Tech Link (Motherboard): MSI P965 Platinum Motherboard – Great OC without huge price

I took a look at TweakTown and notice their nice review. It's a mouthful, so ready your favorite snacks before reading the article. They are mighty impressed with the board, if price/performance is the factor. Check it out, it might also be the board you are looking to partner with your processor.

Final Thoughts
Intel’s P965 chipset has really shown us lately there is really no great point in getting a more expensive 975X chipset based motherboard but why? P965 has native DDR-2 800 memory support, its FSB overclocking potential is usually higher and it supports more peripherals on the ICH8 Southbridge. With Crossfire reorganisation from ATI, it has all the features of the 975X and more.

MSI’s second P965 motherboard they have sent us left a much sweeter taste in our mouths. The cheaper P965 Neo that was originally sent to us really should not have been considered, however, we can say that the P965 Platinum has some major pull here and it’s quite a capable product. And it’s really not that much more expensive than the Neo version.

One of the major benefits of the MSI P965 Platinum (around $195 AUD) over the Gigabyte DQ6 is its price. It’s pretty well close to half the price of the feature-packed and overclocking monster DQ6 (around $335 AUD) but with a couple PCI Express x16 slots to support Crossfire and some very decent FSB overclocking, this motherboard from MSI is definitely a very good motherboard for the price.

It lacks some of the kicks and thrills of the more expensive motherboards on the market at the moment but if you’re looking for a no fuss motherboard for your Core 2 processor that will provide very good overclocking and most of the features you will need without the huge price tag, MSI have answered your prayers.


- Pros
Price is very good – 40% cheaper than DQ6
Crossfire Ready
Good overclocking results
Quad Core support
Silent passive cooling
Plenty of room around the CPU for large heatsinks

- Cons
Placement of the onboard power connectors could reduce airflow

Source:MSI P965 Platinum Motherboard – Great OC without huge price

Tech Link (Graphics): Dual R580+ Gaming : ATI’s Radeon X1950 XTX Crossfire Edition

Looks like enthusiasts on the budget who love Crossfire* will have a merry time with this new graphics card. Personally, I am moving away from ATi*, and going to change color from Red to YellowGreen in terms of GPU. Expand to check out what GamePC thinks about these GPUs...

The Final Word
We’ve never been greatly impressed with ATI’s Crossfire technology in the past, namely because it’s always followed well behind comparable Nvidia SLI offerings in launch times, while delivering solid, but un-impressive overall performance while being louder and more of a pain to install. In addition, you had to use selected Crossfire-enabled chipsets which were rarely the first choice of enthusiasts. In short, there were a lot of factors in the equation, but the end result is that Crossfire has never been up to par with what ATI was hyping it to be.
Today’s combination of the Intel 975X chipset, the Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and a pair of ATI Radeon X1950 XTX graphics cards certainly make us re-think our earlier issues with Crossfire. This combination gives nearly unbeatable performance while maintaining a surprisingly quiet running environment. Our tests consistently showed Radeon X1950 XTX cards in Crossfire besting similarly priced GeForce 7900 GTX cards in SLI, sometimes by a fairly large margin. Not only is overall performance great, but image quality looks superb with excellent output quality and buttery smooth 14x full-scene anti-aliasing support. We were able to play every high-end game on the market at smooth frame rates at high resolutions, along with image quality settings cranked up high.

Of course, we haven’t factored in the new GeForce 7950 GX2 graphics cards in SLI on the new nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition boards (which just hit the market in volume this week), but we will be looking at this combination soon. We also should note that while this combination is brand new hitting the market now, it may be a tough sell when one considers the price of these cards (around $1000-$1200 for dual X1950 XTX cards in a Crossfire configuration) in comparison to the time until Nvidia and ATI’s next generation DirectX 10 compatible graphics cards are launched (not too far off), X1950 XTX Crossfire is going to be a tough sell. It’s really quite a shame too, because the combination as it is now is amazingly powerful and remarkably quiet, yet due to pricing and timing, will most than likely not make a dent in Nvidia’s multi-GPU market-share numbers.

