It just looked so nice right next to "sneak". We were debating between a "sneek peek", a "sneak peak", and a "snique pique" and you can see which one got the vote. ;)
Sorry for the error - proofing thousands of words per week, stuff does slip through occasionally. On the bright side, we can fix the errors as they're caught - revisionist publishing at its best.
good review. particularly so as i've become increasingly interested in the direction these new platforms will take.
however, i must say that i'm finding the obsession with SLI/Crossfire a bit overemphasized in every motherboard review i've read on the web as of late. now, i really do not have the exact figures at my disposal, but i'd say with a pretty high level of assumptive confidence that a significantly lower proportion of so-called "enthusiast" cyberpopulace makes use of these solutions, compared to traditional, albeit powerful single-gpu setup (think x1900xtx, or 7900gtx). "mainstream" segment falls into a non-SLI/CF category even more so...
therefore, when we have this opening sentence:
quote: ...Abit was generous enough to send us their mainstream Intel performance board...
, and this sentence in the conclusion:
quote: However, the lack of official dual X8 GPU capability at this time means you will have to look elsewhere for CrossFire or SLI support. This really is a huge oversight or mistake by Intel as this chipset certainly offers very good performance across the board.
, one has to ask him/herself: what really is the difference among "enthusiast", "mainstream", "value", and/or "entry-level" chipsets and mainboards? is it soon going to be a huge oversight or a mistake if a manufacturer leaves out SLI support on a "value" or "entry-level" MB?
Note the criticism is directed at *Intel* for not allowing manufacturers to make 2x8 PCIe configurations using P965. Given the cost of making that change, I would much rather have the option of using SLI/CF even if I never take advantage of it. One PCIe X16 slot is pretty much "value oriented" in my opinion these days.
Is it even possible to install WinXP from a PATA drive if the PATA port is 3rd party?
I just bought a very nice BenQ PATA DVD writer and I certainly won't get rid of it just to buy Plextor's crappy SATA DVD writer or the even more abysmal one from Samsung.
quote: Is it even possible to install WinXP from a PATA drive if the PATA port is 3rd party?
Yes, there is limited functionality in the bios that allows the system to recognize the PATA port upon boot and for it to be utilized to load the OS or drivers if the OS is already loaded. We have seen this operation on our first two 965 boards but have one board that would not allow the PATA port to be recognized until the drivers were loaded. We were told this would be corrected in the shipping bios.
Ok, I'm not sure I completely understand. I can boot up with my WinXP installation CD and then I'll have to install drivers for the 3rd party PATA controller before I can install WinXP? Is that about right? Does that mean that I need a floppy drive?
If the BIOS is designed correctly, it can make the base XP installation detect the 3rd party IDE without drivers. Some earlier IDE chipsets didn't work (back in nF3 and ealier time frame), but most IDE and SATA solutions will now work without a driver disk. You would still need the driver disk for RAID, and certain BIOS settings might require it as well.
it's going to take alot to convince me that abit's quality in electroitics(resistors,capicitors,pnp transistors and voltage regulators) hasn't overshadowed there so-called new make over. all i have to say is 'anyone remember the abit be-6 revision 2?? i do,,i also remember 12 hours after buying an abit mobo,,at least 14 caps literally blew up. so all this halla-ballhooey about the product line refreshment may just be hype. i'm not scowling at anyone at anandtech,,i believe and trust there reviews. who i don't trust is abit's choice in 2nd or 3rd rate electroitics. besides,,who cares,,this is a rather whimpy board. for the cost of this mobo,,you could easily spend 20 more bucks and get a ASUS A8R-MVP,,and have crossfire to boot. i'm sorry to sound so negative,,but abit left a bad taste in my mouth in 2000. and it has yet to have left. i honestly apologize to everyone at anandtech. not demeaning any of you guys,i totally trust your revievs. but i switched to amd,,and i only bought 1 abit board. and that will never happen again. i will ONLY use ASUS!!!
