Zebronics (TopNotch Infotronix) has launched Intel P35/ICH9R and P35/ICH9 chipsets-based Biostar TP35 motherboards.
The Intel P35 Express Chipset supports new technologies such as 1333 MHz System Bus speed, next-generation 45nm dual- and quad-core processors, and DDR3 memory to deliver system bandwidth and performance.
Pradeep Doshi, director (Sales) of Topnotch Infotronix, said that Biostar P35 DDR2 boards will bring performance computing to the mainstream, which is the core segment in India right now. "We haven't just focused on the DDR3 variant. The DDR2 based P35 T-Force series board is also available readily through Zebronics Not only is DDR3 memory expensive, its availability is also scarce, especially in the non-metro cities," he added.
With built-in design headroom, Intel Fast Memory Access (Intel FMA), and Intel Turbo Memory platforms, based on the Intel P35 Express Chipset, enable best-of-class performance and offer the best value for performance desktop computing.
Biostar TP35D2-A7 and TP35D3-A7 Deluxe boards are now available through Zebronics partners.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Gigabyte to Train Partners on Energy Saver Mobos
Motherboard and graphics card manufacturer Gigabyte United plans to train partners on its new range of Dynamic Energy Saver motherboards, which, the company claimed, deliver power savings of up to 70 per cent and up to 20 per cent improved power efficiency.
Gigabyte will launch a series of regional events to promote the new product. "We'll undertake a series of events across India to train partners about the Energy Saver, once the financial year is over," said Arthur Liu, sales manager-Asia Region, Gigabyte United. The company also unveiled X48, X38 and P35-based motherboards.
According to Liu, the company aims to ship around 800 K motherboards in India in 2008. Fifty to 60 per cent of that shipment will consist of the Energy Saving motherboards. The Energy Saver is already available in the Indian markets at a slightly higher price than that of traditional motherboards.
The Dynamic Energy Saver features proprietary software and hardware design, including components from Intersil. The multi-gear power phase design of the product allows for efficient switching of power phases depending on CPU work loading. When the CPU work loading is light or at idle, the Dynamic Energy Saver downshifts gears and only allows the minimum required power phases needed to accomplish the task to operate. As soon as the workload increases, the motherboard is able to shift into higher gear, turning on power phases, as they are needed.
The motherboard interface allows users to turn on and off the power-saving features with a simple click of a button. The product enables users to see real-time CPU power consumption in Watts and also record the power saved in a set period.
Gigabyte will launch a series of regional events to promote the new product. "We'll undertake a series of events across India to train partners about the Energy Saver, once the financial year is over," said Arthur Liu, sales manager-Asia Region, Gigabyte United. The company also unveiled X48, X38 and P35-based motherboards.
According to Liu, the company aims to ship around 800 K motherboards in India in 2008. Fifty to 60 per cent of that shipment will consist of the Energy Saving motherboards. The Energy Saver is already available in the Indian markets at a slightly higher price than that of traditional motherboards.
The Dynamic Energy Saver features proprietary software and hardware design, including components from Intersil. The multi-gear power phase design of the product allows for efficient switching of power phases depending on CPU work loading. When the CPU work loading is light or at idle, the Dynamic Energy Saver downshifts gears and only allows the minimum required power phases needed to accomplish the task to operate. As soon as the workload increases, the motherboard is able to shift into higher gear, turning on power phases, as they are needed.
The motherboard interface allows users to turn on and off the power-saving features with a simple click of a button. The product enables users to see real-time CPU power consumption in Watts and also record the power saved in a set period.
Gigabyte to Sell One Million Mother Boards
Gigabyte has adopted an aggressive go to market strategy, aiming at achieving a robust growth in 2008. At its recently concluded Annual Sales Meet to review 2007 and plan for 2008, Gigabyte India has embarked on a target of 1 million motherboards sales-out.
In the meeting attended by Gigabyte India sales team, a team of senior managers from Gigabyte TWN including James Lo, Arthur Liu and Alan Szu, it has been decided that the company will focus on the higher end and gaming solutions in motherboard, and VGA segment in India.