For now though, we have to say that we very much like ATI’s Radeon X1950 XTX Crossfire combination. The hardware is finally more powerful than Nvidia’s while maintaining very low noise levels. Sure, the cards consume lots of power and create lots of heat (and still have that annoying external cables), but the amazing performance of these cards helps us forget the fringe drawbacks which these cards currently have. If you want unbeatable DirectX 9 performance today, this is an excellent way to go. However, keep in mind that DX10 is just around the corner, and it’s unlikely that this combination will be on top of the benchmark charts for long.

Source:Dual R580+ Gaming : ATI’s Radeon X1950 XTX Crossfire Edition

Press Release: ASUS P5W64 Professional Workstation Motherboard Incorporates Quad-PCI Express Architecture for Multiple Display Computing

Ha, it's lame. For some reason, I missed posting this one and I knew it before it became live. The reason? This news press was never posted on the Asus* Global Site, not even in Asus* Australia, and yep, not Asus* Taiwan. It is posted over at Asus* Philippines, the least place I check my updates from Asus. I mean hey, let's face it, PH doesn't have too many enthusiast nor company that may use this board and yet this is posted there, the last place I'll ever check for the latest updates. Oh well, I guess somehow it's a good thing, the PH site get promoted in away. Anyway, expand for more if you would like to see the full specs. This board is one of the best board out there in the Workstation arena, but also suitable for overclockers. Expand for more..

ASUS P5W64 Professional Workstation Motherboard Incorporates Quad-PCI Express Architecture for Multiple Display Computing

Taipei, Taiwan; August 31, 2006 – ASUSTeK Computer Inc. (ASUS), the worldwide leader of motherboards, today introduced the P5W64 WS Professional workstation-class motherboard, nicknamed the Wall Street Quartet. It supports the quad-PCI Express architecture, enabling a system to connect up to eight monitors.

Based on the Intel 975X chipset and supporting the Intel Core2 CPU (and future multi-core CPUs), the P5W64 WS Professional provides powerful computing and superior scalability for computing demands of today and tomorrow.

Ideal for Multiple-Displays
Aptly nicknamed the Wall Street Quartet, the P5W64 WS Professional comes equipped with four PCI Express slots, enabling a system to accommodate up to eight monitors. The new motherboard is ideal for the finance sector, where multiple monitors are necessary to watch the market, or professionals in other fields requiring similar display needs. The PCI Express slots support high-speed input/output control cards as well, providing excellent flexibility and compatibility that make the P5W64 WS Professional a unique solution.

Superb Platform for 975X Chipset and Dual-Core Processing
Based on the Intel 975X chipset, the P5W64 WS Professional supports Intel’s most powerful processors, including the advanced Intel CoreTM2 and future multi-core CPUs. Together with ATI’s CrossFire multiple-GPU technology and native dual-channel DDR2 800 support up to 8GB, the P5W64 WS Professional is powerful enough for any resource-intensive application.

Expandability for future upgrades
The P5W64 WS Professional offers two PCI slots, two IEEE 1394a ports, eight USB 2.0 ports and eight Serial ATA-II 3Gb/s ports for establishing two sets of RAID. With superior expandability, the all-new motherboard is ready for the next phase of personal computing.

Noiseless cooling
Stack Cool 2 is a fan-less and -noiseless cooling solution offered exclusively by ASUS. It effectively transfers heat generated by the critical components to the other side of the specially designed PCB (printed circuit board) for effective heat dissipation. The result is a temperature decrease of up to 20 degrees Celsius.

8-Phase Power Design
The 8-Phase Power Design generates less heat than conventional power solutions. It reduces input ripple current and output ripple voltage, which prevents the CPU and VRM (voltage regulation modules) from suffering high power stress. It has the advantages of quick transient response and stability, especially beneficial when CPU requires more power during heavy loads and overclocking.