personally i find the inclusion of onboard audio on ALL motherboards to be quite the waste of consumer dollars. what kind of an "enthusiast" puts up with onboard audio? granted its more then fine for windows, but when you're aiming a mobo at an enthusiast you don't have to make him pay for some crappy soundchip that he'll never do more with then disable in the bios.
and yes, get rid of the floppy connector (usb version for those that can't live without them).
quote: personally i find the inclusion of onboard audio on ALL motherboards to be quite the waste of consumer dollars
Not quite that simple - it's actually cheaper to make mobos with audio than without it. With audio you have one manufacturing line cranking out mobos, just one model => CHEAP. If you wanna get mobos w/o audio, you gonna get TWO manufacturing lines cranking out mobos => EXPENSIVE. This is why they always produce only ONE SINGLE MOBO MODEL, EVERYTHING INCLUDED - all the floppy and legacy crap - 'cause that's CHEAP. You go to options, exclude this, exclude that blah blah - and the price -wooosh!- soars up to clouds and the blue sky :)
The problem here is the boneheaded optical drive manufacturers not using SATA on their drives, not Intel removing obsolete technology.
I say:
Get rid of PATA
Get rid of Floppy-drives
Get rid of mouse and keyboard ports
Then use all that lovely real estate on the board to put a digital tv receiver or bluetooth-module or wifi or firewire or just more USB-slots or whatever you want..
Please, what year is it now, 2006 or 1996.. floppydrive connectors on a "next-gen motherboard"??
quote: I say: Get rid of PATA Get rid of Floppy-drives Get rid of mouse and keyboard ports Then use all that lovely real estate on the board to put a digital tv receiver or bluetooth-module or wifi or firewire or just more USB-slots or whatever you want.
Until we have the replacements ready, completely removing support for older technologies is jumping the gun. We need a next-generation operating system that doesn't ever require a floppy drive (which we will get with Windows Vista). More importantly, we need SATA optical drives that are at least as good as the PATA counterparts, and with equivalent prices. Right now, I'm only aware of one company making SATA DVDR drives (Plextor), and the consensus seems to be that the drives aren't all that great. Widespread support for SATA optical drives (meaning software support -- what good is a DVDR if your favorite burning application doesn't support it?) is still lacking.
The end result is that every motherboard manufacturer that uses ICH8 is pretty much forced to include another chip on the motherboard to handle IDE support. Intel isn't getting rid of IDE support; they're just placing the burden of including such support on the motherboard manufacturers. Seriously, how many transistors does it take to support IDE? Perhaps the reason it was removed was to reduce pin counts on the Southbridge, but I doubt it. We're not even asking for anything special in terms of IDE support; just include the same old IDE support that has been present on motherboards for the past decade or so.
quote: We utilized the stock heatsink/fan in our normal testing but also verified a couple of larger Socket-775 cooling solutions would fit in this area during our overclocking tests.
We used the stock retail heatsink for all testing except overclocking. We use the Zalman for overclocking and also tried the Tuniq 120 for fitment issues.
Corrected - the retail HSF was used, but it doesn't really matter since we didn't perform thorough overclocking, noise, or temperature testing yet. As mentioned in the article, we're waiting for a new BIOS release with memory timing adjustments before we do that.
"This heatsink is part of the Abit Silent OTES technology that includes a heatpipe system and additional passive cooling for the VRM components. This system kept the MCH cool enough that additional chipset voltage was not a factor in our overclocking tests. Our only concern is the lifespan of the fanbut it is very quiet during operation"
You didn't mention anything about how well this board overclocks! I would think with this 'stable' power and the D805 you would have an excellent opportunity. I'm also thinking getting a mboard like this with a $100 D805 and wait out Conroe supply issue/price until XMAS....
Do you have any plans to investigate I/O performance on this chipset? Those Winrar benches suggests these were vastly improved somehow. Memory latency/bandwidth benchmarks would be nice too. All compared to 975x, nvidia and ATI chipsets (for the Intel platform).
