FIRST LOOK: ULi M1695 PCIe/AGP Socket 939 for Athlon 64
by Wesley Fink on July 13, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Our Take
There are several questions that really need answering in our first look at the new ULi M1695/M1567 chipset. First and foremost, how does it compare to the excellent performance of the NVIDIA nForce4 chipset? Our brief testing here confirms that the ULi competes very well against NVIDIA, and is a performance drop-in to the NVIDIA performance levels. This is very good news for those shopping for Athlon 64 Socket 939 boards. ULi is a solid choice and competition means better buys for you. It will likely still be a month to 6 weeks before you will see retail M1695/M1567 boards for sale, but make no mistake that the ULi is a very good choice, featuring excellent performance.Second, there is the unique question of ULi AGP on this PCIe board. How does it perform? We are glad to say that ULi AGP is the first AGP on any PCIe board that doesn't require compromises. Those of you who want to take your high-end AGP card to a new PCIe board will be ecstatic over the performance of your AGP video card on the ULi board. It will work extremely well, as will a future PCIe card or a PCI card or any other combination of these three. This is absolutely unique, and it makes the compromise solutions, which derive AGP from PCI with degraded performance, totally obsolete. You do not need to compromise AGP performance just to get a PCIe board with this ULi M1695/M1567 chipset.
Next, there is the question of where ULi may be positioned in the marketplace. This is a tough call because we have seen excellent chipsets, like those from SiS, that have been relegated to the bargain bin because no manufacturer will support them. ULi has a bit more promise that we might otherwise see with their new chipsets. First, there is the fact that ATI selected ULi as a development partner for their South Bridge chips on the new Crossfire platform. That alone carries tremendous weight in getting manufacturers to take the new ULi chipsets seriously.
There is also the fact that ULi has some very unique and flexible solutions among their new offerings. The ability to do x16 or 2 x8 with a BIOS switch and riser card will appeal to many. In fact, x16/2 x8, AGP and PCI could all be theoretically combined on the same board. With a soon-to-be-available South Bridge, ULi is also saying that they will support Dual x16 lanes for a Workstation/Server type solution at a mainstream price. That will certainly appeal to many looking at the video high end. There is also the ability to interface with AMD's PCI-X workstation chips in an even more amazing array of options. This flexibility should make ULi attractive to many manufacturers and to a wide range of buyers.
The new ULi M1695/M1567 chipset is both unique in its full-blown AGP support on a PCIe board and fully competitive in performance with the best Athlon 64 solutions currently available. PCIe performance could use a bit more tuning, but it is already competitive. If ULi can bring PCIe performance to the levels that they currently enjoy with AGP on this same board, this could well be the fastest Athlon 64 chipset that you can buy. We could wish for SATA 2 support and integrated Gigabit LAN, but even those are coming with the M1575 South Bridge slated for September/October production.
ULi did a great job with their new PCIe/AGP chipset. If you are in the market for a new Socket 939 board, then boards based on the ULi M1695/M1567 should definitely be on your shopping list. If you by chance plan to use AGP on your new PCIe board, then ULi M1695/M1567 is the only board that you should have on your shopping list. This AGP on PCIe really works, there are no compromises, and you will not be disappointed.
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jpkomm - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link
In reference to the comments on ASrock's making of this board, I got word back from their US sales division as to when their board will actually be released in the US market. They said they have no plans on selling the "939Dual-SATAII" motherboard in the US region. Oi that bites. Anyone know of other companies planning on producing these boards? The ASrock board looks and (from the reviews) performs great, but I'm not going to hold out for the chance that it never comes to the US market.justly - Wednesday, August 3, 2005 - link
Are you actually surprised by this? I would probably do the same thing since most Americans will only purchase a product surrounded by marketing hype.
ElJefe - Monday, August 22, 2005 - link
the dual sata 939 will be sold in the US. asrock said it, asrock america sales said it too................(just in case anyone reads this thread... but the real discussion is in the 2nd, newest article here at anandtech)
hazeldene - Tuesday, July 19, 2005 - link
I wonder if you would be able to use an ATI AGP X-Series card as a Slave with an ATI X-series crossfire in the PCI-express slot... that would be the cheapest Crossfire / SLi upgrade ever !!!mistersnail - Monday, July 18, 2005 - link
http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/m1695-uli-1.htmCrossfire can be done on this board
val - Sunday, July 17, 2005 - link
#65 last but not least. Suyin is usually the very last thing company does. So buy it until you can. We loves all of you who look to only syntetic tests and benchmarks, we have cheap intel cpus - thanks to you .val - Sunday, July 17, 2005 - link
#65 if you have in your room already 35, than there is something wrong with your room planing. No pcs can change it if you are still running heating or teaching in stove. And saying it last, do your math and learn what percents and thermall loss means. The difference to AMD platform is in percents of complete amount of heaters in room small and thermal loss increases exponentialy.However, world proves that some heating issues cannot change the fact that no "fanatic - glad of self punishment" admin would install room of amd systems.
mino - Saturday, July 16, 2005 - link
#62 it was not mentioned exactly anywhere (no one knows it actually) but rough estimate is 4 to 8 weeks. I believe it will be much closer to the seconf number.#63 One think I forgot something. Do you really believe it is technically feasible to guarantee 38C ambient temperature when the is about 35C in the room ?
mino - Saturday, July 16, 2005 - link
1) Actually I read tom's since they make some unique test sometimes. They are one of(many) relatively goog sites.2) Cooler classroom _will_ help mostly better learning/teaching, I said that.
3) Actually I like AMD's approach. However where bussiness is concerned only facts matter. I bought many Intel systems recently, but they were chosen because of their better suitability then. This is not the case here (meaning almost whole [prescott lineup).
4) actually in the room is normally running _single_ central heater. You forgot that rooms are not allways build in separate building. In this case only contacts with the outside are windows. Also remember the radiation form of heating causes lower temperature than convection at the sam output. The out pu t during the day should be around ~200W/machine(incl.LCD) + 1kW of lights make ~7kW which is close to your number. This however considers idle state, but there are working people about 50-70% of time so real average would be about 8kW for prescott room.
5) Anobody saying idle Prescott PC+LCD will consume about 100W of power is either mislleading or has no idea what he is tlaking about. This figure however fits our Newcastle's nicely.
6) Yes anybody could suck any number of any claims out of its finger anytime. Nothing new here.
What matters to me our academic society could work in these new classrooms without major health issues and having to abuse IT staff for what they bought.
That is what make me happy no matter what you think.
val - Saturday, July 16, 2005 - link
#60: it is whole crap.You are reading too much toms hardware. Intel is not throttling when you install cooler properly.
Cooler classroom will not help to admin when he have to spend there every day one hour.
You are talking like typical AMD fanboy, using untrusted claims which nobody would ever believe. Trust me, that 5100W running 8 hours a day will not heat up to 30° when outside is -10 with "any" isolation.
And even if it would, it would not heat it much more than 3000W using any power saving PC.
I can suck out of my finger 20 claims like that one you posted - if you want, so save your time writing stories.