Albatron PX915G Pro
Contents
1. superior i925X DDR II powered motherboards One would expect the DDR II powered motherboards to post up some better scores but we re still seeing strong performance coming out of the i915P G chipsets even with only having DDR I support would suspect that this trend will continue thought it should get interesting to see how these i915P G retail boards fare with DDR II instead of DDR I It s possible we could see slower times posted but for now that s mere speculation i ScienceMark 2 0 Next in line for our benchmarking results we find ScienceMark 2 0 For this benchmarking suite we decided to take a look at the performance results achieved with MemBench to analyze latency times as well as bandwidth As we saw with the SANDRA results a little earlier the PX915G Pro manages to put up a slightly better score than that of the ABIT AG8 Both of these boards fall behind the DDR II powered motherboards by a fair margin of 10 or so Latency and cycle wise the PX915G Pro is pretty much even with the AG8 The PX915G Pro posts a hairline lead for latency time though both boards come in with matched cycles Both the i915P G boards come in with latency times roughly 7 slower than those posted by the DDR II powered boards i FutureMark 3DMark2003 The next benchmark that we ll be covering from a gaming aspect is that of FutureMark s 3DMark 2003 For our 3DMark2003 results we see the ABIT AG8 actually posting a slightly2. and HDD S M A R T capabilities The Advanced Chipset Features submenu houses all of the important memory timing options While Albatron allows for the standard memory timings to be manually adjusted there are no other tweaking options available that would make the PX915G Pro a standout for tweaking options Albatron offers the standard CAS RAS to CAS RAS to Precharge and Precharge timing selections The last submenu that we ll be covering from the Advanced portion of the BIOS is the Frequency Voltage Control submenu This portion of the BIOS will certainly be home to the overclocker and performance enthusiast Starting off from the top we see that Albatron has allowed for fixed PCI and PCI Express clocks wouldn t suggest toying too much with the PCI Express lock as we ve heard of problems being brought about due to a locked bus speed Below we find the option to determine the system memory speed whether that be DDR333 or DDR400 depending on your RAM of use Towards the bottom we see the options to adjust the FSB and Multiplier though virtually all of you out there besides those that manage to get hold of an unlocked chip will not be able to use this Multiplier option Located in the block below these items relating to frequency settings we find all of the voltage adjustments that Albatron has made available Albatron offers a solid range of preset speeds for each of the busses The DRAM can be adjust up to 4V in 1V incre
3. system intake fan As we progress further up the PCB the next components that we ll come across are all controlled via the ICH6R Southbridge The ICH6R Southbridge chip is covered by a gold anodized passive heatsink solution With these Southbridge heatsinks we ve seen some pretty interesting designs Albatron has included a cutout of the bird insignia they use which ads a little flavor to the heatsink though this can t really be seen in a mounted situation To the right of the ICH6R we find all four of the Serial ATA headers as well as the Clear CMOS jumper system battery and finally the IDE connector To the left of the heatsink we find both of the yellow USB 2 0 headers which allow for connection of the included expansion bracket to bring USB 2 0 support to a maximum should the end user require all of those ports Finally we come across the DIMM slots Here we can see that as is typical for DDR motherboards each channel has been represented with a different DIMM color Along the right side of the DIMM slots we find the new 24 pin ATX connection These PSU s are still quite difficult expensive to come by at this point but the PX915G Pro is backwards compatible with the PSU you re using today so you ll have no problems with the switch All that need to be done is mount the 12V ATX connector so the bottom four pins are left unconnected Gigabyte made a wise choice by placing a sticker over the bottom four pins just in case an
4. 14 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52 better score than the Albatron PX915G Pro Heading into this benchmark was expecting to see the opposite happen with the Albatron board holding a small lead over the ABIT board but alas things didn t turn out that way These two boards could battle back and forth for the remaining benchmarks but suspect the PX915G Pro will come out on top most 1 AquaMark 3 0 To start off the gaming related synthetic benchmarks we re going to cover results that we attained from AquaMark 3 0 This is a gorgeous benchmark and can place some serious strain on any system For our benchmarking purposes we ran the default test at 1024 x 768 x 32 with no anti aliasing or anisotropic filtering enabled Much as expected heading into this benchmark we find the PX915G Pro taking a miniscule performance lead of roughly 1 over the ABIT AG8 This benchmark still belongs to the Gigabyte GA 8ANXP D which manages a three frame per second lead over both the i915P G motherboards i Quake Ill Arena i il The next of our gaming oriented benchmarks is the famed Quake III Arena In order to remove any sort of graphics bottleneck from our results we chose to go with the standard 640 x 480 resolution for our tests As far as QIIIA performance goes the PX915G Pro is able to once again jump ahead of the ABIT AG8 as was expecting to see happen We re seeing a perfo
