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Index: Introduction Albatron PX485PE pro II DFI NB78-HL Epox EP-4PEA+ Gigabyte GA-8PE667 Ultra Soyo SY-P4X400 Benchmarks Conclusions |
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Albatron PX485PE pro II |
Specifications
| Processor | - Socket 478 Intel Pentium® 4 Processor (Willamette/Northwood) |
| FSB | - 400/533MHz and FSB667MHz setting available by overclocking |
| Chipset | - Intel 845PE/ICH4 - Intel 82562ET LAN chip - Winbond Smart I/O W83627HF - Promise PDC20376 ATA 133 RAID(0.1),Serial ATA 150 Controller |
| Memory | - Three DDR Slots - DDR333/DDR266 unbuffered /none-ECC DDR SDRAM up to 2GB ( DIMM1 1 bank+DIMM2,3 1 bank ) |
| IDE Ports | - 2 ATA100/66 channels, up to 4 ATA 100 IDE devices - 1 ATA133 RAID (0, 1) Channel, up to 1 ATA 133 IDE Hard Drives (Not supporting CD-ROM and ATAPI devices) |
| Serial ATA | - 2 Serial ATA150 Channels, up to 2 Serial ATA150 Hard Drives |
| Onboard I/O Connectors | - 1 x Floppy Connector - 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 header - 1 x 4 ports USB cable - 1 x CD_IN header - 1 x S/PDIF in/out header (S/PDIF in/out cable optional) - 1 x CPU fan header with 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 Front audio header (Intel spec) - 1 x IrDA header - 1 x Case Open detection header - 1 x Wake on LAN |
| I/O via Back Panel | - PS/2 keyboard/mouse, 2 x USB(2.0/1.1), RJ45, 1 x Com(serial), 1 x Parallel, 1x Game/Line-in/Lin-out/Mic-in |
| Expansion Slots | - 1 x AGP 4X slot (Supports AGP card running at 1.5V only) - 6 x PCI slots (PCI 2.2 compliant) |
| Form Factor | - ATX (244 mm x 305 mm) |
| BIOS | - 3Mb 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 |
| Other Features | - BIOS Mirror Protect BIOS by creating an original mirror image of itself - Voice Genie Voice Troubleshooting system ( four-Language ) - Zero Jumper Design - Adjustable CPU frequency by 1 MHz increment, Adjustable Vcore, VAGP, VMemory - Watch Dog Timer (Automatic reset the system when system lock up) |
Specifications as they are announced by the manufacturer. Not everyone are interested about this informations but here it is. Because the majority of the boards in this roundup uses the same chipset the specs will be much the same but there are some differences between manufacturers. There are also different amount of controllers etc. integrated into motherboards on different models of the board so this makes this list quite important.
Package
Albatron has quite ordinary bundle of items on their package. They provice three separate IDE-cables and one floppy cable and also one Serial ATA cable. Four USB2.0 connectors can be found on the separate rear bracket. All the necessary manuals are included and a driver-CD.
Connectors
On the back of the motherboard are the standard connectors. PS2 connectors for the mouse and keyboard, two USB2.0 connectors, RJ-45 for the network, printer and one serial port, game port and three audio connectors. One thing missing is the second serial connector.
LAN
Chips
Network is driven by Intel's 562ET chip, I/O is handled by Winbond W83627HF-AW and Promise's PDC20376 handles the Serial ATA and IDE-raid. PDC20376 is basically the same chip as 20276 that is IDE only controller but they altered the other IDE channel to be driven as Serial ATA-150. That is why the maximum theoretical speed of Serial ATA in this board will be 133 MB/sec. Realtek's ALC650 is responsible for the AC'97 audio.
BIOS Mirror
Albatron has adopted somewhat the similar technique that Gigabyte has used in their motherboards. There are two BIOS chips integrated with the motherboard. One is used for regular operations and the other can be used as a backup if the primary chip fails. This feature is great if you plan to flash the bios even once because flashing have the power to render your motherboard useless by busting the BIOS chip. Not any more on Albatron's motherboards with this new BIOS Mirror function.
Motherboard connectors
On the center of the image you can see the IDE-raid connector. It accepts two hard-drives and doesn't support any other IDE devices. On the both sides of Promise's RAID-controller are the two Serial ATA-150 -connectors. Raid modes 0 and 1 are supported but not 0+1. Red jumper on the bottom part of the image is for CMOS clearing. Dip-switches on the top part is to select language for the Voice Genie and mode for the BIOS mirror feature (normal/rescue).
Passive cooling
Albatron uses passive cooling on the North Bridge -chip. Seems to me that active cooling isn't necessary so it is nice to see that not all manufacturers like to add those small and noisy fans on to their motherboards. Also visible is ATX12V connector on top part of the image.
IDE + floppy + memory slots + power connector
PX485PE pro II provides three memory slots. You can notice that one of the slots is separated from the others. i845 only supports two slots with double sided memories. Three can be used with single sided. Ide and floppy connectors are placed quite close to each other so this may be an issue for some users.
Too close
Longer AGP cards like GF4 TI4600 will block the memory slots so you have to disconnect your display adapter from the motherboard before you can change the memory modules.
BIOS
BIOS
AMI BIOS screens may look strange for people more customed to Phoenix bioses but all the same stuff can be found underneath.
CPU volts: 1.1 - 1.850
AGP volts: 1.5, 1.6
DDR volts: 2.5 - 2.8
FSB: 100-248
Ratio: 2.0, 2.50, default, 2.66x
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