In the words of P. Vyas, managing director of Gigabyte (India), "We have created a strong foothold in the motherboards and VGA market in the year 2007 - 2008, shipping above 500K motherboards in channels. An achievement - which has boosted the morale of the entire Gigabyte team, and ensuring a platform to target 1 million motherboards in the new fiscal."
"After a successful last fiscal, we will get more aggressive not only in the tier 1 markets, but also in the B, C and D locations - by strengthening our channels and RMA infrastructure. We will have 38 Direct RMA locations within this month. Our installed base in India is over 2 million, and we assure the best post sales network to our customers. We will work more closely with all our distributors, vendors, and strengthen our position in India and globally," informed Rajan Sharma, general manager (MB and VGA BU) - Gigabyte India
In the meeting attended by Gigabyte India sales team, a team of senior managers from Gigabyte TWN including James Lo, Arthur Liu and Alan Szu, it has been decided that the company will focus on the higher end and gaming solutions in motherboard, and VGA segment in India.
In the words of P. Vyas, managing director of Gigabyte (India), "We have created a strong foothold in the motherboards and VGA market in the year 2007 - 2008, shipping above 500K motherboards in channels. An achievement - which has boosted the morale of the entire Gigabyte team, and ensuring a platform to target 1 million motherboards in the new fiscal."
"After a successful last fiscal, we will get more aggressive not only in the tier 1 markets, but also in the B, C and D locations - by strengthening our channels and RMA infrastructure. We will have 38 Direct RMA locations within this month. Our installed base in India is over 2 million, and we assure the best post sales network to our customers. We will work more closely with all our distributors, vendors, and strengthen our position in India and globally," informed Rajan Sharma, general manager (MB and VGA BU) - Gigabyte India
Intel Offers Motherboards Targeting Kind of Use
Intel Corporation has launched 3 new motherboards, namely, Desktop Board DX48BT2 Extreme Series, Desktop Board DG35EC Classic Series and Desktop Board D945GCLF Essential Series.
The keyboards, individually aimed at the extreme gamer, the mainstream multi-media user, and the entry-level PC users, enable a number of features for today's PCs, such as - greater PC performance, clearer definition video and low-powered technologies.
Tom Rampone, vice president, Sales and Marketing Group, and general manager, Channel, Intel, says, "From ultimate gaming bliss, to crisp high definition, to the most-affordable internet-centric desktop, Intel continues to push the boundaries of world-class desktop offerings. As the demand for desktops across the board moves from strength to strength, we are also quickly moving towards more feature differentiation and innovation down our product roadmap."
According to the company, for extreme gaming performance, Desktop Board DX48BT2 Extreme Series board unleashes the fastest native 1600 MHz front side bus and memory support, providing powerful performance and extreme overclockability.
For mainstream users, who want to experience a new level of 3D and media crispiness, the Desktop Board DG35EC Classic Series board's built with sharpest performing integrated graphics, supported on Intel architecture, informs the manufacturer.
Belonging to an exciting new category of computers called Nettops - a new family of affordable desktop computing devices purpose-built for Internet-centric usage models - the Desktop Board D945GCLF is an affordable and unique motherboard, which integrates a single unit of computer with a microprocessor, chipset, motherboard, and heat sink, communicates Intel.
The keyboards, individually aimed at the extreme gamer, the mainstream multi-media user, and the entry-level PC users, enable a number of features for today's PCs, such as - greater PC performance, clearer definition video and low-powered technologies.
Tom Rampone, vice president, Sales and Marketing Group, and general manager, Channel, Intel, says, "From ultimate gaming bliss, to crisp high definition, to the most-affordable internet-centric desktop, Intel continues to push the boundaries of world-class desktop offerings. As the demand for desktops across the board moves from strength to strength, we are also quickly moving towards more feature differentiation and innovation down our product roadmap."
According to the company, for extreme gaming performance, Desktop Board DX48BT2 Extreme Series board unleashes the fastest native 1600 MHz front side bus and memory support, providing powerful performance and extreme overclockability.
