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It
seems as though the entire PC world has been
waiting for a Dual Channel DDR chipset to come
to the Pentium 4. Although RAMBUS and
RDRAM technology certainly had its merits, as
the highest available bandwidth memory
architecture for Intel's flagship processor, the
technology has been riddle with controversy over
RAMBUS' monopolistic tactics. In addition,
with its higher price point of entry, the end
user community has been very slow to adopt it.
On the other hand, even the low latency single
channel i845PE DDR chipset from Intel, didn't
quite have the horsepower to outpace Dual
Channel RDRAM, in memory bandwidth intensive
applications and benchmarks. It would take
nothing less than a dual channel DDR solution to
rival PC1066 RDRAM's 4.2GB/sec of bandwidth
feeding the Pentium 4.
MSI's
new GNB Max-FISR is the first Intel E7205
(Granite Bay) based motherboard to hit the
HotHardware Labs and it brings with it 4.3GB/sec
of Dual Channel DDR at 266MHz. Now, drop
down AGP8X support and Intel's new ICH4 with USB
2.0 as well as a host of features like
integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet, courtesy of
Intel's 82540 MAC/Phy chip and you get the idea
on what this board is all about; as in WWF style
"no holds barred" with all the tricks.
First let's run down the feature set and design
of this new board from
MSI. Then we'll get down to what you
come here for, a comprehensive performance
analysis versus other top solutions in the
field.
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| Specifications / Features of
the MSI GNB MAX-FISR |
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Dual Channel DDR For
The P4 |
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CLICK ANY IMAGE FOR AN
FULL VIEW
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CPU
- Supports
Socket 478 for Intel® Pentium 4 (Northwood
only) processor
- Supports up 3.06G/533MHz and higher speed
Chipset
Intel® E7205
Chipset
- Supports single processor up to 533MHz
- Supports 144bit wide DDR 2100 memory
interface, with the
memory bandwidth of 4.3GB/s or 3.2 GB/s
- Supports AGP 8x or 4x at 0.8V (AGP 3.0) or
4x at 1.5V
Intel® ICH4
Chipset
- AC'97 Controller Integrated
- 2 full IDE channels, up to ATA100
- Low pin count interface for SIO
- Integrated USB 2.0 controller
Bus Frequency
- Supports
100/133MHz FSB
- Supports 400/533MHz Intel NetBurst
micro-architecture bus
Memory
- Supports Dual
channel (144-bit wide) DDR 266 memory
interface. Each channel supports 2 DIMM Sockets
- Supports four 184-pin DDR DIMM sockets up
to 4GB.
- Supports non-ECC(x64) or ECC(x72) DIMMs
DDR PC2001
DIMM using 128Mb, 256Mb, 512Mb and 1GB SDRAM.
IDE
- An IDE
controller on the ICH4 chipset provides IDE
HDD/ CD-ROM with PIO,
Bus Master and Ultra DMA66/100 operation modes.
- Can connect up to four IDE devices.
- Promise 20376 controllers 2 Serial ATA
ports in 150 MB/s
operation mode and 1 Ultra DMA port.
(optional)
Audio
-
C-Media 8738MX supports 2/4/6 channel
speaker + SPDIF out
System BIOS
-
2Mb Award BIOS
w/ PnP, ACPI, SMBIOS 2.3, Green and Boot
Block
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Provides DMI2.0, WfM2.0, WOL, WOR, chassis
intrusion, and SMBus for system management
Expansion
Slots
- One
8X/4X AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) universal
slot
- Five PCI v2.2 32-bit master PCI bus slots
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LAN
Intel®
82540EM
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Integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet MAC and PHY in
one chip
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Supports 10Mb/s and 100Mb/s auto-negotiation
operation
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Compliance with PCI v2.2, mini PCI 1.0 and
LAN on Motherboard (LOM) standard.
- 1 PC2PC Bluetooth
connector for WLAN connection (optional)
Internal I/O
Connectors
On-Board
Peripherals include:
- 1 floppy port supports 2 FDDs with 360K,
720K, 1.2M, 1.44M
and 2.88Mbytes
- 2 serial ports (COM A + COM B)
- 1 parallel port supports SPP/EPP/ECP mode
- 6 USB 2.0 ports (Rear x 4 / Front x 2)
- 1 Line-In/Line-Out/Mic-In port
- 2 PS/2 connectors
- 1 LAN RJ45 connector
(Optional)
- 1394 port controlled by VT6306, with up to
400Mbps transfer
rate.
(Optional)
Back Panel I/O
2 PS/2
connectors (keyboard and mouse)
2 9-pin Serial port
1 25-pin SPP/ECP/EPP Parallel port
4 USB 2.0 ports
3
Audio connectors (Line-out, Line-in, Mic-in)
1 Gigabit LAN port
Miscellaneous
ATX form factor
30.5 cm(L) x
24.7 cm(W) ATX Form Factor
Nine mounting holes
Package
Contents
MSI GNB Max-FISR Motherboard
Drivers and Utilities CD
Installation Manual
ATA 133 IDE Cable
Floppy Cable
D-Bracket?2 (Optional)
S-Bracket? (Optional)
I/O shield
MSI Case Badge
Special Features
Fuzzy Logic 4?
Live BIOS? / Live Driver?
Live Monitor?
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This board has it all.
What other features could you possibly want in a new
P4 board? The MSI GNB MAX-FISR has 6 ports of
USB 2.0, integrated Gigabit Ethernet, Firewire and
sound. The sound chip is a C-Media 87398MX which
provides excellent 6 channel surround sound
capabilities. Finally, the icing on the cake, is
the board's on board Promise 20376 SATA RAID
Controller. Now we just need one of these
foolish drive OEMs to release some SATA Hard Drives
and we'll be styling.
CLICK ANY IMAGE FOR AN
ENLARGED VIEW
Intel's E7205 chipset, as
you can see, provides 4.3GB/sec of memory bandwidth to
the Pentium 4's 533MHz system bus. The chipset
supports up to 4GB of RAM, so server implementations
can easily be supported with the cost effectiveness
that DDR DRAM offers. In addition, AGP8X support
is provided and we are happy to report that our Radeon
9700 Pro, that we used for testing, worked flawlessly
throughout our benchmark runs. Finally, above
you'll see that MSI puts a nice touch on the
motherboard, with an active heat sink and fan
combination cooling the Granite Bay chip itself.
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Layout, Quality
and BIOS Setup
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