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Intel P35 Express Motherboards Round Up

Several weeks ago, Microsoft releaed two Performance and Reliability updates aimed at performance problems related to storage and graphics in Winvdows Vista. We actually have been waiting forward to this - we were planning to review storage performance from Intel's ICH8R, ICH9R and NVIDIA's NForce 680i MCP with single and RAID 0 setups. However, during testing, we saw performance was nowhere close to Windows XP levels and varies wildly from one run to the next. Since we're unable to do the testing required for a storage comparison test, we opted to use this opportunity to look at Vista's I/O performance. Our conclusion: if I/O performance is important to you, you better stick to Windows XP for the time being.

Read the article here..

News from the Web

MSI sent a press release concerning their latest motherboard with Intel's X38 chipset, MSI X38 Diamond

"Taipei, Taiwan – Micro-Star International (MSI), one of the leaders in motherboard manufacturing, launches its latest X38 Diamond motherboards based on IntelR X38 Express chipset and DDR3 structure. The new MSI X38 Diamond motherboards include the most exclusive features designed for PC enthusiast and offer users to experience the amazing advantage of “Ready for PC2008”.
”.

Here's a feature list, still from the press release:

X38 Diamond
IntelR X38 Express Chipset Based
Supports Intel Core? 2 Extreme/Quad/Duo Processors
Supports FSB 1333/1066/800MHz
Supports Dual Ch. DDR3-1333/1066/800
Dual-Channel PWM design
New Circu-Pipe
4 PCI Express x16 slots ( 2 runs x4 speed) supports PCIe 2.0 & ATI CrossFire
2 eSATA2 Support Matrix RAID & Port Multiplier @ back I/O
Supports 7.1Ch. X-Fi Xtreme Audio
Supports MSI SkyTel VoIP function
Supports dual Gigabit LAN

No doubt you'd notice there's actually 4 (four) x16 physical PCI-E slots on this board. Still not to crazy about the dual sound card - onboard and X-Fi - decision though. Could'nt see the straps jumper - hopefully MSI chose to put it in the BIOS instead. Nice to see they manage to use change the SATA ports orientation (though not all of them).

Foxconn also sent a press release for their X38 motherboard.

"Beijing, China, October 10th 2007 – FOXCONN today officially announced the launch of the X38A motherboard, based on the enthusiast-class Intel® X38 chipset. This high-end desktop motherboard is the latest product in Foxconn’s Digital Life segment, which aims to bring more connectivity and digital entertainment capability to enthusiast motherboards."

X38A Specifications

CPU Support
Skt775 for Intel® Core™2 Quad, Core™2 Extreme, Core™2 Duo, Pentium® Dual-Core E2xxx, Celeron® 4xx, Pentium® D, Pentium® 4 processors.
Supports Intel® next generation 45nm Multi-Core CPUs

FSB Support
1333/1066/800MHz

Memory
Dual DDR3 1333/1066/800, 2* DIMMs, 4GB Max. or Dual DDR2 1066/800/667, 4* DIMMs, 8GB Max.

Expansion
3* PCIe x16 with ATI CrossFire™ support (2* x16 bandwidth) - PCIe Gen2.0 support
2* PCIe x1 slots
2* PCI slots

Connectivity
6* SATAII, 2* eSATA, 2* IEEE1394a, 8* USB2.0, 1* ATA 133, 1* FDC

RAID
RAID 0, 1, 5, 0+1, Intel® Matrix Storage Technology™ and Intel® Rapid Recover

Audio
7.1channel HD with Dual Digital Audio

Networking
Dual Gigabit LAN

BIOS & Special Features
100% SOLID Capacitor design
Cool Pipe (heatpipe solution)
Dual Digital Audio
Dual DDR2/DDR3 Combo memory support
Dual eSATA
Dual Gigabit LAN
EasyPin
Ferrite Choke Design
FCCU BIOS control
Foxconn Digital Connector (FDC)
FoxOne™
Onboard CMOS & On/Off/Reset buttons

Accessories
EZ Installation Guide
User manual
6* SATA cables + power cables
1* FDD + IDE cable
1* 2 x USB + 1x 1394A bracket
1* FAN (optional for NB)
I/O shield
Utility CD including Symantec Anti-Virus

Form Factor
ATX

Hard to see the details, but the 6 SATA ports placement looks interesting. It may still interfere with the third x16 PCI-E slot, but that's not really much a problem unless you're planning to use CrossfireX. Though X38 motherboards are very interesting, the X48 is around the corner. So, you might want to wait for that, not to mention Penryn support is still up in the air, even for P35 boards.

