With the release of Intel’s new LGA775 Pentium 4 there is of course a need for new motherboards. Along with these new motherboards come new peripheral slots for video cards and other future cards. Though much of the technology being used with these new motherboards is still quite new and has a long future ahead it is nice to see some change and innovation. This motherboard uses regular DDR because it uses the PX915G chipset however with the PX925 chipset you will be able to use DDR2 which will be something reviewed in the near future. For now though let’s take a look at what this new motherboard has to offer.
There is much to say about this new chipset which could be a complete article in itself. The chipset will be looked over briefly to get an understanding of the new technology and features. Aside from the new LGA775 socket which removes the pins from the processor and are now in the socket there is much more to be seen. PCI Express buses can deliver over 3.5 times more bandwidth for I/O and graphics cards than PCI and AGP8X respectively. From the block diagram below it can be seen that PCI offers 133MB/s while PCI-Express x1 offers 500MB/s which is a considerable improvement. Support for both the built-in Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900, which supports widescreen LCD displays and accelerated DirectX 9, plus support for PCI Express graphics cards makes this ideal for the low end non-gamer to someone who wants a great video card for high FPS. Intel’s High Definition onboard audio supports 7.1 surround sound, Dolby Digital, and DTS. The onboard audio also supports 192 kHz quality, multiple streams, and better voice input for speech recognition and voice-over-IP.
With all that being said about the chipset lets see how much of it was integrated into Albatron’s motherboard.
Specifications
Intel PentiumR4 Processor (Prescott)
Socket 775 with FSB 533/800 MHz
4 DDR 333/400 Memory Sockets ( Dual Channel)
1*PCI Express x 16, 2*PCI Express x 1, 3*PCI Slots
8 Channel HD Audio,Marvel l Gbits Ethernet LAN & VIA 10/100 Ethernet LAN
4 Serial ATA150 Channels, IDE RAID 0,1,0+1/ATA133,
Integrated 3D Graphics Engine (Share memory maximum 8 MB)
8 USB 2.0/1.1 Ports (4 ports by optional cable)
Processor
Socket 775 Intel PentiumR4 Processor (Prescott)
FSB
533/800 MHz
Chipset
North Bridge : Intel 915G (Grantsdale G)
South Bridge : Intel ICH6
IDE RAID Chip: ITE IT8212F
LAN Chip : Marvell MV8001 1Gbits /VIA VT6105 10/100 Ethernet LAN
HD Audio Codec : Realtek ALC880
I/O Chip: Winbond Smart I/O W83627THF
Memory
4 * DDR Sockets:
DDR333/400 NON-ECC DDR SDRAM up to 4GB
Expansion Slots
1 x PCI Express x 16
2 x PCI Express x 1
3 x PCI slots (PCI 2.3 compliant)
IDE Connectors
1* ATA100 Channel, up to 2 ATA 100 IDE devices
2* ATA133 Channels, up to 4 ATA 133 IDE devices
Onboard I/O Connectors
1 x Floppy Connector
2 x USB 2.0/1.1 header (4 ports by optional cable)
1 x CD_IN header
1 x S/PDIF in/out header (S/PDIF in/out cable optional)
1 x CPU fan header ( 1 fan rotation detection function )
2 x System fan headers ( 2 fan rotation detection function )
1 x 10 pin system panel header (Intel spec)
1 x 3 pin Power LED header
1 x Front audio header (Intel spec)
1 x IrDA header
1 x Case Open detection header
I/O via Back Panel
PS/2 keyboard/mouse, 4 x USB(2.0/1.1), 2x RJ45 ,1 x Com(serial), 1 x Parallel, 1xLine-in/Line-out(Speaker Out)/MIC/SUR_CEN/SUR/R:WOF,L:CEN
Power
24-pin ATX power connector, 4-pin ATX 12V power connector
BIOS Feature
4Mb Flash EEPROM
Award BIOS with ACPI, DMI2.0, PnP, WfM2.0, Green Suspend to RAM (S3), Suspend to Disk (S4) Wake on keyboard/mouse, Wake on LAN/RTC Timer
Hardware Monitoring
3 FAN sensors, CPU/System voltages and temperature monitoring
Special Feature
Zero Jumper Design
Adjustable CPU frequency by 1 MHz increment, Adjustable Vcore, VAGP, VMemory for overclocking
Watch Dog Timer (auto-reset system when it can not handle overclock configurations)
Certifications
FCC, CE, BSMI
Form Factor
ATX (244mm x 305mm)
The top of the box is very shiny and has some sort of alien on it. On the back of the box there is a picture of the motherboard as well as some specifications and features. Lately Albatron has been using these very shiny and reflective boxes which are pretty nice looking.