Specification summary
- Intel CoreTM2 Extreme, Intel CoreTM2 Duo, the future multi-core CPU, Pentium D and Pentium Extreme Edition, Pentium 4, and Celeron CPU
- Intel 975X + Intel ICH7R chipsets
- Front side bus 1066/800MHz
- 4 x DIMM, max. 8GB, DDR2 800/667/533, ECC and non-ECC un-buffered memory
- 4 x PCI Express x 16 slots, 2 x PCI 2.2
- Dual Gigabit LAN
- 8 x Serial ATA 3 GB/s ports
- 2 x IEEE 1394a
- 8 x USB 2.0 ports

Source:ASUS P5W64 Professional Workstation Motherboard Incorporates Quad-PCI Express Architecture for Multiple Display Computing

Tech Link (Motherboard): Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal Motherboard Review

Chipzilla line of products are becoming more and more exciting. When SLI first debuted for Tumwater, it never really took off and in fact, A* got more SLI-based system than I* even if I* offered it first. But that time has passed, and now, more and more SLI-based system is being offered for the FanBoyz.
_{Images owned by PCStats}

As a matter of fact, it's not just a "regular" SLI that is being offered. Right now, Crossfire system are also ripe for the taking by the FanBoyz. But the fun didn't stopped here. Crossfire and SLI becomes a reality when hacked NVIDIA drivers enables SLI on the Intel® D975XBX motherboard. Now, this is what I call uber flexibility.

But wait, there's more (yeah, I snag it off the Home TV Shopping commercial), QUAD SLI is now also appearing. It first debuted on Dell's XPS gaming system, the first ever to get Quad SLI computing power. Now, this technology can be had by enthusiasts who doesn't have enough dough to spend on Dell* systems or just plainly wanted to build their own rig.

Gigabyte released a motherboard that supports, not one (regular PCIe), not two (SLI), not three (Intel® D975XBX), but four PCIe x16 slots!!!!

PCStats has the full scoop:

Officially, the nVIDIA nForce4 SLI chipset enables two PCI Express videocards to operate together under a technology called SLI - or Scalable Link Interface. Two videocards are better than one in a lot of gaming situations, but what's one to do if even more 3D video game rendering power is desired? Up until very recently there weren't many alternatives; you could either use SLI, or get by with a single PCI Express graphics card. The winds of change must blow quickly, because less than a year after SLI was formally introduced there are already a few select motherboards which offer the possibility of using more than two PCI Express videocards at any given time....

Source:PCStats

Tech Link (Motherboard): Intel Core Duo: AOpen i975Xa-YDG to the Rescue

Heh, AMDTech's new article, to "rescue" the...Intel® Core™ Duo? What's to be rescued? The processor would work great even on motherboard based on Asus' i945 solution! In any case, they have a review up for the very impressive Yonah/Merom motherboard, that has support for Crossfire and SLI, what more can you ask for? The benchtests is comprehensive, it lists a slew of of comparison between a mobile Intel® Core™ Duo T2400 (1.83GHz with Corsair Pro DDR2-667@CL3-3-3-8 RAM) against a server AMD Opteron 165/175 (with OCZ EB DDR1-400@CL3-3-3-8, remember it is an EB series).

The Chipzila mobile setup beat the A* server system in almost all of the benchmarks, most of the shortcomings came from I/O rather than those that has great CPU attention. The mobile processor also overclocks so well, which according to the article, easily breaks 50% on the clock frequency. Of course, the motherboard has to be tweaked, but nothing out of the ordinary such as voltmodding or anything, but just a quick jumper change settings.

Anyway, since it is AMDTech, the usual bashing still appears:

There was no real incentive to compare the AOpen board and our processor to other Intel offerings as the entire lineup will be changing shortly, not to mention it would have been an embarrassment for the NetBurst based processors - especially during the thermal and power testing. We did not have the entire Core Duo product line in house yet so this option was off the table in doing cost comparative analysis against other Intel or AMD products. However, we will be providing a full platform comparison in an upcoming HTPC article centered on the Core Duo, Pentium D 805/920, and AMD X2 processors

Anyway, if you can stomach and skip the bashign (don't worry, not too much this time around), head on there and check their article.

Source:AMDTech

Tech Link (Video Card): ATI introduces 1 GB workstation graphics card

Make no mistake, this card is not cheap, it's not affordable, it's not pricey, this is what I call expensive. Well, if you need it for your applications, then I guess the definition becomes a bit muddy and should fall withint affordable to pricey. The videocards will be released for Workstation usage, and is branded under the models FireGL V7300 and V7350 priced at $1600 and $2000, respectively.

