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Albatron Mars PX915G Pro Motherboard Review
Albatron Mars PX915G Pro Motherboard Review - PCSTATS
Of course there's more to the Albatron Mars PX915G Pro than PCI Express, and we'll be getting to those other features in a bit.
 84% Rating:   
Filed under: Motherboards Published:  Author: 
External Mfg. Website: Albatron Sep 24 2004   C. Sun  
Home > Reviews > Motherboards > Albatron PX915G Pro

Albatron Mars PX915G Pro Motherboard Review

Now that the new Pentium 4's (LGA775) have been released, you have to ask yourself; "is it time for me to upgrade my old PC?" Well, let's consider the following points. 1. Intel is trying to push a whole host of new technologies on end users. 2. From its revolutionary pinless CPU, to high bandwidth PCI Express peripherals, DDR2 memory and of course the new BTX form factor, there is a lot of new hardware out there.

The most exciting new technology is PCI Express of course, and even AMD will be introducing it soon to its Athlon64 platform. The AGP architecture is just too slow, and let's not forget the PCI bus which was originally introduced in 1992 for the first Intel Pentium processor! Heck there are PCI peripherals out there like Gigabit network cards that can easily saturate a PCI bus, and its paltry 133MB/s bandwidth.

As far as the PCI bus goes, total bandwidth limitations are just one problem. Because of its shared architecture, it is open to issues where just one peripheral sucks up all the bandwidth, leaving little to none for other system devices. The small blue PCI Express x1 slots on the Albatron PX915G Pro on the review bench today has more bandwidth than the entire PCI bus. That's 500MB/s at full duplex mode folks! To remedy the shared bandwidth issue, each PCI Express slot has its own direct pipeline to the ICH6 southbridge. Individual PCI Express devices can no longer steal bandwidth away from other peripherals.

Albatron Mars PX915G Pro

Includes:

Users Manual, Quick Installation Guide, Three Ultra/133 IDE Cables, Floppy Cable, One Serial ATA Cable, One Molex to Serial ATA Power Cable, IO Backplate, USB Header, Driver CD

Of course there's more to the Albatron Mars PX915G Pro than PCI Express, and we'll be getting to those other features in a bit. The motherboard supports all current Socket 775 Pentium 4 processors, but even though it is based on the Intel i915G chipset, it still uses regular DDR memory.

The PX915G Pro can run two pairs of dual channel DDR, instead of the more expensive DDR2 DIMM's. Keep a close eye on the benchmarks a little later to see how the PX915G Pro handles loads without the aide of DDR2... very interesting! Other standard features are an IDE RAID controller, 7.1 channel audio, and twin Gigabit and a 10/100 Mb LAN connections.

The Mars PX915G Pro comes in a shade of typical Albatron blue, with colour-coded slots and device headers. With a quick start guide, it is easier for new users to install parts if all the different slots are organized by colour. Labeling is also top notch, and even the I/O front panel headers are marked with polarity, as it standard now.

The overall layout of the board is good, and I especially like how there's a fan header just above the x16 PCI-Express slot. Albatron have located the 24 pin ATX power supply and floppy drive connectors are to the right of the DIMM slots.

Note that I say 24-pin. There are four more pins in the power connector, but some backwards compatibility has been built in. You can get away with using your old PSU with this motherboard for now, but expect to have to upgrade to a more current PSU eventually. Incidently, don't connect the 4-pin auxiliary power connector here, it is still used, and still has its own socket!

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Contents of Article: Albatron PX915G Pro
 Pg 1.  — Albatron Mars PX915G Pro Motherboard Review
 Pg 2.  Onboard Goodies and Hardware
 Pg 3.  The 915G and ICH6 up close!
 Pg 4.  The BIOS and System Spec's
 Pg 5.  Benchmarks: SYSmark2004
 Pg 6.  Benchmarks: Winstone 2002, Winbench 99
 Pg 7.  Benchmarks: SiSoft Sandra 2004, Super Pi
 Pg 8.  Benchmarks: PCMark2002, PCMark04
 Pg 9.  Benchmarks: 3DMark2001, AquaMark3
 Pg 10.  Benchmarks: Comanche 4, X2: The Threat, UT2003
 Pg 11.  A Great Beginning!

 
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