals.
Naturally, this is way more than any CPU can handle today, but it feels
good to know that we at least have the possibility. Regarding the memory
speeds, they can be set to 266, 333 or 354 MHz for 533 FSB processors
and 400, 500 or 523 MHz for 800 FSB processors. The AGP and PCI clock
is of course lockable, but can also be set to anything between 33.3/66.6
– 75.5/151 MHz with 0.5/1 MHz intervals.
Now,
on to the most interesting part of the board’s BIOS – the voltages. The
CPU voltage is definable 1.55V to a whopping 2.30V. The latter is certainly
nothing we recommend, although it should satisfy even the most frenetic
overclockers. The DRAM voltage isn’t that bad either. Here we may choose
freely between 2.50 to 3.30V (0.05V intervals). Last but not least is
the AGP voltage, which can be raised to 2.1V (initially 1.5V). Does
one dare to speculate in how many boards that’ll be returned by RMA because
of burned components?
Concerning
the timings, the settings follow the standard recipe. 2.5-7-3-3 is the
slowest while 2-5-2-2 is the fastest. The rest of the BIOS doesn’t have
any major surprises. The integrated components may of course be shut
down or turned off at pleasure, and naturally, MSI also has a PC Health
section. Below you can find a table of the most important overclocking
settings.
1.5V-2.1V
(1.5V-1.8V with 0.05V intervals, 1.8V-2.1V with 0.1V intervals)
Neo-FIS2R
probably has everything one could ever want in a BIOS. Those who are
looking for an extreme board for pairing together with a Prometeia, or
some other kind of super-cooling solution, should really bear the MSI
875P Neo FIS2R in mind at the time of purchase. Words such as "voltage
modding" are probably nothing we’ll use when speaking of the NEO-FIS2R.
Bottom-line, a more downright BIOS than this is yet to be found. Thumbs
up for MSI that really shocked us with all its options. Our only complaint
is the lack of a DualBIOS feature, similar to the one on Gigabyte’s
motherboard. But then again, we probably hadn’t complained if it weren’t
for the Gigabyte board’s contributory in this review.
BIOS/Settings
We
look at the layout of the BIOS and the settings at hand, both for
ordinary use and overclocking.
Overclocking
The overclocking
went all to blazes, despite all the nice options, or more accurately not
at all. Each time we rebooted the board with raised FSB settings, it resulted
in a pitch-black screen. The board was assuredly running but we didn’t
get a signal. Of course, we tried with different memory modules but the
result remained alike. We’ve together with MSI tried to solve this problem
without success. Instead, we’ll receive a new board shortly and test it
as soon as the circumstances allow us to. We’re afraid that we can’t wait
for a new motherboard as the article already is dreadfully delayed. We
will do our best to update this section along with the benchmarks as soon
as we can.
Overclocking
Here
we evaluate the mainboards theoretic overclocking potential by the
means of practical tests.
Quake
3:Arena v1.32
Unreal Tournament 2003 demo v.2206
3Dmark2001 SE 330
Comanche 4 benchmark SPECviewperf
7.1
Winace v2.20
Audioactive Production Studio 2.04j (Fraunhofer II encoder)
SiSoft Sandra 2003
WCPUID
All
of the tests are performed with the same memory settings, which
means Dual Channel DDR400. The function Hyper-Threading is also
enabled in the tests. To get a fair comparison, the timings of the
memory we were using was 5-2-2-2 on all of the boards. Although,
the MSI 875P Neo-FIS2R gave us some problems with our GeIL-memories
since the board couldn’t identify them as DDR400, just as DDR266.
Instead we had to use a pair of Corsair XMS PC3200 memories. The
problems didn’t really end though since the most aggressive timings
resulted in crashing 3D-applications. To get the board stable we
had to use the timings 2.5-6-2-2 instead. We have discussed these
problems with MSI and they are working their asses off with making
new BIOS-updates which will solve the memory bugs. We are going
to try to get another copy of the board to see if the first one
was a true mondayexample or not.
We also want to take the chance to give you a little more information
about ABIT IS7 which is our reference board for the Springdale-chipset.
At the last moment we got our hands on ABIT’s latest BIOS-update
to this mainboard which among other things contains various tweaks
to reproduce the support for PAT even on the Springdale-chipset,
at least something which looks like PAT. You’ll soon see how it
works, but it’s worth to mention before the performance tests.
Well,
let’s go on with the work then. We start the testing with checking
the real FSB on all of the mainboards when they are set to the standard
value 200 MHz.
In
other words, most of the boards work pretty near the BIOS set 200
MHz. The EPoX-board is the only one which differs a bit with its
201,45MHz. A minimal advance which hardly will affect the performance
results to a great extent.
