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

Albatron PX865PE Pro II

The PX865PE Pro II brings some fairly interesting BIOS features to the table. The FSB ceiling of 333MHz is lower than most boards, we would have preferred 400MHz FSB. Even though no one will be able to hit this high of a FSB in the near future, it's possible that the upcoming Socket 478 Prescott or Tejas processors will eventually have a 1000MHz FSB, meaning PX865PE Pro II users won't be forced to upgrade their motherboard if they want to engage in some extreme overclocking assuming the FSB BIOS maximum were 400MHz instead of 333MHz. The VDIMM options up to 2.85V are a nice touch for the PX865PE Pro II, but we're disappointed that the Vcore still remains at 1.60V.

The most notable feature the PX865PE Pro II brings to the table is support for VIA's new Envy chip, the VT1720, with the VIA VT1616 as the codec. The PX865PE Pro II integrates two VIA Audio chips; the VIA Envy24PT PCI Audio controller and the VIA Vinyl Six-TRAC (Codec), so spec wise the PX865PE Pro II is the first motherboard that features 7.1 support and 24/96 digital outputs. The VIA Envy24PT while having a reduced feature specification is still based on the original Envy core, designed to pass audio with the same bit-for-bit accuracy as solutions based on the Envy24/HT controllers featured in soundcards like the Terratec DMX6fire and the M-Audio Revolution 7.1.

Like all motherboards with an 875P/ICH5(R) chipset combination, there are two Serial ATA connectors located next to the ICH5(R) South Bridge. Albatron decided to add just two onboard Serial ATA connectors instead of four like some other motherboard makers. This isn't a terrible loss considering Albatron added a Promise PDC20276 controller which means there are now two additional IDE connectors available via the Promise controller, and therefore you can still connect more than two Serial ATA drives by simply purchasing a parallel-to-serial adapter. In case you've forgotten, the new ICH5 South Bridge has its own link that allows a stream of 266MB/s of data to each of the two Serial ATA connectors, which is certainly better than the PCI bus constrained 133MB/s. This is good for users that have many devices running over the PCI bus, which makes native SATA support a plus.

There aren't too many negative things to say about the PX865PE Pro II. Some people may say it's too expensive, but the high quality onboard sound, FireWire, robost IDE and SATA support, and good overclocking features and performance could warrent this motherboard $190 or so price tag. There aren't any other features we think Albatron could have added to the PX865PE Pro II that would have made it significantly better.

UPDATE We have been aware of a newly released PX865PE Pro/Pro II BIOS for a couple days now but never found the time to properly benchmark the PX865PE Pro/Pro II in time for this roundup. However, our sources tell us that the performance improment is significant and that the PX865PE Pro/Pro II should be able to rival ABIT and ASUS' 865PE motherboards. We will be able to confirm these claims in Part II of our 865PE/875P motherboard coverage.