Im thinking about getting a motherboard like this and a Pentium D 805....and then waiting for the prices to go down and performance to go up for the Core 2's after maybe 1 year to upgrade.
quote: in fact, we would like to see all motherboard manufacturers begin to only use X16 physical connectors for all PCI-E slots
Or atleast X4 physical connectors, if X16 slots make things cramped for capacitors and other parts on the board. And what's up with this trend of 5/6 expansion slots on high-end motherboards? There was a time when most boards had 7 expansion slots. I guess the elaborate heatpipe mechanisms for 2-chip core logic interfere (eg. M2N-SLI vs. M2N32-SLI) with more expandability.
Yes this is quite interesting, thank you very much Anand and Gary!
Things are heating up and getting very interesting. As the windup to Conroe gets underway a lot of folks are out buying mobo's now. I want to see more testing first, not really being yet committed more to the 975 or the 590. Have to be honest and say the 590 is proving to be more than I thought it was, but that's a good thing.
Thus I'm taking all this information in, and am grateful for your previews!
If the supply of Conroe processors will be much lower than the demand, one can expect the mainboard prices to decrease - if the supply of mainboards will be much higher than the supply of retail Conroe processors. So, buying mainboards in advance might prove a not so good idea.
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33 Comments
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mechBgon - Thursday, July 6, 2006 - link
Peak. A summit, a maximum value, etc.Peek. A quick look, a glance.
Pique. Annoyance, such as some people experience when "peak" and "peek" get swapped in full view of 2-3 million people. ;)
That is all. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled DailyTech program. :)7
JarredWalton - Saturday, July 8, 2006 - link
It just looked so nice right next to "sneak". We were debating between a "sneek peek", a "sneak peak", and a "snique pique" and you can see which one got the vote. ;)Sorry for the error - proofing thousands of words per week, stuff does slip through occasionally. On the bright side, we can fix the errors as they're caught - revisionist publishing at its best.
zsdersw - Thursday, July 6, 2006 - link
Pique can also mean to provoke or arouse.. as in: "His flashy outfit piqued my interest."commonuser - Thursday, July 6, 2006 - link
good review. particularly so as i've become increasingly interested in the direction these new platforms will take.however, i must say that i'm finding the obsession with SLI/Crossfire a bit overemphasized in every motherboard review i've read on the web as of late. now, i really do not have the exact figures at my disposal, but i'd say with a pretty high level of assumptive confidence that a significantly lower proportion of so-called "enthusiast" cyberpopulace makes use of these solutions, compared to traditional, albeit powerful single-gpu setup (think x1900xtx, or 7900gtx). "mainstream" segment falls into a non-SLI/CF category even more so...
therefore, when we have this opening sentence: , and this sentence in the conclusion: , one has to ask him/herself: what really is the difference among "enthusiast", "mainstream", "value", and/or "entry-level" chipsets and mainboards? is it soon going to be a huge oversight or a mistake if a manufacturer leaves out SLI support on a "value" or "entry-level" MB?
JarredWalton - Saturday, July 8, 2006 - link
Note the criticism is directed at *Intel* for not allowing manufacturers to make 2x8 PCIe configurations using P965. Given the cost of making that change, I would much rather have the option of using SLI/CF even if I never take advantage of it. One PCIe X16 slot is pretty much "value oriented" in my opinion these days.Kiste - Thursday, July 6, 2006 - link
Is it even possible to install WinXP from a PATA drive if the PATA port is 3rd party?I just bought a very nice BenQ PATA DVD writer and I certainly won't get rid of it just to buy Plextor's crappy SATA DVD writer or the even more abysmal one from Samsung.