5. 2 performance and throughput in the end so it s nice to see Albatron tackle their Gigabit support by throwing the device on the PCI Express bus Located right below the Marvell chip we next come across the second Ethernet controller chip this time manufactured by VIA This VIA Ethernet controller is only a 10 100 chip so Albatron has chosen to implement this chip into the regular PCI bus We ve seen this done once before with the GA 8ANXP D motherboard from Gigabyte so I m thinking this is going to become a more popular implementation in upcoming motherboards based off of these new Intel chipsets The area around both of these chips is clean each having its own 25MHz clock crystal Lastly we find an array of headers and connections that have been placed beneath the last PCI slot along the bottom edge of the PX915G Pro s PCB surface The system BIOS chip is located in the bottom left hand corner of the board and is soldered directly to the motherboard itself As far as the headers and connections go we now find several of the audio related headers that we expected to find by the ALC880 CODEC Albatron has heard our cry and moved all of the primary and secondary audio headers to the bottom portion of the motherboard This location for the CD audio S PDIF header MIDI Game Port and Front Panel Audio headers allows for easy cable routing and prevent cables from being run throughout the case interior thereby creating a possibility for de
6. 5G Pro coming in second for ALU performance just behind the GA 8ANXP D The story is repeated once again when it comes to FPU Multimedia performance Finally we have the Memory benchmark As expected the PX915G Pro falls right in line with the ABIT AG8 which is powered by the i915P chipset Both boards run even matched for memory bandwidth according to SANDRA i MBReview PriBench Using our very own in house benchmark MBReview PriBench uses a computationally intensive algorithm to compute several hundred millions of prime integers Unlike other synthetic benchmarks which rely on additional components within a computer system like the hard drive PriBench does not rely on any of these exterior devices for the tests PriBench is a system level benchmark solely utilizing the performance of the processor and memory subsystem It also focuses on comparing processor architectures and technologies and then seeing how much a core clock and or FSB speed increase can be beneficial to the system Our program is extremely accurate as we have witnessed time fluctuations of approximately 05 10 seconds On the PriBench front we can see that the Albatron PX915G Pro bodes well against the competition falling in line right behind the i925X powered Gigabyte GA 8ANXP D The PX915G Pro is able to surpass ABIT s AG8 which also posted some strong numbers as well as the 13 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52
7. Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52 i Introduction Our first experience with an Albatron motherboard was a good one and came a few months back with their high end i875P model the PX875P Pro In our time working with that motherboard we found that the product package had its strong and weak points namely that the included items were relatively few but the documentation was excellent The board featured a solid design a fair BIOS and an overzealous overclocking claim Today we re taking a look at Albatron s i915G entry the PX915G Pro This motherboard features some of the same strengths and weaknesses found by the PX875P Pro but where have things improved Has Albatron improved overclocking capabilities with the i915G board namely can they compete with the big boys of the overclocking world Read on to find out 1 PX915G Pro Specifications Processor Designed for Intel 90nm Prescott LGA775 Processors w 533 800MHz FSB Supports Intel Hyper Threading Technology Chipset 1 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52 North Bridge Intel i915G South Bridge Intel ICH6 R ITE 1T8212F IDE RAID Controller Marvell 8100 Gigabit Ethernet Controller VIA 10 100 Ethernet Controller Realtek ALC880 HD Audio CODEC Memory 4DDR I DIMM Slots DDR I 400 833MHz RAM Max 4GB Expansion Slots 1x PCI Express x16 2x
8. PCI Express x1 3x PCI 3x UDMA 133 100 66 1xFDD 4x SATA 8x USB 2 0 Total 2 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52 Back Panel I O Ports 1x Parallel 1 x Serial 1x PS 2 Keyboard 1 x PS 2 Mouse 6x Audio I O 1x Video Output 4x USB 2 0 2 x Ru 45 Port PX915G Pro Packaging As we have seen in the past the majority of Albatron s motherboard products fall more towards the budgeted end of the consumer spectrum so we weren t expecting all too much out of the PX915G Pro s package was initially expecting your general motherboard product package with an expansion bracket here and there but nothing of real substance besides the cabling and other must have components Especially given that this is a heavily integrated motherboard it is based off of the i915G chipset after all wasn t expecting too much In the end that s exactly what we ended up with Unlike with the PX875P Pro several items we would expect on say Albatron s i925X motherboard weren t included but that was what we thought we d find To start things off we have the various documentation items for the PX915G Pro Much like what we often see from the likes of Gigabyte in the past and ABIT as of recent times Albatron has chosen to include a fold out color installation guide This guide has a large portrayal of the motherboard on the front cover with all of the vital components and c