As
usual, the performance tests begins with SiSoft Sandra 2003.
As
usual we start with the memory testing, which is done with SiSoft
Sandra 2003. Buffered memory benchmark is the default memory test
in the application, thus we also begin with the result from it.
Here
we directly see that the differences are really small between the
boards. That the MSI-board comes on the last position is simply due
to the fact that we couldn’t use the timings 2-2-5-2 on this board.
Instead we had to use 2.5-6-3-3 to get full stability in all the
tests. Springdalebased IS7 really impresses with its huge performance
which is everything else then far from the larger brothers.
Niether
in the unbuffered memory benchmark test the differences are worth
mentioning. The only thing which really comes as a shock here is
that the Springdaleboard IS7, as a matter of fact, beats the Canterwoodboards.
A really interesting result we can’t explain at all. The common
denominator for the two upcoming tests is compression. Click next
to see how the boards manages Winace respectively MP3-encoding.
At
filecompression memory bandwitdh is of the essence.
As could be expected the results are almost identical. The Springdale-based IS7
falls behind a bit but its worse for the MSI-boards. The slow
timing
we had to use in order to guarantee 100% stability slowed the
board down quite a bit.
MP3
encodning (Fraunhofer II codec)
Once
again practically identical results appear. The Canterwood boards
give similar results. Again, the MSI boards falls behind. ABIT’s
IS7 on the other hand that without trouble handles aggressive timing
finds their place between the MSI and it’s Canterwood brothers.
Game performance test are done, as usual, and they are to be found
in the next section.
In
a customary manor we start of with the old grindstone Quake 3. This
is a game that loves memory bandwitdh and fast processors. The results
gets a bit curious when the MSI boards prove to be the fastest of
them al in spite of the slow timing we had to use. The runner up
is the ABIT Springdale IS7 which actually surpass the manufacturer’s
own topboards IC7/IC7-G. Besides, the Q3-tests are the ones giving
the most variating results from board to board. In other words, if
you are going to play Q3 you should choose board based on this figure
;).
In
UT2003, on the other hand, the differances are almost insignificant.
ABIT’s IC7 takes home first place while the IS7 gets the jumbospot.
The differance between the first and the last is 1.18 FPS, ridiculously
small differance.
Testdemo
Even
in the Comanche 4 test we have narrow margins. The top and the
bottom score is not even separated by one frame.
Everybody’s
favourite test 3DMark 2001 is handeled best by the EPox-Board
with almost 15300 points. The rest of the gang is not far behind
apart from the MSI-board that slips behind together with the
Springdale IS7. Next stop will be advanced 3d-performance with
the help of SPECviewperf.
The
advanced 3D benchmarks are performed by SPECviewperf 7.1. For
those of you that aren’t familiar with SPECviewperf, it is a
benchmarking program which contains 3D renderings from six different
3D applications from today’s market which are used in professional
situations. Following tests are run:
These
benchmark tests are run in windows, and are therefore affected
by the system’s desktop resolution. During all our tests, we
used a resolution of 1024x768x32 and a frequency at 85 Hz.
And
the scenario repeats itself. The results are fairly even and
it’s essentially impossible to select a definite winner. The
MSI board shocks us by it’s total domination in some of the
tests, despite the fact that it’s run with lower timings than
the other boards. ABIT’s IS7 Springdale board also asserts itself
with good results and doesn’t have the slightest problem with
keeping up with its bigger brothers. To conclude, we may point
out that the boards’ performance is almost identical so it
doesn’t really matter which board you buy.
Instead, the price and accessories/feature package should
be decisive in the choice of motherboard. The Canterwood chipset
is actually the fastest one available to date and the performance
grade for all of the boards based on it is thus 9,5.
A 10 is out of the question since the Springdale chipset is
almost as fast at a considerably lower price. Regarding the
MSI motherboard, the lower performance is a consequence of
the memory timings, which gave us a lot of trouble. Both the
i87P and the i865PE chipsets have caused some problems with
the memory compatibility for the manufacturers, but it seems
that these are coming to an end with new BIOS upgrades. As
we said earlier, we have spoken to MSI and we will update
the benchmark results as soon as possible.
Lastly, a couple of performance tests in overclocked conditions.
Performance
In-depth
tests show how the motherboard’s performance is standing
up to competitive products on the market.
i875P:
9.5/10
Last
but not least, here are a couple of benchmark tests in overclocked
conditions. All of the boards had their memory ratios set to
5:4 and the timings that were used were 2.5-3-6-3, as the memory
otherwise wouldn’t have reached speeds as high as DDR448 MHz.
Due to the problems with our MSI board, it is omitted from these
tests.
