maverik-sg1
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Might a play with one of these when released:
EPoX EP-9U1697GLI-J
This single chipset from ULi needs no further introduction if you have read our reference board review. The EP-9U1697 supports the Support Socket-939 based AMD Sempron/Athlon-64/ Athlon-64 FX/ Athlon X2 , 1.6/2.0GTs Hyper Transport processors with up to 4800+. It has Four 184-pin DDR SDRAM DIMM sockets and support single-sided or double-sided 2.5v DDR-333/400/500 DIMMs with dual channel architecture in 128/256/512Mb technologies, support Asynchronous clocking mode between FSB and DIMM, support up to 4 GB system memory.
The board supports 2 IDE channels and 4 SATA II 3Gb/s RAID 0,1,0+1,5 ports. There are 8 USB ports (4 via rear panel). There are two LAN ports, one Fast Ethernet and the other a GbE. 8 Channel Audio is also supported through ALC850.
Most importantly, this is the one of the first boards to support 2 x 8 PCIe lanes for SLI compatible. NF4 SLI chipset is no longer the only chipset which supports SLI mode. You can now run two cards in tandem to improve your frame rates. In our tests, we even use Forceware 81.98 without problems. SLI bridge is not provided in the package.
The board also has Ghost BIOS feature which allows corrupted BIOS to be recovered easily. This can be accomplished by inserting the provided CDROM and pressing a key. Everything will be back to normal again.
EPoX has the tradition of making overclockable boards. Below are some of the voltage adjustments you can make with this board.
Chipset voltage adjust Yes, 2V +0.1V - +0.2V
DDR voltage adjust Yes, 2.5V – 3.2V
CPU Vcore Yes, 0.8V – 1.75V
HT bus voltage Yes ; 1.2V~1.6V
Clock adjust : 200 ~ 400MHz, CPU Multiplier 5x~25x
PCI-E speed range 100MHz – 200MHz
EP-9U1697/-J Specifications
CPU Socket:
Support Socket-939 based AMD Sempron/Athlon-64/ Athlon-64 FX/ Athlon X2 , 1.6/2.0GTs Hyper Transport processors with up to 4800+
Chipset:
ULi M1697
System Memory:
Four 184-pin DDR SDRAM DIMM sockets
Support single-sided or double-sided 2.5v DDR-333/400/500 DIMMs with dual channel architecture in 128/256/512Mb technologies
Support Asynchronous clocking mode between FSB and DIMM
Support up to 4 GB system memory
Expansion Slots:
Three PCI connectors compliant with PCI v2.3
One PCI-Express (x1) connectors compliant with PCI Express 1.0a
Two PCI Express (x16) connector compliant with PCI Express 1.0a
IDE:
Two IDE interface (up to 2 IDE devices) with UDMA-33, ATA-100/133 support from embedded IDE controller
USB:
Eight USB connectors compliant with USB2.0 from embedded USB controller (4 connectors at rear panel)
S-ATA RAID:
Four S-ATA II ports with up to 300MB/s from chipset with RAID 0,1,0+1,5
LAN:
One 10/100 Ethernet from Realtek RTL8201CL
One Gigabit Ethernet from Marvell 88E8053 (Colayout with 8055/8036) for 9U1697-J
Audio:
Selectable 2, 6 or 8-CH audio Realtek ALC850 AC’97 compliant CODEC
Support Aux-In, CD-In
Optical & Coaxial S/PDIF-out available on rear panel
Support Jack detection for fool-proof audio device installation
I/O:
Onboard EPoX EP-1308 LPC bus I/O controller
Legacy peripheral interface for PS/2 keyboard & mouse, FDD, Parallel, One Serial and IrDA (v1.0 compliant)
Hardware Monitoring for fan speed monitoring, CPU MOS and System temperature.
Intelligent fan speed control for CPU-fan (DC) and Chassis-fan for quiet operation
Special Features:
Support KBPO (Keyboard Power ON) function
Support Wake-On-LAN by PME
Onboard Post-Port LED display
Onboard EZ-Button for convenient power-on
Support Thermal Stick (Cable for optional)
Support Asynchronous clocking mode between HT frequency and PCI/PCI-E
PowerBIOS for excellent overclocking features:
Programmable FSB and PCI Clock output frequency with 1MHz fine tuning
Support BIOS adjustable CPU multiplier, FSB clock, PCI-E x16 clock, DIMM frequency
Support BIOS adjustable CPU Core voltage, Chipset voltage, DIMM voltage settings
Powerful utilities for Windows:
Thunder Probe for system hardware monitoring
Magic Flash for BIOS update without requiring DOS flash utility and bootable diskette
Magic Screen for personal bootup screen design
MAV's Comments:
I like the VCORE options and should be a snip at the price.
The uli M1697 chipset has 2x PCI-E x16 slots controlled by one chipset (no lag) so should be a good performer with the extra bandwidth for the high end cards.
Of course I still have not finished playing with the MSI board - it's just this could be a great mobo at an exceptional price - be a shame not to give the EPOX a go.