9. ad air zones 1 PX915G Pro Layout Southbridge amp Memory Area The Southbridge portion of the motherboard is a little on the cluttered side though due to the lack of any additive components for the PX915G Pro this area is far cleaner than some of the boards we have dealt with thus far From a design vantage point the overall layout of these components has been done very well and it is clear that quite a bit of time went into making sure that all of the most useful items were located in readily accessible areas all while keeping 8 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52 the layout crisp and clean The first component we find is located near the edge of the PCI slots the ITE IDE RAID controller chip As we ll soon see this ITE chip provides support for two ATA133 100 66 33 hard drives in the various RAID modes In the bottom right hand corner of the PX915G Pro s PCB we find a series of important items ranging from large to small To start things off the first things that will jump out at you are the yellow IDE connectors These two connectors are controlled by the ITE IDE RAID controller as the ICH6R only support one native ATA100 66 33 connection Below these two connectors we find an array of headers most providing for front panel connections to switches LED s case intrusion detectors and more There is also an IrDA header as well a as a three pin power connection for a front
10. at is a different story but if you plan on buying this board and overclocking get some cool air flowing over that Northbridge pronto In the end Albatron has brought a solid i915G motherboard to the market with their PX915G Pro Given that this board features integrated video which we ll be covering more in depth as we test more i915G motherboards it isn t going to be the primary choice for the overclocking and enthusiast community This board offers up all that is needed for the market it is targeted at though wish Albatron would include some extra items in with their packaging Albatron offers up superior documentation with all of their products but sometimes the package can be lacking i e the PX915G Pro only comes with one Serial ATA data cable The main strength of the PX915G Pro is its solid performance and excellent design The downsides though fall under overclocking and BIOS tweaks Although there are enough tweaks to please most users high performance users looking for an i915G option might want to look at other options first if memory adjustments are a requirement The PX915G Pro also requires a high Northbridge voltage to attain high end overclocking speeds something that will only add serious heat to your system and at 65C lower the lifespan of your system should it be run under stressful situations suspect this board will run in the 140 range as are most i915G motherboard at this time As we ve yet to cover competing boar
11. ations The new mounting method simply requires pushing some pins through the four mounting holes and you re done Around the Socket T we find that Albatron has put to use the low profile component zones for the core voltage power supply Albatron has implemented a three phase design for the PX915G Pro as can be seen with the three side mounted inductors complete with their own encasings This is the first three phase power solution that we have seen so far for any of the LGA775 motherboards We ll see later on if it has an effect upon overall stability or not The components that make up the processor portion of the PX915G Pro deal with the core voltage supply The main control chips are manufactured by Analog Devices along with the three MOSFET drivers Unlike some of the other LGA775 motherboards we ve dealt with over the past month or so Albatron has not positioned the four pin 12V core voltage supply connector in the upper left corner of the board Instead Albatron has shifted the secondary core voltage connection further down the board towards the bottom end of the series of capacitors MOSFET s and inductors This was the typical location on i875P i865PE motherboards and we ve seen this used twice now on LGA775 motherboards 5 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52 Other than these core electrical components the processor portion of the PX915G Pro is quite clean Albatron has been able
