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The KM51PV-AM2 is based on the nVIDIA GeForce 6150 and nForce 430 chipsets, and as such it supports all current socket AM2 AMD Athlon64/FX/X2 and Sempron processors.
90% Rating: 
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nVidia Geforce 6150 on AM2
 The
nVidia GeForce 6150 chipset on the Albatron KM51PV-AM2 motherboard is at its
heart a low cost fully integrated solution. The GeForce 6150 GPUs is built on
TSMC's 90nm manufacturing process, and is intended to support current Socket
939/AM2 AMD K8 processor generations. The memory support is actually up to the
memory controller built onto the AMD K8 processor, but from what we've seen most
GeForce 6100-series motherboards have four DDR/DDR2 DIMM slots. Meaning up to
4GB of PC3200 DDR RAM (Socket 939) or 8GB of DDR2 memory (Socket AM2) can be
installed.
The GeForce 6150 northbridge communicates with the
AMD Athlon64/Sempron processor over a 1000MHz Hypertransport link (16-bits wide
upstream/16-bits wide downstream) which can also be adjusted within the BIOS if
you so choose to.
Jam Packed with Video centric
Capabilities
There are two different versions of the GeForce 6100-series
chipset, the Geforce 6150 we're focusing on in this review and the striped down Geforce 6100. The
GeForce 6150 supports a slightly better feature set, with extra's like a TV encoder,
TMDS/DVI support, a slightly higher graphics core speed (475 MHz as opposed to 425
MHz for the 6100), 18 PCI Express lanes (16 for the videocard, 2 for miscellaneous
devices), 1080p/1080i HD playback and higher video scaling. The GeForce 6100 does not
support TV encoding or TMDS/DVI output, and only makes allowances for standard definition
(4:3) playback.
| nVidia Geforce 6150 Chipset Feature Breakdown |
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nVidia Geforce 6150 and nForce 430 |
| CPU |
939 or 940-pin Socket AM2 |
| TV-Encoder |
Yes |
| TMDS/DVI |
Yes |
| Graphics Clock |
475MHz |
| PCI Express |
(1) x16, (2) x1 |
| MPEG-2/WMV9 Playback |
High Definition 1080p/1080i |
| Audio |
High Definition Audio (Azalia) / AC97 |
| SATA/PATA Drives |
4/4 |
| RAID |
0,1,0+1,5 |
| Ethernet |
10/100/1000 | |
The
nVidia GeForce 6150 is not a single chip solution, and so the nforce 430 Southbridge is paired
with it on the Albatron KM51PV-AM2 motherboard. The nVidia nForce 430 is
Serial ATA II compatible, and it even includes the option of setting up a RAID 0/1/0+1/5 array
among the four SATAII ports.
The nForce 430 chipset support four Serial ATA
devices as well as four IDE. The NF430 incorporates Gigabit LAN as well as
nVIDIA's hardware ActiveArmor Firewall.
Connecting the two chipsets together is a 800 MHz Hypertransport
connection which has an 8 bit wide Up/Down data bus.
The
nForce 430 chipset is also compatible with Intel's new Azalia 7.1 channel high
definition audio codec. The onboard GeForce 6150 videocard supports dual
monitors and in the case of the Albatron KM51PV-AM2, both an analog and digital
monitor can be connected at the same time. If need be,
a digital to analog connector can be used for dual analog
outputs. Unfortunately you cannot use the onboard GeForce 6150
in conjunction with a stand alone PCI Express videocard for more desktop real estate.
The Albatron KM51PV-AM2 also supports S-Video output by default, although a header
connector must be used. One was not included with the Albatron KM51PV-AM2 review sample
we received for evaluation, but this bracket will come with retail
motherboards. The S-Video output supports a whole variety
of video standards; NTSC-M, NTSC-J, PAL-M, PAL-BDGHI, PAL-N and PAL-NC. This will allow the
Albatron KM51PV-AM2 connect to a television and play any standard definition
video anywhere in the world.
Considering the Albatron KM51PV-AM2 is based on the GeForce 6150 design, we would have liked to
have seen Albatron support component output instead of just S-Video. Without component output
support, you won't be able to connect the computer to your high definition television
set.
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