For mainstream users, who want to experience a new level of 3D and media crispiness, the Desktop Board DG35EC Classic Series board's built with sharpest performing integrated graphics, supported on Intel architecture, informs the manufacturer.
Belonging to an exciting new category of computers called Nettops - a new family of affordable desktop computing devices purpose-built for Internet-centric usage models - the Desktop Board D945GCLF is an affordable and unique motherboard, which integrates a single unit of computer with a microprocessor, chipset, motherboard, and heat sink, communicates Intel.
Gigabyte Unveils New AMD AM2+ Platform MB
Gigabyte, a manufacturer of motherboards (MB) and graphics cards, has extended its line up of AMD 780G based motherboards to include the new ATX form factor. The new motherboard, Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H, features the first DirectX 10 IGP (Integrated Graphics Processor) solution for the AM2+ platform.
Based on the AMD 780G chipset, the GA-MA78G-DS3H offers support for AM2 Athlon processors as well as the latest AM2+ Phenom processors with ultra-low latency, high bandwidth Hyper Transport 3.0 (5200MT/s) technology.
At the heart of the MB lies the ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics core, featuring support for DirectX 10, Shader Model 4.0 and OpenGL2.0. The new MB is able to boost the GPU frequency up to 950 MHz, delivering UMA graphics performance with a 3DMARK06 score of 2000 or higher, the company claimed.
The AMD 780G meets the HDCP specification for output protection management and security specifications of the latest Blu-Ray media format. Featuring support for ATI UVD (Universal Video Decoder) technology and ATI Avivo technology, the MB provides picture clarity at resolution up to Full HD 1080P for fine image quality and smooth playback. High-Definition multimedia support is carried throughout the Radeon HD 3200 outputs, which include not only D-Sub and DVI, but also HDMI to support numerous monitors.
The GA-MA78G-DS3H also provides an additional PCI-E 2.0 x16 graphics interface and a PCI-E2.0 x4 expansion slot to support the ATI Hybrid Graphics technology, allowing users to combine the power of their integrated ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics core by adding an additional discrete graphics card, for enhanced 3D gaming performance, productivity and power efficiency.
ATI SurroundVIew provides support for 4 or more monitors with the addition of a discrete graphics card, allowing users to maximize their productivity while ATI PowerPlay enables power-saving profiles to help reduce power consumption when the graphics processor is idle or in minimal use for reduced system temperatures and fan noise.
The motherboard is equipped with the built-in high-definition 7.1 + 2 channel Realtek ALC889A audio chip, whose 106dB signal-to-noise ratio reduces noise during signal transmission.
The GA-MA78G-DS3H also features a solid capacitor design for the CPU VRM, providing system stability and reliability.
Based on the AMD 780G chipset, the GA-MA78G-DS3H offers support for AM2 Athlon processors as well as the latest AM2+ Phenom processors with ultra-low latency, high bandwidth Hyper Transport 3.0 (5200MT/s) technology.
At the heart of the MB lies the ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics core, featuring support for DirectX 10, Shader Model 4.0 and OpenGL2.0. The new MB is able to boost the GPU frequency up to 950 MHz, delivering UMA graphics performance with a 3DMARK06 score of 2000 or higher, the company claimed.
The AMD 780G meets the HDCP specification for output protection management and security specifications of the latest Blu-Ray media format. Featuring support for ATI UVD (Universal Video Decoder) technology and ATI Avivo technology, the MB provides picture clarity at resolution up to Full HD 1080P for fine image quality and smooth playback. High-Definition multimedia support is carried throughout the Radeon HD 3200 outputs, which include not only D-Sub and DVI, but also HDMI to support numerous monitors.
The GA-MA78G-DS3H also provides an additional PCI-E 2.0 x16 graphics interface and a PCI-E2.0 x4 expansion slot to support the ATI Hybrid Graphics technology, allowing users to combine the power of their integrated ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics core by adding an additional discrete graphics card, for enhanced 3D gaming performance, productivity and power efficiency.