Mav
EPoX EP-9U1697GLI-J
This single chipset from ULi needs no further introduction if you have read our reference board review. The EP-9U1697 supports the Support Socket-939 based AMD Sempron/Athlon-64/ Athlon-64 FX/ Athlon X2 , 1.6/2.0GTs Hyper Transport processors with up to 4800+. It has Four 184-pin DDR SDRAM DIMM sockets and support single-sided or double-sided 2.5v DDR-333/400/500 DIMMs with dual channel architecture in 128/256/512Mb technologies, support Asynchronous clocking mode between FSB and DIMM, support up to 4 GB system memory.
The board supports 2 IDE channels and 4 SATA II 3Gb/s RAID 0,1,0+1,5 ports. There are 8 USB ports (4 via rear panel). There are two LAN ports, one Fast Ethernet and the other a GbE. 8 Channel Audio is also supported through ALC850.
Most importantly, this is the one of the first boards to support 2 x 8 PCIe lanes for SLI compatible. NF4 SLI chipset is no longer the only chipset which supports SLI mode. You can now run two cards in tandem to improve your frame rates. In our tests, we even use Forceware 81.98 without problems. SLI bridge is not provided in the package.
The board also has Ghost BIOS feature which allows corrupted BIOS to be recovered easily. This can be accomplished by inserting the provided CDROM and pressing a key. Everything will be back to normal again.
EPoX has the tradition of making overclockable boards. Below are some of the voltage adjustments you can make with this board.
Chipset voltage adjust Yes, 2V +0.1V - +0.2V
DDR voltage adjust Yes, 2.5V – 3.2V
CPU Vcore Yes, 0.8V – 1.75V
HT bus voltage Yes ; 1.2V~1.6V
Clock adjust : 200 ~ 400MHz, CPU Multiplier 5x~25x
PCI-E speed range 100MHz – 200MHz
EP-9U1697/-J Specifications
CPU Socket:
Support Socket-939 based AMD Sempron/Athlon-64/ Athlon-64 FX/ Athlon X2 , 1.6/2.0GTs Hyper Transport processors with up to 4800+
Chipset:
ULi M1697
System Memory:
Four 184-pin DDR SDRAM DIMM sockets
Support single-sided or double-sided 2.5v DDR-333/400/500 DIMMs with dual channel architecture in 128/256/512Mb technologies
Support Asynchronous clocking mode between FSB and DIMM
Support up to 4 GB system memory
Expansion Slots:
Three PCI connectors compliant with PCI v2.3
One PCI-Express (x1) connectors compliant with PCI Express 1.0a
Two PCI Express (x16) connector compliant with PCI Express 1.0a
IDE:
Two IDE interface (up to 2 IDE devices) with UDMA-33, ATA-100/133 support from embedded IDE controller
USB:
Eight USB connectors compliant with USB2.0 from embedded USB controller (4 connectors at rear panel)
S-ATA RAID:
Four S-ATA II ports with up to 300MB/s from chipset with RAID 0,1,0+1,5
LAN:
One 10/100 Ethernet from Realtek RTL8201CL
One Gigabit Ethernet from Marvell 88E8053 (Colayout with 8055/8036) for 9U1697-J
Audio:
Selectable 2, 6 or 8-CH audio Realtek ALC850 AC’97 compliant CODEC
Support Aux-In, CD-In
Optical & Coaxial S/PDIF-out available on rear panel
Support Jack detection for fool-proof audio device installation
I/O:
Onboard EPoX EP-1308 LPC bus I/O controller
Legacy peripheral interface for PS/2 keyboard & mouse, FDD, Parallel, One Serial and IrDA (v1.0 compliant)
Hardware Monitoring for fan speed monitoring, CPU MOS and System temperature.
Intelligent fan speed control for CPU-fan (DC) and Chassis-fan for quiet operation
Special Features:
Support KBPO (Keyboard Power ON) function
Support Wake-On-LAN by PME
Onboard Post-Port LED display
Onboard EZ-Button for convenient power-on
Support Thermal Stick (Cable for optional)
Support Asynchronous clocking mode between HT frequency and PCI/PCI-E
PowerBIOS for excellent overclocking features:
Programmable FSB and PCI Clock output frequency with 1MHz fine tuning
Support BIOS adjustable CPU multiplier, FSB clock, PCI-E x16 clock, DIMM frequency
Support BIOS adjustable CPU Core voltage, Chipset voltage, DIMM voltage settings
Powerful utilities for Windows:
Thunder Probe for system hardware monitoring
Magic Flash for BIOS update without requiring DOS flash utility and bootable diskette
Magic Screen for personal bootup screen design
MAV's Comments:
I like the VCORE options and should be a snip at the price.
The uli M1697 chipset has 2x PCI-E x16 slots controlled by one chipset (no lag) so should be a good performer with the extra bandwidth for the high end cards.
Of course I still have not finished playing with the MSI board - it's just this could be a great mobo at an exceptional price - be a shame not to give the EPOX a go.
Mav
