865PE/875P Motherboard Roundup June 2003 - Part 1: 20-way Shootout

Albatron PX865PE Pro

The PX865PE Pro is one of the few motherboards that fits quite well into its target market. Some of the features that stand out for a value board such as this one are its Serial ATA support via the ICH5 South Bridge and excellent overclocking capability courtesy of Albatron's track record for highly overclockable motherboards and Intel's solid track record for reliable chipsets.

One nice addition to the PX865PE Pro is the active North Bridge HSF's copper construction which, in combination with the fan should very effectively cool the 865PE North Bridge. Our only complaint is that some users will use bigger and more powerful cooling solutions for their CPU and video card, and since the North Bridge HSF is so close to both the CPU socket and AGP slot this could force users to adjust the positioning of the North Bridge HSF. Otherwise the type of North Bridge HSF Albatron choose is quite nice.

The BIOS options are pretty good for a value motherboard though nothing to write home about. The PX865PE Pro's overclocking performance was excellent though, clocking in at 278MHz FSB. You can read more about the stress testing and FSB overclocking tests we conducted on all 20 865PE/875P motherboards by skipping to the end of this review just before our conclusion.

Believe it or not but the only real disappointing thing about this motherboard is its low potential Vcore of 1.60V, which topped with an average undervolt of about 0.03V and a low FSB of 333MHz is not too appealing to hardcore overclockers. We would like it if Albatron were to release a new BIOS that adds at least 400MHz FSB and 1.75V Vcore support to the PX865PE Pro. Otherwise this is a very solid value motherboard, though still behind tough competition from Gigabyte's 8IPE1000 Pro and ABIT's IS7 motherboards, which include better onboard features and BIOS options, though the Gigabyte 8IPE1000 Pro does not overclock as well as Albatron's PX865PE Pro/II.