ATI SurroundVIew provides support for 4 or more monitors with the addition of a discrete graphics card, allowing users to maximize their productivity while ATI PowerPlay enables power-saving profiles to help reduce power consumption when the graphics processor is idle or in minimal use for reduced system temperatures and fan noise.
The motherboard is equipped with the built-in high-definition 7.1 + 2 channel Realtek ALC889A audio chip, whose 106dB signal-to-noise ratio reduces noise during signal transmission.
The GA-MA78G-DS3H also features a solid capacitor design for the CPU VRM, providing system stability and reliability.
Gigabyte's Motherboard Delivers Power Efficiency
Gigabyte has announced the launch of the G31 Series Motherboards based on the Intel G31 chipset. These motherboards use Gigabyte Dynamic Energy Saver technology, and deliver huge power savings and better power efficiency for the computers.
The company offers two models in this series - GA-EG31M-S2 and GA-EG31MF-S2. The former has Ultra Durable2 design for its CPU Voltage Regulator Module (VRM). This ensures better cooling, lower power loss and longer lifespan for computers in daily operation, and boosts system stability even under extreme conditions.
"Gigabyte Dynamic Energy Saver Series Motherboards are able to provide exceptional power savings of up to 70% improved power efficiency, without sacrificing computing performance, our entry model GA-EG31M-S2 is DES compliant," said Rajan Sharma, general manager (MB and VGA BU) of Gigabyte India.
According to a Gigabyte communique, these motherboards are compatible with high-end processors including Intel Core 2 multi-core and 45nm processors. The motherboards come equipped with dual Channel DDR2 800 memory.
These also have the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100 that supports Microsoft DirectX 9.0 and Windows Vista Aero experience, which improves realism and delivers excellent graphics performance.
Armed with the SATA specification, the bus bandwidth of the G31 Series is now doubled from 1.5Gb/s to 3Gb/s. The Native Command Queuing specification enables out-of-order execution of commands for efficient retrieval of data.
The Gigabit network interface delivers a high-speed LAN connection with data transfer rates - up to 1000Mb/s, gearing you up for the broadband and streaming video era. Also, supported is theIEEE1394 Fire Wire interface from Texas Instruments (TI). With transfer speeds of up to 400Mb/s, this new generation interface enhances PC connectivity with consumer electronics audio/video (A/V) appliances, and storage peripherals.
Gigabyte GA-EG31M-S2 is priced at Rs.5500, and Gigabyte GA-EG31MF-S2 is priced at Rs.6000. They are distributed in India by Avnet, Ingram Micro and Redington.
The new specifications of ASUS
Electrostatic Discharge Protection (ESD)
ASUS has designed motherboards that surpasses the EU s strict static electricity standards and provide users with protection against such static discharge in the most commonly used scenarios for example the front USB ports. Each USB port on the motherboard is protected against static electricity discharge.
Overcurrent Protection for Safe Computing
An overcurrent is a current that exceeds the amperage rating of the external device (flash memory, hard disks, and etc.) or other active components in a circuit (e.g., ICs). When you connect an external device (e.g. external HDD) with a flawed circuit into your PC system, it might cause an overcurrent. ASUS s motherboards are designed with an installed circuit that acts like fuses and circuit breakers to detect an overcurrent condition when the current reaches a value that will cause an excessive or dangerous temperature rise in conductors and in doing so, protecting your external devices, ICs and the safety of the users themselves.
ASUS Data Guardian (TPM) for Total Data Security
The ASUS Data Guardian (TPM support) provides ultimate data security protection for the user s personal data by creating a virtual folder that is protected by an encryption key and then stored on a USB portable drive allowing users to store their most valued and secret data safely against unauthorized access.
Drive Xpert The Easy and Safe Way for Data Management
Drive Xpert solves all the dilemmas and is ideal for anyone who needs to secure their data on their hard drives or enhance hard drive performances without the hassles of complicated configurations. With Drive Xpert's exclusive user-friendly graphical user interface, users can easily arrange hard drive backups or enhance their hard drive transfer rates - making sure that data is looked after every moment, every day.
