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Since the advent of Intel's
i865 and i875 chipsets, the two have performed similarly,
with a slight advantage going to the 875 and its PAT
(Performance Acceleration Technology). Soon after the
release of the 865 however, motherboard manufacturers were
able to implement the same technology with a simple BIOS
update, showing that the i865 is merely a binned down i875
with more conservative timings. Not long after this
was discovered, Intel made it clear that it was not PAT
"officially" and it could not be called PAT in any way.
After the initial dust
settled, we all found that the i875 with PAT and the i865
with pseudo-PAT performed on the same level, with the latter
product selling for a lot less. Why then would anyone
want an i875 based motherboard? Because if it isn't
PAT, there is no guarantee that it will work. Where as
PAT is a certified Intel technology that has been tested and
qualified to work as advertised.
In our experience, both
chipsets offer virtually the same performance and features.
But in the end, if you want a motherboard that officially
supports PAT, you'll need an i875 based board. So
let's take a look at the latest of these boards to come our
way, the Albatron PX875 Pro. This motherboard has the
muscle to power the best processor Intel has to offer and
enough overclocking features to push it to its max.
Let's see what it has to offer and then we'll pit it against
an i865PE board with "pseudo-PAT", other wise known as
Abit's "Game Accelerator" technology and see if it is worth
the extra cash.
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Features
of the Albatron PX875 Pro |
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Features and Functionality |
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Click to Enlarge
Processor
Socket 478 Intel Pentium® 4 Processor
(Northwood/Prescott)
FSB
400/533/800 MHz( FSB1.2G Hz + setting available by
overclocking )
Chipset
North Bridge : Intel 875P
South Bridge : Intel ICH5
LAN Chip : 3Com 3C920
Audio Codec : Realtek ALC655
I/O Chip: Winbond Smart I/O W83627THF
Memory
4 * DDR Sockets:
DDR400/333/DDR266 ECC/NON-ECC DDR SDRAM up to 4GB
Note 1: If the FSB of your CPU is 400 MHz, the
memory speed supports only DDR 266.
Note 2: If the FSB of your CPU is 533 MHz, the
memory speed supports DDR 266/333
Note 3: If the FSB of your CPU is 800 MHz, the
memory speed supports DDR 266/333/400
Expansion Slots
1 x AGP(3.0) 8X slot (1.5V only)
5 x PCI slots (PCI 2.3 compliant)
IDE Connectors
2 ATA100/66 Channels, up to 4 ATA 100 IDE devices
Onboard I/O Connectors
1 x Floppy Connector
3 x USB 2.0/1.1 header (6 ports by optional cable)
1 x CD_IN header
1 x S/PDIF in/out header (S/PDIF in/out cable
optional)
1 x CPU fan header ( 1 fan rotation detection
function )
2 x System fan headers ( 2 fan rotation detection
function ) |
1 x 10 pin system panel
header (Intel spec)
1 x 3 pin Power LED header
1 x Front audio header (Intel spec)
1 x IrDA header
1 x Case Open detection header
I/O via Back Panel
PS/2 keyboard/mouse, 2 x USB(2.0/1.1), RJ45,2 x
Com(serial), 1 x Parallel, 1xLine-in/Line-out(Speaker
Out)/MIC
Power
20-pin ATX power connector, 4-pin ATX 12V power
connector
BIOS Feature
3Mb Flash EEPROM
Award BIOS with ACPI, DMI2.0, PnP, WfM2.0, Green
Suspend to RAM (S3), Suspend to Disk (S4) Wake on
keyboard/mouse, Wake on LAN/RTC Timer
Hardware Monitoring
3 FAN sensors, CPU/System voltages and temperature
monitoring
Special Feature
Zero Jumper Design
Adjustable CPU frequency by 1 MHz increment,
Adjustable Vcore, VAGP, VMemory for overclocking
Watch Dog Timer (auto-reset system when it can not
handle overclock configurations)
AGP Protection (The AGP Protection can ensure the
AGP card voltage to be 1.5V, to protect the
mainboard and the AGP card )
Certifications
FCC, CE, BSMI
Form Factor
ATX (244mm x 305mm)
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