Intel’s original vision for the new dual channel chipsets was that the i875P would replace the i850E for power users, the i865PE would replace i845PE for desktop use, and the i865P would fill in the low end. Unfortunately for Intel, things haven’t worked out exactly as they planned. What is different this time around is that the 875 and both 865s are all essentially the same chipset. Intel uses a “binning” process similar to how they determine CPU clock speed. The highest performing chipsets become 875s, then 865PEs, and so forth. What was supposed to set the 875P apart, (and justify its significant price premium) was ECC memory support, and Intel’s PAT, or Performance Acceleration Technology.
With PAT enabled, i875Ps are roughly 2-5% faster than i865PEs, but with it disabled, performance of the two are virtually identical. PAT is “locked out” of the 865 chipset, so if you want the fastest, you must get an i875P motherboard. At least, that is what was supposed to happen, but it didn’t. Motherboard makers quickly found a way around this problem, and enabled performance enhancements identical to PAT on i865PEs. The board makers couldn’t call it PAT without invoking Intel’s wrath, so they came up with creative names instead. My favorite of these thus far is MSI’s “MAT”. If that’s not a slap in the face for Intel, I don’t know what is. Not to be left behind, Albatron came up with their own “PAT like” but not officially PAT enhancements called PEM, or “Performance Enhancement Mode”.
Since PEM makes the i865PE basically an i875P without ECC support (and if you need that you probably aren’t into overclocking) Albatron has decided not to produce an i875P board, and instead focus on two distinct i865PE offerings, which I think is a smart move. Why pay the extra money for identical performance? Albatron’s two models are the PX865PE Pro (being reviewed) and the Pro II, which adds CSA Lan, IEEE 1394 ports, the ICH5R south bridge, a 2 channel Promise ATA Raid controller, Dual Bios, and upgraded 8 channel onboard audio by way of VIA’s 24PT chip. The Pro makes do with a standard 3Com 10\100 Lan chip on the PCI bus, and Realtek AC’97 audio. The difference between the two boards in price is about $90, so unless you really need Gigabit Lan or FireWire, you may want to think about saving some cash and going for the PX865PE Pro.
Moving on to the main attraction, here are the basic specifications:
Feature Set:
Intel Pentium® 4 Processor (Celeron/Willamette/Northwood/Prescott)
Socket 478 with FSB 400/533/900+(by overclocking ) MHz
( FSB 900MHz + setting available by overclocking )
4 DDR 333/266/400(by overclocking ) Memory Sockets
( Dual Channel DDR333/DDR400 by overclocking )
6 Channel AC97 Audio
3Com 10/100 Ethernet LAN
2 Serial ATA150 Channels,
2 ATA100 Channels, up to 4 ATA 100 IDE Devices
8 USB 2.0/1.1 Ports (6 ports by optional cable)
400/533/800 MHz( FSB 900MHz + setting available by overclocking )
Chipset:
North Bridge : Intel 865PE
South Bridge : Intel ICH5
LAN Chip : 3Com 3C910-A01
Audio Codec : Realtek ALC650
I/O Chip: Winbond Smart I/O W83627HF
Memory:
4 * DDR Sockets:
DDR400/333/DDR266 unbuffered /None-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 (Overclocked), the memory speed supports DDR 333/400
Expansion Slots:
1 x AGP(3.0) 8X slot ( 1.5V & 0.8V 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 )
2 x 5 pin system panel header (Intel spec)
1 x IrDA header
1 x Case Open detection header
1 x Wake on LAN Connector
I/O via Back Panel:
PS/2 keyboard/mouse, 2 x USB(2.0/1.1), RJ45,2 x Com(serial), 1 x Parallel, 1x Line-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:
3FAN sensors, CPU/System voltages and temperature monitoring
Special Features:
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.)
Form Factor:
ATX (244mm x 293mm)
Now that we have that out of the way, let's get to the board.
