Soltek SL-86SPE-L 865PE Motherboard

Company: Soltek
Product: SL-86SPE-L
Street Price: Unavailable
Date Reviewed: May 27, 2003
Reviewed By: Joey Chao

Onboard Features:

The I/O configuration for the SL-86SPE-L is not the strongest we have seen. There are two PS/2 ports, two USB ports, a RJ-45 LAN connector, two serial ports, a parallel port, a game port, and audio jacks for line in, line out, and microphone. This I/O configuration is weak when compared to the ABIT IS7. The market is moving towards legacy free motherboards but this board only has two USB ports available without having to add extra USB brackets. No IEEE 1394 support is present anywhere on this motherboard either. Features like these are becoming common on motherboards and we feel that they should have been provided.

The 865PE chipset provides support for 800 MHz FSB processors, dual 64-bit DDR memory channels, Communications Streaming Architecture (CSA), and 8x AGP. Also note that there are three versions of the 865 chipset. The 865P does not support the 800 MHz FSB or DDR400. The 865G has all the features the 865PE but also has support for onboard video.

Soltek has chosen to use the ICH5 opposed to the ICH5R on the SL-86SPE-L. This Southbridge supports up to eight USB devices and two Serial ATA drives. This chip is common to the ones used with the 875 chipsets. Some other motherboard manufacturers have been adding support for even more Serial ATA devices by attaching another chip onto the motherboard such as the Silicon Image chip but Soltek has decided to go with only what the chipset offers.

Like the ABIT IS7, Soltek has also chosen not to take advantage of the CSA technology. Instead the RTL8100B chip is on the PCI bus and support 10/100 Mb. We suspect that this might have been a cost issue or maybe they do not find that Gigabit LAN is that useful at the moment. It would have been nice to see Gigabit LAN which is perfect for the CSA bus but most users will not be able to use this technology to its full potential. There is also another version of the Springdale board from Soltek, the SL-86SPE, this board lacks onboard LAN.

The Realtek ALC650 chip is used by many manufacturers. It provides the 6 channel audio on the motherboard. The chip is an 18-bit, full duplex AC'97 2.2 compatible stereo audio CODEC. We do not test the sound in our reviews but from previous experience, the sound is decent. For higher end multimedia users and gamers, the sound will not be that great. Most will want to get a sound card such as the SB Audigy and disable the onboard sound.

We are disappointed to see that there is no support for IEEE 1394 FireWire. Since the market is moving towards everything being done on computers, it would have been nice to be able to transfer data from digital camcorders and other devices via FireWire. This is one of the first motherboards we have reviewed in awhile that lacked support for IEEE 1394.