12. d we d like to see other manufacturers do this just for added safety for those who dislike reading manuals This area also houses the Winbond Super I O chip for control over the legacy I O ports as well as the system monitoring responsibilities One fact is clear when you take an overall look at the PX915G Pro s PCB that fact is that it is readily obvious Albatron put some serious thought into the layout of the system components Virtually every item that we look for as far as determining design quality goes Albatron has successfully implemented into the PX815G Pro Even when we factor in the small things that weren t done due to design constraints we still find an excellent motherboard Unlike many 9 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52 manufacturers Albatron has not thrown the floppy connector down to the bottom of the PCB rather they have left it near the ATX power connection higher up on the board This greatly helps airflow into the case and over the graphics card RAM and processor RAM can also be added and removed without having to remove the PCI Express graphics card a problem that we ve already seen on some i925X i915P G motherboards Overall Albatron has done an excellent job with the PX915G Pro s design PX915G Pro System BIOS As far as the PX915G Pro s BIOS goes Albatron has opted to go with a Phoenix Award BIOS setup a setup that is more familiar in the OEM w
13. dings Overall the Albatron PX915G Pro ships with a solid BIOS excelling in some aspects while in others it is a bit dry We really didn t find many more advanced options for memory tweaks the only other option besides lowering the timings was upping the Northbridge voltage to get more MHz on the FSB Albatron has come a long way since the PX875P Pro with their voltage offerings especially for the VCore The PX875P Pro really disappointed us when it came to the limited overclocking options but the PX915G Pro is excellent in this aspect was happy to see options to control the PCI and PCI Express bus speeds but over the past few weeks we ve seen manufacturers remove the PCI Express option because of reported problems with overclocking and stability on a set PCI Express bus Albatron also offers a nice range for upping the Northbridge voltage although as you ll soon hear about this isn t the best idea with the PX915G Pro 1 PX915G Pro Overclocking Our overclocking experiences with the Albatron PX915G Pro were mixed At the default Northbridge voltage we were only able to obtain a stable overclock in the area of 235MHz for the FSB This is a far cry from where we ve seen other manufacturers take their boards on a stock voltage As we slowly upped the voltage though we were able to attain higher speed settings for the FSB but at a serious cost We were able to hit 252MHz FSB with the PX915G Pro but only when we had the Northb
14. ds I ll leave he conclusion up to you We ll be comparing this board against Foxconn s i915P and i915G boards soon and we ll then be able to further evaluate where it stands in the grand scheme of things For now it looks to be a solid board worthy of any use it just might fall short on requirements for overclockers and performance gurus 18 18
15. e PX915G Pro only features a three phase power delivery scheme Throughout our testing we did not experience any stability problems that weren t caused by our own mischief also known as overclocking too far The stability of the PX915G Pro at both stock and overclocked levels was right in line with the previous motherboards we ve review solid as a rock The PX915G Pro s package has a strong point or two points as well as weak points From a hardware item standpoint we were a bit disappointed at the lack of some minor items such 16 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52 additional SATA data power cables especially given that the ICH6 Southbridge now supports four Serial ATA devices In the past manufacturers could get away with supplying only one cable but now I d like to see at lease two included with the product packages These are items won t really cause the end price to skyrocket so would ve liked to see those included to make the PX915G Pro a better bang for the buck The documentation that Albatron has included on the other hand is superb All of the various inclusions that Albatron has chosen to make provide a well rounded and detailed look at the capabilities and layout of the PX915G Pro and will make even a first time builder s life a little easier One fact is clear when you take an overall look at the PX915G Pro s PCB that fact is that it is readily obvious Albatron put some se
16. ers remove the PCI Express option because of reported problems with overclocking and stability on a set PCI Express bus Albatron also offers a nice range for upping the Northbridge voltage although as you ll soon hear this isn t the best idea with the PX915G Pro Our overclocking experiences with the Albatron PX915G Pro were mixed At the default Northbridge voltage we were only able to obtain a stable overclock in the area of 235MHz for the FSB This is a far cry from where we ve seen other manufacturers take their boards on a stock voltage As we slowly upped the voltage though we were able to attain higher speed settings for the FSB but at a serious cost We were able to hit 252MHz FSB with the PX915G Pro but only when we had the Northbridge set to 3V We already have discussed the temperature at which the passively cooled heatsink runs but it s even worse with 3V This might not seem like much but it s a 20 increase in voltage over the standard application We 17 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52 took out our external temperature gauge and found that near the core the Northbridge heatsink was hitting 65C Clearly if you need to run at this high a voltage and temperature to attain a solid overclock you need to re think what you re doing Adding on 1V to the NB allowed for a 240MHz FSB and adding 2V allowed for a 246MHz FSB Whether or not you re willing to deal with the he