ASUS has designed motherboards that surpasses the EU s strict static electricity standards and provide users with protection against such static discharge in the most commonly used scenarios for example the front USB ports. Each USB port on the motherboard is protected against static electricity discharge.
Overcurrent Protection for Safe Computing
An overcurrent is a current that exceeds the amperage rating of the external device (flash memory, hard disks, and etc.) or other active components in a circuit (e.g., ICs). When you connect an external device (e.g. external HDD) with a flawed circuit into your PC system, it might cause an overcurrent. ASUS s motherboards are designed with an installed circuit that acts like fuses and circuit breakers to detect an overcurrent condition when the current reaches a value that will cause an excessive or dangerous temperature rise in conductors and in doing so, protecting your external devices, ICs and the safety of the users themselves.
ASUS Data Guardian (TPM) for Total Data Security
The ASUS Data Guardian (TPM support) provides ultimate data security protection for the user s personal data by creating a virtual folder that is protected by an encryption key and then stored on a USB portable drive allowing users to store their most valued and secret data safely against unauthorized access.
Drive Xpert The Easy and Safe Way for Data Management
Drive Xpert solves all the dilemmas and is ideal for anyone who needs to secure their data on their hard drives or enhance hard drive performances without the hassles of complicated configurations. With Drive Xpert's exclusive user-friendly graphical user interface, users can easily arrange hard drive backups or enhance their hard drive transfer rates - making sure that data is looked after every moment, every day.
Data Security with Asus Motherboards
Asus, manufacturer of motherboards, has announced key motherboards innovations to offer users the ultimate data security. Available in the P5Q series and other top-notch motherboards, these innovations include ESD and over current protection for safeguarding users against electrostatic discharges, and over current; as well as Asus Data Guardian (TPM) and Drive Xpert for data security and backup.
Commenting on the launch, Vinay Shetty, business manager (Components) of Asus, said, These new motherboards feature ASUS s exclusive EPU technology, which optimizes the power consumption according to the application being run and reduce power consumption by up to 80.23 percent. This will greatly benefit all end-users with low power consumption and help to conserve the environment by lower emission levels. Also, the other new innovations in these motherboards will appeal equally to end-users across all segments.
Commenting on the launch, Vinay Shetty, business manager (Components) of Asus, said, These new motherboards feature ASUS s exclusive EPU technology, which optimizes the power consumption according to the application being run and reduce power consumption by up to 80.23 percent. This will greatly benefit all end-users with low power consumption and help to conserve the environment by lower emission levels. Also, the other new innovations in these motherboards will appeal equally to end-users across all segments.
This motherboard has 10 USB 2.0 ports (four soldered on the motherboard and six available thru I/O brackets, which didn’t come with the motherboard)
On the storage side, this motherboard has a total of six SATA-300 ports, four provided by the south bridge (ICH8) and two provided by a JMicron JMB363 chip. The ports controlled by the chipset do not support RAID, as the south bridge used is ICH8 and not ICH8R, however the two ports controlled by the JMicron chip supports RAID0, RAID1 and JBOD. One of these two ports is located externally, for connecting an external drive. This port is different, as it is a port multiplier connector, so you can’t use a regular SATA cable on it.
Port multiplier is a technology targeted to external hard disk drives, allowing you to connect up to 15 Serial ATA hard disk drives to a single SATA-300 port. In order to use more than one SATA HDDs on this port you need an external port multiplier bridge, which is an external device sold separately. The hard disks are connected to this device, while this device is connected to this port multiplier port, which, in turn, is internally connected to one of the SATA ports controlled by the JMicron JMB363 chip on the motherboard. Read our Everything You Need to Know About Serial ATA tutorial to learn more about port multiplier.