Gary Key - Thursday, July 6, 2006 - link
Yes, there is limited functionality in the bios that allows the system to recognize the PATA port upon boot and for it to be utilized to load the OS or drivers if the OS is already loaded. We have seen this operation on our first two 965 boards but have one board that would not allow the PATA port to be recognized until the drivers were loaded. We were told this would be corrected in the shipping bios.goinginstyle - Tuesday, July 11, 2006 - link
Is it possible to load Linux with this IDE controller?Kiste - Thursday, July 6, 2006 - link
Ok, I'm not sure I completely understand. I can boot up with my WinXP installation CD and then I'll have to install drivers for the 3rd party PATA controller before I can install WinXP? Is that about right? Does that mean that I need a floppy drive?JarredWalton - Saturday, July 8, 2006 - link
If the BIOS is designed correctly, it can make the base XP installation detect the 3rd party IDE without drivers. Some earlier IDE chipsets didn't work (back in nF3 and ealier time frame), but most IDE and SATA solutions will now work without a driver disk. You would still need the driver disk for RAID, and certain BIOS settings might require it as well.CYBERX1800XT - Thursday, July 6, 2006 - link
it's going to take alot to convince me that abit's quality in electroitics(resistors,capicitors,pnp transistors and voltage regulators) hasn't overshadowed there so-called new make over. all i have to say is 'anyone remember the abit be-6 revision 2?? i do,,i also remember 12 hours after buying an abit mobo,,at least 14 caps literally blew up. so all this halla-ballhooey about the product line refreshment may just be hype. i'm not scowling at anyone at anandtech,,i believe and trust there reviews. who i don't trust is abit's choice in 2nd or 3rd rate electroitics. besides,,who cares,,this is a rather whimpy board. for the cost of this mobo,,you could easily spend 20 more bucks and get a ASUS A8R-MVP,,and have crossfire to boot. i'm sorry to sound so negative,,but abit left a bad taste in my mouth in 2000. and it has yet to have left. i honestly apologize to everyone at anandtech. not demeaning any of you guys,i totally trust your revievs. but i switched to amd,,and i only bought 1 abit board. and that will never happen again. i will ONLY use ASUS!!!araczynski - Wednesday, July 5, 2006 - link
personally i find the inclusion of onboard audio on ALL motherboards to be quite the waste of consumer dollars. what kind of an "enthusiast" puts up with onboard audio? granted its more then fine for windows, but when you're aiming a mobo at an enthusiast you don't have to make him pay for some crappy soundchip that he'll never do more with then disable in the bios.and yes, get rid of the floppy connector (usb version for those that can't live without them).
Pirks - Wednesday, July 5, 2006 - link
Not quite that simple - it's actually cheaper to make mobos with audio than without it. With audio you have one manufacturing line cranking out mobos, just one model => CHEAP. If you wanna get mobos w/o audio, you gonna get TWO manufacturing lines cranking out mobos => EXPENSIVE. This is why they always produce only ONE SINGLE MOBO MODEL, EVERYTHING INCLUDED - all the floppy and legacy crap - 'cause that's CHEAP. You go to options, exclude this, exclude that blah blah - and the price -wooosh!- soars up to clouds and the blue sky :)bob4432 - Wednesday, July 5, 2006 - link
glad to see a floppy is still around. i am probably the only person that uses one, but i appreciatet the m/b manf for taking me into consideration :Dafrodite - Tuesday, July 4, 2006 - link
Say what!?!The problem here is the boneheaded optical drive manufacturers not using SATA on their drives, not Intel removing obsolete technology.
I say:
Get rid of PATA
Get rid of Floppy-drives
Get rid of mouse and keyboard ports
Then use all that lovely real estate on the board to put a digital tv receiver or bluetooth-module or wifi or firewire or just more USB-slots or whatever you want..
Please, what year is it now, 2006 or 1996.. floppydrive connectors on a "next-gen motherboard"??
mine - Saturday, July 8, 2006 - link
second thatiwhat about the following scenario.... you will never forget that :
3 young Mac videoeditors rolling on the floor with wet trousers looking @ a Windows XP install with an open case
an attached floppy and F6
these people have never seen a floppy in their whole life and these things are one click away on Mac OS X
Pirks - Tuesday, July 4, 2006 - link
Hmm, why this smells like a Mac? ;)JarredWalton - Tuesday, July 4, 2006 - link
Until we have the replacements ready, completely removing support for older technologies is jumping the gun. We need a next-generation operating system that doesn't ever require a floppy drive (which we will get with Windows Vista). More importantly, we need SATA optical drives that are at least as good as the PATA counterparts, and with equivalent prices. Right now, I'm only aware of one company making SATA DVDR drives (Plextor), and the consensus seems to be that the drives aren't all that great. Widespread support for SATA optical drives (meaning software support -- what good is a DVDR if your favorite burning application doesn't support it?) is still lacking.The end result is that every motherboard manufacturer that uses ICH8 is pretty much forced to include another chip on the motherboard to handle IDE support. Intel isn't getting rid of IDE support; they're just placing the burden of including such support on the motherboard manufacturers. Seriously, how many transistors does it take to support IDE? Perhaps the reason it was removed was to reduce pin counts on the Southbridge, but I doubt it. We're not even asking for anything special in terms of IDE support; just include the same old IDE support that has been present on motherboards for the past decade or so.