As the workstation market is accelerating its move from the Unix into the Linux and Windows market, there is also more activity in the professional graphics card market. ATI today launched its FireGL V7300 and V7350, two new graphics card market that are targeted the high-end workstation segment and Nvidia's dominance in workstation graphics sales.

The two cards come with a frame buffer of 512 MB and 1 GB, respectively, a core clock of 600 MHz and a memory clock of 650 MHz. According to ATI, the new cards offer seven times the floating point capability of a 3 GHz Pentium 4 processor, which is generally put into the 12 GFlops range. With about 84 GFlops, the V73xx cards offer about the same floating point performance of an X1800XT graphics card. The new cards do not offer multi-GPU Crossfire capability.


However, the new FireGLs will not be used for gaming, but rather typical workstation applications, which include financial and scientific applications. According to Jon Peddie Research, Nvidia currently holds a market share of 72.8% in the workstation market, while ATI stands at 21.6%. The V73xx cards are a new attempt to tackle the very high-end of the market and especially Nvidia's SLI-capable Quadro FX 4500.

The FireGL V7300 and V7350 are priced at $1600 and $2000, respectively.

Source:TG Daily

Tech Link (Video Card): Quad Crossfire against Quad SLI?

We've all seen (well, if you haven't you should) Quad SLI released by Dell* and so far, Gigabyte* and Asus has been developing it as well. NVIDIA has been leading the pack with their very strong release of video cards for the enthusiasts, and ATi must respond soon if they still want to maintain a toe-to-toe stand-up with NVIDIA.

VERSUS

An Asian website, Hardspell have posted a news in what appears to be an ATi Quad Crossfire solution. I can not read Chinese/Japanese/Korean or any similar characters so I'll just make a best guess based on what my browser is rendering. From the image (and some readable words) it would look like a manufacturer (I don't really know who so don't ask) can pair up an X1600, X1800 and the planned X1900 series. Anyway, maybe you can read it better than me, so just head on over the at HardSpell (and not only can I not spell the written article, I can't read it).

Source:HardSpell

Tech Link (Motherboard): CrossFire for the masses?

HardwareZone has a review of an ASRock 775i915P-SATA2 Motherboard that look solid. ASRock offerings looks more and more solid each time I see their motherboard. I remember, it's the first board I've seen which combines Socket478 and LGA775 interfaces! And I've seen a combo of PCI Express and AGP 8x in the same motherboard. Wish I can have a feel for one of their latest boards in my lab =). Anyway, the motherboard being reviewed at HardwareZone has an ATI CrossFire implementation, and would you believe, it is running under an Intel 915P Chipset. Wooot =)...who would have thought this chipset can support CrossFire?

ATI's CrossFire technology has been around for a little over half a year now, but there is still a lack of availability for both CrossFire graphics cards and CrossFire ready motherboards. While both the AMD and Intel camps have strong SLI support in the form of NVIDIA's nForce4 SLI family of chipsets, we only have a trickling supply of Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition motherboards up till now, but nothing available en masse. Intel has just launched their 975X Express chipset with native dual graphics and CrossFire support. However, it would still be a little while off before these boards populate the market as well. With all this waiting going on for CrossFire to take off with native support, it seems that motherboard manufacturers themselves are getting tired and have taken matters into their own hands. Using existing PCI Express chipsets and with a little modding, we're beginning to see dual graphics motherboards that have rudimentary support for CrossFire.

Full Review: ASRock 775i915P-SATA2

Article: Yonah + i975X + XFire + (SLI?)

Oh my, what else can you ask for? Truly, a dream come true for enthusiasts, overclockers, and even for users who just likes a silent but powerful rig. This is a must see. Expand this item to see the whole image, in the meantime, here's a crop version.


And here's the whole picture for you to drool over!
Be ready for the i975 Drool Picture

There's not much info as of the moment, the manufacturer is AOpen. I'll post more info as I get them...

Update: 12/29/2005
This link just came in, an easy overclock of 800Mhz FSB from 667Mhz FSB!

Update: 12/30/2005
Found a better motherboard imagere here. Shweeet!