It is very important to notice that the single ATA/133 port available on this motherboard is controlled by the JMicron chip, not by the chipset. This means that if you still have a parallel IDE optical drive it will only be recognized on Windows after you install JMicron’s driver. The problem is that this driver comes on the motherboard CD-ROM, and you won’t be able to install it, as the system does not recognize your optical drive. You can download the driver from the net, however the driver for the on-board LAN port is also on the CD-ROM… The only option you have is to copy the JMicron driver from the CD to a floppy disk or a USB pen drive using another PC. This problem happens not only with this motherboard from ASUS, but also with all other motherboards based on Intel P965 chipset we’ve seen to date. Of course if you have a SATA optical drive you won’t face this issue.
This motherboard has one Gigabit Ethernet port, controlled by the south bridge using a Realtek RTL8111B to make the physical layer interface.
The audio section from this motherboard provides 7.1 audio, produced by the south bridge chip with the aid of an Analog Devices AD1988A codec. This codec provides a better signal-to-noise ratio for its inputs compared to Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 and MSI P965 Platinum – 90 dB against 85 dB. The signal-to-noise ratio for its output is of 95 dB and it supports up to 192 KHz sampling rate for its inputs and outputs (the one used by the two abovementioned boards from MSI and Gigabyte support 192 KHz only for their outputs, with their inputs limited to 96 KHz).
On the rear panel (Figure 3) you can find the Gigabit Ethernet port, four USB 2.0 ports, separated analog audio inputs/outputs (7.1 format), SPDIF coaxial and optical outputs, one external SATA port, one parallel port, PS/2 mouse and PS/2 keyboard connectors. The serial port is missing here but you still can use it by installing an I/O bracket, but this bracket didn’t come with the board we reviewed.
Port multiplier is a technology targeted to external hard disk drives, allowing you to connect up to 15 Serial ATA hard disk drives to a single SATA-300 port. In order to use more than one SATA HDDs on this port you need an external port multiplier bridge, which is an external device sold separately. The hard disks are connected to this device, while this device is connected to this port multiplier port, which, in turn, is internally connected to one of the SATA ports controlled by the JMicron JMB363 chip on the motherboard. Read our Everything You Need to Know About Serial ATA tutorial to learn more about port multiplier.
It is very important to notice that the single ATA/133 port available on this motherboard is controlled by the JMicron chip, not by the chipset. This means that if you still have a parallel IDE optical drive it will only be recognized on Windows after you install JMicron’s driver. The problem is that this driver comes on the motherboard CD-ROM, and you won’t be able to install it, as the system does not recognize your optical drive. You can download the driver from the net, however the driver for the on-board LAN port is also on the CD-ROM… The only option you have is to copy the JMicron driver from the CD to a floppy disk or a USB pen drive using another PC. This problem happens not only with this motherboard from ASUS, but also with all other motherboards based on Intel P965 chipset we’ve seen to date. Of course if you have a SATA optical drive you won’t face this issue.
This motherboard has one Gigabit Ethernet port, controlled by the south bridge using a Realtek RTL8111B to make the physical layer interface.
The audio section from this motherboard provides 7.1 audio, produced by the south bridge chip with the aid of an Analog Devices AD1988A codec. This codec provides a better signal-to-noise ratio for its inputs compared to Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 and MSI P965 Platinum – 90 dB against 85 dB. The signal-to-noise ratio for its output is of 95 dB and it supports up to 192 KHz sampling rate for its inputs and outputs (the one used by the two abovementioned boards from MSI and Gigabyte support 192 KHz only for their outputs, with their inputs limited to 96 KHz).
On the rear panel (Figure 3) you can find the Gigabit Ethernet port, four USB 2.0 ports, separated analog audio inputs/outputs (7.1 format), SPDIF coaxial and optical outputs, one external SATA port, one parallel port, PS/2 mouse and PS/2 keyboard connectors. The serial port is missing here but you still can use it by installing an I/O bracket, but this bracket didn’t come with the board we reviewed.
ASUS P5B Motherboard Review
ASUS P5B is a socket 775 motherboard targeted to new Core 2 Duo family, as it is based on the new Intel P965 chipset. One of the main advantages of this new chipset is its unofficial support for DDR2-1066/PC2-8500 memories, feature present on this motherboard from ASUS. Let’s see how this motherboard from ASUS performed against competitors from Gigabyte and MSI.