There are two manuals provided, one for the motherboard and one for the RAID controller. There is also a DIY installation guide which gives you an overview of what everything is on the board and how to quickly get your system up and running.
One SATA and three ATA133 cables are provided for use with the motherboard. It would have been nice to get some more SATA cables and a floppy cable in case you do not have any and need them. Included to accompany the SATA cable is a SATA power adapter to use if your power supply does not have any SATA connections. A USB 2.0 header with four connections and backplate are also included. Along with all of these other extras a driver CD and Albatron case badge are included.
Albatron has gone with a blue PCB for this motherboard which looks quite nice. The overall board layout looks pretty good however this being my first experiance with this type of motherboard I will have to see how everything works out during the installation. Because there is such a drastic change with this motherboard compared to other Intel or AMD motherboards there will be a lot to inspect.
This motherboard has a lot of connections on the back of it. Aside from the PS/2, serial, parallel ports which are common to most motherboards there is also onboard video, 7.1 audio, gigabit NIC, 10/100 NIC, and four USB 2.0. Onboard video is nice for lower end systems which will save some people money on buying a separate video card. The socket is one of the biggest changes that comes with the new LGA775 standard. There are now shorter capacitors around the socket and four holes for mounting the heatsink.
Dual channel DDR1 is still used with this motherboard. With the Intel 925 chipset DDR2 is used which takes over where DDR1 ends. The ATX connector is up in the upper right of the motherboard along with the floppy connector and Winbond WB3627THF I/O controller chip. Also new on this motherboard is PCI-Express which should eventually take over AGP like DDR2 will take over DDR1.
The red slot at the top is PCI-Express x16 which takes the place of AGP and will accommodate your video card. The two blue slots below that one are PCI-Express x1 which will accommodate other cards that are currently PCI. Two big advantages to PCI-Express x1 is higher bandwidth, up to 500MB/sec and point-to-point topology giving each device the full throughput.
Directly to the left of the original PCI slots is the Marvel 88E8001-LKJ gigabit controller and VIA VT6105 10/100 LAN controller. To the right of the PCI slots you can see the IT8212F ATA133 IDE RAID controller and two USB headers which you can plug your header into.
The 915G (Grantsdale G) northbridge is covered by a passive gold heatsink. To the left of the northbridge is the 12v power connector, a three pin fan header, and a new four pin fan header. The four pin fan header is new and allows for better thermal monitoring by the system.
The four ping header is capable of Pulse Wave Modulation which basically means when your system goes below 30 degrees it decreases the voltage by half also reducing the RPM by half. This will be a very good thing and is long past due in my opinion, hopefully heatsink manufactures will take full advantage of this. The Intel ICH6 southbridge is also covered by a passive gold heatsink. As seen on the introduction page the southbridge is the main control for most of the sub system devices.
There is only a single BIOS for this motherboard and it is in the bottom left corner below the PCI slots. To the right of the BIOS are the front audio, SPDIF, CD-in, and gameport headers. The bottom right of the motherboard is where most of the connectors are. Along with the normal fan header and jumpers there are four SATA and three IDE connectors, all capable of RAID.
This Phoenix AwardBIOS main screen is like that of most motherboards allowing you to get information on and change the time/date, IDE channels, A & B drives, halt on, and get some memory information. In the advanced section you are able to change the boot order and go into four sub sections which are: advanced BIOS features, advanced chipset features, PnP/PCI configuration, and frequency/voltage control.
The advanced BIOS section is where you can make some changes to Hyper-Threading, Virus Warning, and some other items. The only thing I did in here was to turn the Intel OSB Logo off. The advanced chipset section is where you will do all of your memory tweaking and CAS adjustments. This section of the BIOS is important and doesn’t look to be lacking any functionality and should assist in overclocking.
The frequency/voltage control menu is where you will do all of your overclocking. You have the ability to change the multiplier, FSB, and PCI speed settings. You can also change the voltage for the DDR (+0.4v), northbridge (+0.3v), and CPU voltage (1.9v max). Overall I would say that the overclocking section is pretty basic, the biggest thing missing I think is a CPU:DDR divider. There is no where in the BIOS to change this so you will be stuck overclocking at a 1:1 ratio. The hardware monitoring section allows you to view your systems temperatures, voltages, and fan RPM all of which is very useful and helpful information.
The peripherals section is where you can change the first input device and enable, disable, or modify onboard devices such as RAID, video, and sound. Finally the power section is where you are able to set how the system is powered on and off and what kind of suspend settings you want.
