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With
the technology markets taking a beating in recent
months, it will become more evident who the major
players are in the technology world and who
isn?t. Competition
will become as fierce as ever, pushing companies
to increase quality and reliability, while reducing
costs. One
of the companies that is doing just that is
Taiwan based DFI.
When thinking of leading manufacturers of
quality motherboards incorporating chipsets from Intel,
AMD and
Via, usually names like Asus and
Abit come to mind.
However, DFI has been producing quality
computer components for over 18 years and have won
numerous awards for their products around the world.
Creating quality motherboards with
reliability and expandability in mind has
solidified DFI?s position as one of the top ten
motherboard manufacturers in the world according
to Computer Resellers News (CRN).
Tonight we are going to take a look at one
of their latest releases and see if it maintains
the standards that DFI is known for, the CS60-EC
i815EP Motherboard.
With
the lack of acceptance of Intel?s i820 chipset
and strong competition from VIA with the Apollo
Pro 133A chipset, Intel released the i815E.
Based on the i820 core, the i815E
incorporated on-board video as well as adding
native support for SDRAM.
The evolution of the i820 to i815E provided
better compatibility and excellent performance
while reducing the overall costs to the consumer.
Now DFI has created a new motherboard based
on the i815EP chipset.
The only major difference between the i815E
& i815EP chipsets is the removal of the i752
graphics function in the i815EP, which results in
the further reduction in costs for the consumer.
Let?s
take a peak and see what this board has to
offer?
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| Specifications
/ Features of the DFI CS60-EC |
| Intel
Inside |
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Chipset
Intel i815EP
CPU Socket
Socket 370 ,
CPU Supported Intel Pentium® III FCPGA 533EB-1GHz/133MHz,
Intel Pentium® III FCPGA 500E-850E/100MHz,
Celeron FCPGA 566-700MHz/66MHz,
Celeron PPGA 300A-533MHz/66MHz
Memory
3 x DIMM sockets max. 512MB (unbuffered)
Supports PC100/ PC133 SDRAM
PCI IDE
Dual PIO mode 4
EIDE channels up to 4 IDE devices
UltraDMA/100 transfer rate up to 100MB/sec
Super I/O
2 x NS16C550A compatible UARTs
1 x SPP/ECP/EPP parallel port
Power Management
ACPI and OS direct power management
Wake-on event: RTC/USB Keyboard/Modem/LAN/Keyboard/Mouse
External Connectors
2 x USB
2 x DB-9
1 x DB-25
1 x PS/2 keyboard
1 x PS/2 mouse
1 x game/MIDI
3 x Audio jacks
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Internal Connectors
2 x external USB
1x IrDA
2 x IDE
1x Floppy
1 x ATX power
3 x fan
1 x WOL
1 x WOR
1 x opened chassis alarm
3 x internal audio
Hardware Monitor
System/Processor temperature
Voltage
Fan speed
Expansion Slots
1 AGP slot (Supports 4x/2x AGP)
5 PCI slots
1 CNR slot
Audio On Board
AC`97 Audio codec
Other
features Ice-Qube cooling system supports
Suspend to RAM
BIOS
Award / 4Mbit
Form Factors
ATX, 4 layers
30.5cm x 22cm
12.05 inch. x 8.66 inch.
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Included
with the CS60-EC i815EP Motherboard is one
80-Pin IDE cable, one floppy cable and one
CD with all of the necessary drivers needed
to successfully install the board.
Also included on the CD is a comprehensive
manual that covers all aspects of the board
in detail. Several programs are
included that are very useful including PC-Cillin
2000, Hardware Doctor, and Over-clock Cruise.
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Layout, Quality, and Installation
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