As
we can see, there’s a lot to earn by overclocking the boards.
ABIT’s IC7 board makes a great impression. With its sovereign
BIOS and solid build, ABIT shows us what Intel overclocking
will be like in the nearest future. Also the EPoX and DFI boards
show great potential. We are truly convinced that the EPoX board
could do with a tiny BIOS adjustment of maximum Vcore, which
would improve overclocking even further. Regarding the FSB,
these boards are by all means able to handle a higher FSB than
280, but our CPU was getting too hot at higher frequencies and
voltages. Lastly, we will summarize our conclusions drawn from
this roundup.
Intel’s
875P chipset offers superb performance, which we have seen today,
provided that it’s paired together with a new 800MHz FSB processor.
If one’s aiming to get the fastest motherboard available, it has
to be based on Canterwood. To date, there are no other chipsets
available from neither VIA nor SiS with support for 800 MHz FSB.
The price conscious, however, will do right by checking out the
cheaper Springdale boards first. ABIT’s IS7, for example, which we
used as a reference board in this roundup, shows an astonishingly
solid performance which almost equals with the Canterwood boards
– and all this for a much lower price. Moreover, it will be fairly
interesting to follow the manufacturers’ BIOS updates for their
Springdale based boards, as a handful of manufacturers already are
boasting PAT support with new BIOS versions. We are also happy to
announce that a review of ABIT IS7 will become available shortly.
If
we should go on-topic again, we may point out that the 875P chipset
has a lot to offer when it comes to integrated peripherals due to
the new south bridge, which has given the manufacturers the ability
to build cost-effective but still feature rich motherboards. This
has really been proved in this roundup and no board that we’ve tested
has been stingingly equipped.
Beyond that, it is easier to keep the PCB’s surface clean from controller
circuits, which in other cases are required to support a stabile
set of features. This results in a cleaner overall appearance of
the motherboard, which also has shown in our tests.
It also appeared that the motherboard manufacturers are finally
putting some effort into the packaging and bundled accessories.
MSI and DFI show the way with crammed cardboard boxes. The other
manufacturers remain a tad modest, but yet show us that they’ve
learnt a couple of things since last time. However, features and
performance are not the only keywords we’d like you to remember.
Overclocking is actually something that i875P manages elegantly,
given that the manufacturers put some effort into making overclock-friendly
motherboards. This also leads us directly to this evening’s distribution
of prizes.
The first place is shared by to close relatives, which have proven
themselves to overclock better than any other Canterwood motherboard
we’ve seen. They have a rich set of features at their disposal and
last but not least are very beautiful.
Obviously, I am talking about ABIT’s IC7 and IC7-G boards. These
two boards made a great impression with their solid performance and
stability. Of course, a first place also comes with a medal, or
at least a small statue.
The MSI board opted for an interesting opponent, but the stability
issues we encountered with our test board prevented it’s success
early in the review. It’s most likely a defective copy, since MSI
hasn’t received any other reports of similar problems from other
sources. The board is thus not given a true final grade, as we instead
will try to get a fully working copy and simply update the review.
But those grades we managed to set are absolutely promising.
There has been some controversy about the EPoX motherboard since
it was reviewed. This is due to the new BIOS release that improved
its overclocking potential remarkably and came out shortly after
this review had been put up on the website. As you may read in the
BIOS section of this article, we have been unable to redo the tests,
but the board would undeniably have performed better in this respect,
as the CPU voltage now may be raised to 1.85V.
DFI has with its Lanparty series taken a new step in the motherboard
development and now offers a package of accessories never seen before.
The board itself is also crammed with features, and the only thing
missing is firewire, which however feels like a trifle in this matter.
Unfortunately, the board is not surprisingly priced high, and it’s
BIOS and overclocking abilities can’t compete with high-end boards,
but we still recommend this board to anyone who’s eager to be seen.
There’s actually no board that we can’t recommend among the boards
we’ve tested, but we all have our favourites. In the present situation,
the market of motherboards has come to a point where you can get
exactly the board you want most of the time, and our assignment as
reviewers has more or less become to enlighten you readers about
what options that are available.
We at the editorial
office, however, think of ABIT as the victor in this duel, but we’re
still truly disappointed that we can’t give you a complete judgement
of the MSI 875P Neo-FIS23 for the time being, which seems to be
a motherboard with a capital M for that matter.
ABIT
IC7/IC7-G
That
was all for this time. Below you can find a summation of the different
grades. Questions and discussions about these boards are highly welcome
in the current thread.
ABIT
IC7-G
Pros:
+ Superb performance
+ Exceptional overclocking potential
+ Lots of features and accessories
+ Supreme BIOS