I will be using an AMD test bed to compare against this Albatron Intel motherboard. In the future I will review more Intel LGA775 motherboards which will be a better comparison. Because the Albatron PX915G Pro motherboard has a PCI-Express slot and the Albatron K8X800 Pro II motherboard has an AGP slot I had to use different video cards. Currently there are very few PCI-Express cards on the market because the factor is so new. The best card I had on hand was an Albatron PCX5750 and the closest AGP card I had was a XFX GeForceFX 5700 Ultra. Because the clock speed on the 5700 Ultra is much faster than that of the PCX5750 the benchmarks that stress the video card are going to reflect higher than if both motherboards were using equal video cards. Also keep in mind that I am using a 2.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 and a 2.0GHz AMD Athlon 64 which are also not equal.
Test systems
Albatron PX915G Pro, Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz LGA775, 1GB (2x512MB) Corsair TWINX1024-3200LL DDR400 (2-2-2-5), Albatron PCX5750 (425/500), 30GB 7200RPM Western Digital hard drive, Thermaltake Jungle512 heatsink, Windows XP SP1a and DirectX 9b.
Albatron K8X800 Pro II, AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz), 1GB (2x512MB) Corsair TWINX1024-3200LL DDR400 (2-2-2-5), XFX GeForceFX 5700 Ultra (300/950), 30GB 7200RPM Western Digital hard drive, Zalman 7000-Cu, Windows XP SP1a and DirectX 9b.
SYSmark 2004 Internet Content Creation
The overall score for SYSmark 2004 internet content creation was exactly the same for both of the systems. This was pretty surprising since it was the only benchmark that was exactly the same.
SYSmark 2004 Office Productivity
With the office productivity of SYSmark 2004 the Albatron PX915G Pro did a little better. The scores are not much different which could have been for many different reasons.
RealStorm Benchmark 2004
RealStorm does not test the video card at all which makes it a great benchmark for motherboards, CPUs, and memory. All of the options were left at the default except I changed it to 640×480. The K8X800 Pro II did substantially better than the PX915G Pro even thoguh the actual processor speed was lower.
SiSoft Sandra Memory Bandwidth Benchmark
Memory bandwidth was much higher with the PX915G Pro compared to the K8X800 Pro II. One major reason is because the K8X800 does not support dual channel memory.
Everest Home Edition Memory Benchmark
Everest is a free and good benchmarking tool for memory bandwidth. The Albatron PX915G Pro again has much higher memory scores compared to the K8X800 Pro II.
dBpowerAMP
dBpowerAMP is a free music converter which I used to convert a wav to mp3. The Albatron K8X800 Pro II converted it 3 seconds faster than the PX915G Pro.
FarCry v1.1
Using the Fort demo at 640×480 the Albatron K8X800 Pro II motherboard comes out on top which is probably due to it having a faster video card in it.
Unreal Tournament 2003
Unreal Tournament 2003 was run at 640×480 and the scores were a little higher with the K8X800 Pro II motherboard. Again a big part of the score difference is the video cards being unequal.
Comanche 4
Comanche 4 at 640×480 was again a little faster with the Albatron K8X800 Pro II because of the video card. The scores are not much higher so with equal cards the results would have been better with the PX915G Pro.
3DMark03
Lastly 3DMark03 at 640×480 gets better results with the K8X800 Pro II because of the better video card. It’s really too bad these cards are uneven.
Overclocking was a little tough and I was only able to reach 2956MHz which was a 11MHz FSB increase. To achieve this I had to increase the core voltage to 1.5v, DDR voltage +0.3v, and northbridge voltage +0.2v. Pushing the FSB any higher would cause the motherboard not to boot. Along with increasing the voltages I also relaxed the memory timings much as possible which didn’t change anything. The biggest thing lacking from this motherboard in the overclocking section is a good DDR:CPU divider which made things harder than they needed to be.
Conclusion
Because the LGA775 factor is in its infancy right now the complimentary technology is still a bit behind. PCI-Express holds a lot of good potential I feel but at this point AGP is still in charge.
Because PCI-Express is not ready to take over AGP there are not many video cards to choose from right now. Even with a slower video card like the PCX5750 many of the application benchmarks are better or close to that of the AMD system that I compared against.
The game benchmarks are not as easily comparable because of the clock speed difference in the two video cards used. I really do feel though that with equal video cards that the PX915G Pro would have done better in all of the testing. In the future I will be reviewing other LGA775 motherboards and PCI-Express at which time an equal playing field can be setup.
Overall I am impressed with this motherboard and am going to give it a 9/10 and award it the OCmodshop Seal of Approval. I would like to thank Albatron for sending me this motherboard to review.
Pros
- PCI-Express
- Impressive memory scores
- Gigabit and 10/100 NICs
- Onboard video for non-gamers
- 8 channel audio
- Impressive memory scores
- Blue PCB
Cons
- Not the best overclocker
- LGA775 still might be a little premature