jonp - Monday, July 3, 2006 - link
Is the Zalman unit "stock"?
Gary Key - Monday, July 3, 2006 - link
We used the stock retail heatsink for all testing except overclocking. We use the Zalman for overclocking and also tried the Tuniq 120 for fitment issues.JarredWalton - Monday, July 3, 2006 - link
Corrected - the retail HSF was used, but it doesn't really matter since we didn't perform thorough overclocking, noise, or temperature testing yet. As mentioned in the article, we're waiting for a new BIOS release with memory timing adjustments before we do that.Heidfirst - Monday, July 3, 2006 - link
"This heatsink is part of the Abit Silent OTES technology that includes a heatpipe system and additional passive cooling for the VRM components. This system kept the MCH cool enough that additional chipset voltage was not a factor in our overclocking tests. Our only concern is the lifespan of the fanbut it is very quiet during operation"What fan?
JarredWalton - Monday, July 3, 2006 - link
Sorry - that was a fragment from an earlier article that slipped in. No fans. :)ALCX - Monday, July 3, 2006 - link
You didn't mention anything about how well this board overclocks! I would think with this 'stable' power and the D805 you would have an excellent opportunity. I'm also thinking getting a mboard like this with a $100 D805 and wait out Conroe supply issue/price until XMAS....ALCX
jones377 - Monday, July 3, 2006 - link
Do you have any plans to investigate I/O performance on this chipset? Those Winrar benches suggests these were vastly improved somehow. Memory latency/bandwidth benchmarks would be nice too. All compared to 975x, nvidia and ATI chipsets (for the Intel platform).mine - Saturday, July 8, 2006 - link
yes rightthis is what I am exspecting from anand in near future
if you like the info a little bit earlier
over@ xs
Chadder007 - Monday, July 3, 2006 - link
Im thinking about getting a motherboard like this and a Pentium D 805....and then waiting for the prices to go down and performance to go up for the Core 2's after maybe 1 year to upgrade.rqle - Monday, July 3, 2006 - link
I prefer a next gen board without the floopy, am still waiting. Keep PATA, well, third party chipset now, but kill off the floopy.Calin - Tuesday, July 4, 2006 - link
I'm all for it too - as long as you can install Windows on any computer without needing a floppy disk driveMacGuffin - Monday, July 3, 2006 - link
Or atleast X4 physical connectors, if X16 slots make things cramped for capacitors and other parts on the board. And what's up with this trend of 5/6 expansion slots on high-end motherboards? There was a time when most boards had 7 expansion slots. I guess the elaborate heatpipe mechanisms for 2-chip core logic interfere (eg. M2N-SLI vs. M2N32-SLI) with more expandability.
This is going to be a good year for technology!
Anemone - Monday, July 3, 2006 - link
Yes this is quite interesting, thank you very much Anand and Gary!Things are heating up and getting very interesting. As the windup to Conroe gets underway a lot of folks are out buying mobo's now. I want to see more testing first, not really being yet committed more to the 975 or the 590. Have to be honest and say the 590 is proving to be more than I thought it was, but that's a good thing.
Thus I'm taking all this information in, and am grateful for your previews!
Calin - Monday, July 3, 2006 - link
If the supply of Conroe processors will be much lower than the demand, one can expect the mainboard prices to decrease - if the supply of mainboards will be much higher than the supply of retail Conroe processors. So, buying mainboards in advance might prove a not so good idea.mine - Monday, July 3, 2006 - link
most interesting reading of the last 4 weeksthis 965 vs. 975
thanks anand