Right now there are four P5B versions: P5B, P5B-E, P5B Deluxe and P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP. Our review is based on the basic model, P5B. P5B-E uses ICH8R south bridge instead of ICH8 like on P5B, so on this board there are six SATA-300 ports controlled by the chipset supporting RAID (0, 1, 10 and 5) plus two extra ports controlled by a JMicron chip. P5B-E has also two Firewire ports. The rest of the specs are equal to P5B. P5B Deluxe has two Gigabit Ethernet ports, two x16 PCI Express slots (the second one running at x4), only one x1 PCI Express slot and a passive cooling solution using a heat-pipe. The rest of the specs are the same as P5B-E. P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP is identical to P5B Deluxe but features a wireless access point supporting IEEE 802.11b/g (up to 54 Mbps).
This motherboard uses a passive cooling solution on its chipset and does not use any cooling solution on its voltage regulator transistors, as you can see on Figure 1.This motherboard provides one x16 PCI Express slot, three x1 PCI Express slots and three standard PCI slots.
On the memory side, ASUS P5B has four DDR2-DIMM sockets, supporting up to 8 GB officially up to DDR2-800, however this motherboard supports DDR2-1066/PC2-8500 memories (we installed four DDR2-1066 modules and they worked just fine at 1,066 MHz). On this motherboard sockets 1 and 3 are yellow and sockets 2 and 4 are black. Configuring DDR2 dual channel on this motherboard is pretty easy: just install each module on a socket with the same color.
Right now there are four P5B versions: P5B, P5B-E, P5B Deluxe and P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP. Our review is based on the basic model, P5B. P5B-E uses ICH8R south bridge instead of ICH8 like on P5B, so on this board there are six SATA-300 ports controlled by the chipset supporting RAID (0, 1, 10 and 5) plus two extra ports controlled by a JMicron chip. P5B-E has also two Firewire ports. The rest of the specs are equal to P5B. P5B Deluxe has two Gigabit Ethernet ports, two x16 PCI Express slots (the second one running at x4), only one x1 PCI Express slot and a passive cooling solution using a heat-pipe. The rest of the specs are the same as P5B-E. P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP is identical to P5B Deluxe but features a wireless access point supporting IEEE 802.11b/g (up to 54 Mbps).
This motherboard uses a passive cooling solution on its chipset and does not use any cooling solution on its voltage regulator transistors, as you can see on Figure 1.This motherboard provides one x16 PCI Express slot, three x1 PCI Express slots and three standard PCI slots.
On the memory side, ASUS P5B has four DDR2-DIMM sockets, supporting up to 8 GB officially up to DDR2-800, however this motherboard supports DDR2-1066/PC2-8500 memories (we installed four DDR2-1066 modules and they worked just fine at 1,066 MHz). On this motherboard sockets 1 and 3 are yellow and sockets 2 and 4 are black. Configuring DDR2 dual channel on this motherboard is pretty easy: just install each module on a socket with the same color.
AMD CPUs have taken a backseat to the Intel juggernaut as of late
The latest AMD Phenom X4 9850 does not have the performance to match the latest Intel Core 2 Quad CPUs. AMD has been forced to compete in price/performance and even there they are fighting a losing battle as the Intel Q6600 outperforms the 9850 but offers the same price online today.AMD announced their Spider platform last year with the launch of their 790FX motherboard chipset and the Phenom 9600 series.
Unfortunately due to a TLB error, and subpar performance compared to Intel equivalents this platform was not as successful as it could have been. With the release of the Phenom B3 revision, the platform and CPU performance has come up to par with the Intel equivalently priced CPU. Gigabyte is a Tier-1 motherboard manufacturer based in Taiwan. They are well known for their high-end motherboards, video cards and other computer components. They have motherboards based upon virtually every known motherboard chipset from AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, VIA and S3. Today’s board review is based upon the AMD 790FX chipset and the board is the Gigabyte MA-790FX-DS5.
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