Albatron PX865PE Pro II

Company: Albatron
Product: PX865PE
Street Price: ~$185 USD
Date Reviewed: July 8, 2003
Reviewed By: Joey Chao

Introduction:

Continuing our coverage of 865PE based motherboards, we take a look at the Albatron PX865PE Pro II motherboard. Many of you know Albatron from their success with the NVIDIA based video cards. Not too long after, the manufacturer became more popular as an enthusiast motherboard maker offering boards with nice features and overclocking options. The 865PE motherboard from Albatron is worth looking at if you are in the market for a very feature rich motherboard that overclocks fairly well.

Albatron is making a strong effort to establish themselves as a top motherboard manufacturer. They gradually change as the market changes. For instance, right now there seems to be some really strong competition concerning the enthusiast market. More motherboard manufacturers are including more features and bundled accessories with their mainboards. Never before have we seen so many huge boxes loaded with accessories like MSI, ABIT, Chaintech and Gigabyte have been providing. More Serial ATA cables, power adapters, brackets, manuals, and software are being included with motherboards.

Lets take a look at the PX865PE Pro II to give you an perfect example of a motherboard manufacturer responding to the enthusiasts demands. This is a very feature rich motherboard and is worth a consideration if you are in the market for an 865PE motherboard.

Specifications:

Feature
Intel Pentium® 4 Processor (Northwood/Prescott)
Socket 478 with FSB 400/533/800/1200(by overclocking ) MHz
( FSB1.2G Hz + setting available by overclocking )
4 DDR400/333/266 Memory Sockets ( Dual Channel DDR400)
Built-in VIA Envy 24PT with 8 channel Audio Support
(Bundle SPDIF2 Card Optional)
Intel 1Gbits LAN (CSA Port)
2 Serial ATA150 Channels, Intel Serial ATA RAID 0
Promise RAID 0,1/ATA133
2 IEEE1394a Ports
2 ATA100 Channels, up to 4 ATA 100 IDE Devices
8 USB 2.0/1.1 Ports (6 ports by optional cable)
BIOS ™Mirror
Voice ™ Genie

Processor
Socket 478 Intel Pentium® 4 Processor (Northwood/Prescott)

FSB:
400/533/800/1200 MHz
( FSB1.2G Hz setting available by overclocking )

Chipset
North Bridge : Intel 865PE
South Bridge : Intel ICH5R
LAN Chip : Intel 82547EI ET LAN chip (CAS Port)
IEEE1394 Chip : VIA VT6307
Audio Chip : VIA VT1720 Evny 24PT
I/O Chip: Winbond Smart I/O W83627HF
Promise Chip: Promise PDC20276 Controller

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, the memory speed supports DDR 266/333/400

Expansion Slots
1 x AGP(3.0) 8X slot (1.5V only)
5 x PCI slots (PCI 2.3 compliant)

IDE Connectors
2 ATA100/66 Channels, up to 4 ATA 100 IDE devices
Promise ATA133 Channel (Not supporting CD-ROM and ATAPI devices),
Promise RAID 0,1/ ATA133

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 )
1 x 10 pin system panel header (Intel spec)
1 x 3 pin Power LED header
1 x Front audio header (Intel spec)
1 x IrDA header
1 x Case Open detection header
2 x 5 pin Com port header
2 x 8 pin Game Port header

I/O via Back Panel
PS/2 keyboard/mouse, 2 x USB(2.0/1.1), RJ45,1 x Com(serial), 1 x Parallel, 2X IEEE1394,1x Line-in/Line-out(Speaker Out)/MIC/SUR_CEN/SUR/R:WOF,L:CEN

Power
20-pin ATX power connector, 4-pin ATX 12V power connector

BIOS Feature
4Mb Flash EEPROM
Award BIOS with ACPI, DMI2.0, PnP, WfM2.0, GreenSuspend 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 Feature
Zero Jumper Design
BIOS Mirror TM Protect BIOS by creating an original mirror image of itself
Voice GenieTM Voice Troubleshooting system ( four-Language )
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.)