Still from MSI, but this time on the graphics front - the NX8800GT

"Taipei, Taiwan - MSI, a leading manufacturer of computer products, proudly unveils its latest MSI NX8800GT Series graphics card, base on NVIDIAR GeForceR 8800GT Series GPU. After raising the number of stream processors inside GPU core, MSI NX8800GT Series can achieve even better benchmark result or real application performance than ever."

if you want to look at the benchmarks, here are some GeForce 8800GT reviews

Here are some other reviews and articles you might want to look into:

Looking at Vista's I/O Performance

Looking at the Intel P35 Express chipset

The P35 is a successor of Intel's P965 Express chipset. Many marketing pitch and reviews alike seem conclude that there's three things P35 offer over P965 - official support for 1333 MHz bus, Intel's upcoming 45nm Penryn processor family and DDR3 800 to 1333 MHz support. Of those three, only Penryn support is still up in the air. Hopefully Intel's promise of 'just a BIOS upgrade' is true. Today, we're going to take a look at what the P35 has to offer in comparison to its older sibling, the Intel P965 Express chipset.

Read the article here..

News from the Web

MSI sent a press release concerning their latest motherboard with Intel's P35 chipset, MSI P35 Diamond

"Taipei, Taiwan – Micro-Star International (MSI), one of the leaders in motherboard manufacturer launches its latest P35 Diamond motherboard based on IntelR P35 Express chipset and the new-generation DDR3 structure. The new MSI P35 Diamond motherboard includes several exclusive features and the newest technology for upgrading future models offering its consumers to experience the advantage of “Ready for PC2008”.

Intresting features - note the X-Fi Xtreme Audio card bundled. Hmm, with such a decision, those expansion slots will likely be full if you're going to use Crossfire. Hopefully, we will take the board and several other for a round in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

Some reviews you might want to look into:

There's also some articles of interest:

UHF and the future of the Internet at Icrontic

Looking at Vista: AMD and NVIDIA drivers compared

Like all gamers or anyone using a PC in general, we're still wondering is Vista ready yet to be our main 'workhorse'. So, we decided to update our test setup to use Vista. One aspects that quickly comes to mind is the drivers. Quite a long and graphics rich article, we might add. In the end we found AMD has the better Vista support, not just in performance, but features and usability as well.

Read the article here.

GeForce 8600 Series Round Up

Although they're fast and offer high image quality, not everyone can afford or want to use the GeForce 8800 series. For them, NVIDIA made the GeForce 8600 series. This time, we're taking four GeForce 8600GTS and three GeForce 8600GT for a test drive. We're going to take a look at the ASUS EN8600GTS/GT Silent, the Gigabyte NX8600GTS/GT with Silent Pipe, MSI NX8600GTS OC Edition and Leadtek PX8600GTS/GT TDH Extreme.

Read the article here.

News from the Web

Some reviews you might want to look into:

There's also some articles of interest:

A Look at GeForce 8600GTS and 8600GT

With the release of the GeForce 8600GTS/GT and 8500GT, NVIDIA can say they have a complete lineup of DirectX 10 solutions from top to bottom. The GeForce 8600 series is particularly interesting, since it's basically the only series with two SKUs (on the lower end) - the premium GTS and more affordable GT. However, reviews are not all roses for these series. If performance is slower with AA, why bother with the GeForce 8600 series at all? Well, the GeForce 8600 series shares much of the characteristics that can be found on the GeForce 8800 series - pretty good shader performance, angle independent anisotropic filtering and of course, DirectX 10 support.

Read the article here.

GeForce 8800GTS 320 MB Round Up

After looking at what the GeForce 8800GTS 320 MB and 640 MB has to offer, we think the time has come to take a look at various GeForce 8800GTS 320 MB cards. These cards offer high end performance at basically mid range prices. Today, we're going to take a look at the ASUS EN8800GTS, Gigabyte NX8800GTS, Leadtek PX8800GTS TDH and MSI NX8800GTS OC Edition.

Read the article here.

News from the Web

ASUS sent a press release regarding the launch of their latest graphics card based on AMD Radeon HD X2900 XT. Here's a snip from the press release:

"Taipei, Taiwan; May 14, 2007 – ASUS has released the new EAH 2900XT/G/HTVDI/512M – a cutting-edge graphics card that features the latest generation AMD HD2900XT GPU. The new ATI Radeon HD 2900 GPU is designed to unleash the gaming power of DirectX 10; and excellent audio/video experience through HDMI support enabled by Avivo HD technology – providing gamers with an unparalleled gaming experience. The release of the ASUS EAH2900XT will come bundled with 4 explosive game titles which include the highly anticipated first person shooter game S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadows of Chernobyl, and Valve’s “The Black Box” game bundle suite – consisting of 3 first rate games: Half Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal."

The official specification for the ASUS EAH2900XT:

	Core Clock (MHz)	Memory Clock (MHz)	Bus Width (bit)	Stream Processor	Capacity (MB)	Type	HDCP	VIVO
EAH2900XT	740	825 (1650 MHz effective)	512	320	512	GDDR3	yes	yes

Some interesting tidbits from around the web:

Hopefully, we'll get one or a pair of those Radeon HD2900 XT to play with soon.

Last months' news.

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