17. ially with Albatron pressing the fact that upping the Northbridge voltage can help overclocking Upping the Northbridge voltage might help but when you re dealing with an already hot chip raising the voltage isn t the brightest idea The area to the left of the i915G Northbridge chip is quite clean featuring two fan power headers as well as the PC915G Pro s secondary 12V core voltage power supply connection still prefer to see this located farther up the PCB for airflow purposes though with the slim size of the cable this implementation works nicely as well The four pin fan power connection comes in next followed by the three pin power connection for a rear exhaust fan This three pin connection is located along the top edge of the x16 PCI Express slot whereas the four pin connector is closer to the processor socket Other than a few additional resistors capacitors 6 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52 inductors and other electrical items this portion of the board is once again quite clean though something needs to be done about the Northbridge heatsink if you ask me 1 PX915G Pro Layout Expansion Area The expansion slot portion of the PX915G Pro features a single x16 PCI Express slot along with two x1 PCI Express slots At the bottom of the board we also find three regular PCI slots This is generally going to be the typical setup found on most of these i925X and i915P
18. ments while the Northbridge voltage can also rise a maximum of 3V in 1V increments Albatron offers an incredible range of VCore options but beware if you undervolt your processor do NOT set the system to the voltage you d like set it roughly 5V higher than you d like to obtain the proper voltage Next up we have the Peripherals menu can t really address this menu all that much as it is self explanatory The peripherals menu houses all of the options to control enabling or disabling integrated devices such as LAN Audio Serial Ports Parallel Ports and on the occasion the kitchen sink as well Okay maybe not quite that much but you get the point If you wish to enable or disable any feature of the PX915G Pro this is where you ll need to head in order to do so Sound good Let s move on The last menu that we ll be covering is yet another window that really need no introduction that being the HW Monitor menu This menu has two options available for a warning signal when the case has been opened and another for the CPU FAN temperature This window shows off the various temperature readings given by the motherboard as well as fan RPM and voltage readings With the PX875P Pro we found the onboard readings to be way off as they virtually never changed however Albatron has improved this with the PX915G Pro which appears far 11 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52 more accurate for rea
19. motherboards for some time to come We ve seen boards with three x1 PCI Express slot and two PCI slots as well Due to the lack of PCI Express products out there at this time that use the x1 connection or any other besides x16 we ll see mostly x1 and x16 connections for some time The majority of the components in this area of the PCB are as always located along the rear edge of the motherboard At the top of this section right under the rear I O panel we first find the main component dealing with the PX915G Pro s onboard audio the Realtek ALC880 HD Audio CODEC The ALC880 offers full 7 1 channel audio support features two 24 bit DACs and three 20 bit stereo ADCs for high quality high resolution audio and also features 32 bit 96KHz support for both input and output S PDIF connections Interestingly enough we find no auxiliary four pin audio connections or a front panel audio header located near the CODEC Next up we find a feature for the PX915G Pro that was built into the GA 8ANXP D reviewed last week two separate Ethernet controllers First off we find the same Marvell Gigabit Ethernet chip Albatron has been able to implement this chip into the PCI Express bus rather than using the aging PCI bus We ve seen some manufacturers such as ABIT attempt to free up some PCI Express lanes by implementing Gigabit solutions into the PCI bus but this will hamper 7 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 5
20. nded and detailed look at the capabilities and layout of the PX915G Pro and will make even a first time builder s life a little easier PX915G Pro Layout Socket Area 4 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52 Now that we ve had a chance to examine the product package it s time we took a good look at the board design and layout scheme Just to re cap our new stance on design here s a copy of our previous statement With these new chipsets from Intel have noticed that the motherboard surface itself has become far more cluttered mainly due to voltage generation devices necessary for the DDR II modules and PCI Express As we progress around this motherboard as well as many in the future we will undoubtedly see the days of extremely clean and clear PCB surfaces head the way of the dodo Because of this we ve developed a new modus operandi when evaluating the layout of the motherboard Instead of going merely for cleanliness we ll be putting more of an impact on components locations and orientations for the end user Clean PCB s are nice but locations and ease of access are going to be far more important with these motherboards The Socket T is oriented lengthwise from East to West across the motherboard Due to the much improved mounting mechanics for the new LGA 775 processors Intel has done away with the large retention bracket that was needed on the older Socket 478 implement
21. onnectors labeled As we progressed through reading the installation guide we found that it is quite good in making sure to cover all of the important points that a first time builder would need to know The guide goes over all installation procedures ranging from the processor and jumper configuration to simple 3 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52 tasks such as power supply and hard drive connections Granted for the experienced user this guide will be overlooked but for a first time user this is a necessity The next item that we found was yet another feature that we like to see included with motherboards that being a large sticker featuring a layout of the board This sticker can be affixed to the interior of the case and is easily accessible if needed The sticker displays locations and pin diagrams for all of the major headers and jumpers located on the PX915G Pro s PCB Finally we have the manuals Once again this is one aspect where the Albatron product shines in that not only does the manual come in several languages but it also manages to cover all of the most important aspects of the board such as pin diagrams of headers jumper setting data excellent coverage of the various BIOS options and excellent driver installation instructions Albatron has also included an excellent user manual for configuration and proper usage of the ITE IDE RAID controller as well As far as hardware rela
22. orld than what we normally come across here in the enthusiast community This BIOS setup is also common on Intel brand motherboards which are of course geared more towards the mid range consumer than an enthusiast When the BIOS is initially entered into there is a horizontal selection of menus ranging from the standard Main where simple selections are shown to Defaults which allows for selection of setting to Normal of performance settings These settings are similar if not identical to what we see in other BIOS only presented in a new way The first menu that we ll be diving into is labeled as Advanced Upon entering this menu we find a wide array of settings as well as four submenus available The top setting selections are typical of this portion of the BIOS as they control both boot order and boot priority for the given devices There are four available submenus each covering one specific aspect of the PX915G Pro s capabilities These submenus are labeled Advanced BIOS Features Advanced Chipset Features PnP PCI Configurations and Frequency Voltage Control Within the BIOS feature submenu we find that here the user is given the option to enable an array of options for the PX915G Pro Some of these options are whether to enable or disable 10 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52 the on die L1 amp L2 Cache Hyper Threading Technology Quick POST
23. ridge set to 3V We already have discussed the temperature at which the passively cooled heatsink runs but it s even worse with 3V This might not seem like much but it s a 20 increase in voltage over the standard application We took out our external temperature gauge and found that near the core the Northbridge heatsink was hitting 65C Clearly if you need to run at this high a voltage and temperature to attain a solid overclock you need to re think what you re doing Adding on 1V to the NB allowed for a 240MHz FSB and adding 2V allowed for a 246MHz FSB Whether or not you re willing to deal with the heat is a different story but if you plan on buying this board and overclocking get some cool air flowing over that Northbridge pronto 12 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52 2 SiSoft SANDRA site itll E l llil ll To start off today s performance testing results we re going to cover SiSoftware s SANDRA benchmarking suite The first benchmark that we ran was to determine Arithmetic performance of the PX915G Pro in comparison to an array of i925X and i915P motherboards For our Arithmetic results we see that as far as ALU goes the PX915G Pro manages the best score of the bunch so far coming in at 10019 One the FPU front we see that the PX915G Pro puts up a decent score but it falls back down to the bottom of the bunch For our Multimedia results we found the PX91
24. rious thought into the layout of the system components Virtually every item that we look for as far as determining design quality goes Albatron has successfully implemented into the PX815G Pro Even when we factor in the small things that weren t done due to design constraints we still find an excellent motherboard Unlike many manufacturers Albatron has not thrown the floppy connector down to the bottom of the PCB rather they have left it near the ATX power connection higher up on the board This greatly helps airflow into the case and over the graphics card RAM and processor RAM can also be added and removed without having to remove the PCI Express graphics card a problem that we ve already seen on some i925X i915P G motherboards Overall Albatron has done an excellent job with the PX915G Pro s design The PX915G Pro ships with a solid BIOS excelling in some aspects while in others it is a bit dry We really didn t find many more advanced options for memory tweaks the only other option besides lowering the timings was upping the Northbridge voltage to get more MHz on the FSB Albatron has come a long way since the PX875P Pro with their voltage offerings especially for the VCore The PX875P Pro really disappointed us when it came to the limited overclocking options but the PX915G Pro is excellent in this aspect was happy to see options to control the PCI and PCI Express bus speeds but over the past few weeks we ve seen manufactur
25. rmance jump just shy of 1 for 16 bit performance but only a mere 2 for 32 bit Needless to say once error is factored in here we re once again seeing two motherboards running in a dead heat Neither of the i915P G motherboards is able to keep up with any of the 15 18 Albatron PX915G Pro Written by Stephen Friday 04 September 2009 10 52 i925X DDR II boards that we have tested thus far 2 Unreal Tournament 2003 WM Mt The last benchmark for the day Unreal Tournament 2003 shows us some very interesting results For this test we once again ran the benchmark in 640 x 480 mode in order take the graphics card out of the equation as far as results go In both sets of results above we see that we ll be ending our benchmarking tests today with a bit of a curve ball This time we see the ABIT AG8 overtaking the Albatron PX915G Pro for performance under both the BotMatch and FlyBy benchmarks was expecting to see the opposite happen but given the close performance we ve seen today between both of the i915 powered motherboards it isn t beyond belief that s for sure 2 PX915G Pro Review Conclusion Well we ve seen all that Albatron has to offer with their i915G offering the PX915G Pro This motherboard offered up a pretty decent feature set given the market it is going to be aimed at Initially we were concerned about system stability on the Prescott core processors due to their power draw as th
26. ted inclusions go the PX915G Pro came with the bare minimum We ve got a single Serial ATA data cable as well as a single Molex power adapter for a Serial ATA device There are three IDE cables that have been included one for use with the ICH6 s native IDE support and two additional cables for the ITE RAID controller We also have the usual rear I O panel as well as an additional expansion bracket featuring four additional USB 2 0 capable ports If you remember back to our review of the PX875P Pro Albatron actually didn t include a rear I O panel because they used the default layout for that board Now that the PX915G Pro comes along with a custom 1 O layout they ve include the required I O panel Overall the PX915G Pro s package has a strong point or two as well as weak points From a hardware item standpoint we were a bit disappointed at the lack of some minor items such additional SATA data power cables especially given that the ICH6 Southbridge now supports four Serial ATA devices In the past manufacturers could get away with supplying only one cable but now I d like to see at least two included with the product packages These are items won t really cause the end price to skyrocket so would ve liked to see those included to make the PX915G Pro a better bang for the buck The documentation that Albatron has included on the other hand is superb All of the various inclusions that Albatron has chosen to make provide a well rou
27. to implement a solid three phase power solution for the PX915G Pro with high quality ultra low ESR capacitors as well as high quality control components from Analog Devices We ve seen most high performance motherboards running off four phase solutions so we ll see how well this three phase solution can handle Intel s Pentium 4 560 processor a power hog to say the least The reason we ve seen shifts to four phase solutions is due to the power draw from these new processors By increasing the number of phases the processor can obtain a cleaner and steadier voltage providing for solid power delivery PX915G Pro Layout Northbridge Area The PX915G Pro follows in line with previous Albatron Northbridge coolers given that they have mostly been passive solutions With these new Northbridge chips we ve seen far more manufacturers throwing in active cooling solutions and they are needed Throughout our testing we found that this cooler alone with no cooling fan was rather inadequate As the analogy goes a warm heatsink is a working heatsink but a hot heatsink is an overworked heatsink This cooler managed to get a little more than hot during normal system operation even under open case low ambient temperature situations With no airflow to go over the Northbridge other than hot air being expelled from the CPU heatsink this heatsink is overworked This heating problem will certainly affect overclocking capabilities no doubt espec
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