The
'Lair has been full of buzz since Intel's announcement of the
Core 2 Duo (C2D), you could see and feel the excitement from
the editors as the time came near for the unveiling. Then the
bottom started to fall out, Intel launched the C2D alright,
but they left a legacy of LGA-775 motherboards in the wake that
could not support them. With bated breath we waited for the
final word of what was and what was not supported. Unfortunately
my hope for re-utilizing my Asus P5WD2-Extreme Intel 975x chipset
fell short, as the revision I had could not be modded to support
the new processor, that yes, was sitting on my desk in its Intel
Blue box.
While
all of this was happening, Intel quietly introduced the Intel
965 chipset, paired with a new South Bridge and the ability
to run the C2D as well as forward looking Core 2 Quad; maybe
it was a bit to quiet? Enter ECS
and their iteration of the 965 NB, the ECS
P965T-A.
ECS
has come along way in a short time, their motherboards have
improved drastically in the 18 months that I have been reviewing
them, not only achieving quality advancement, but adding useful
features the likes of “Top Hat” BIOS salvage, among
others. Let's take a look at ECS's
latest entry into the motherboard market.
Specifications
|
Form
factor
|
ATX |
|
Chipset
|
Intel
965 |
|
CPU
|
LGA775
supporting the Intel Core 2 Extreme / Core 2 Duo / Pentium
D / / Pentium 4 / Celeron D (@ 65nm and 80nm) |
|
FSB
|
1066/800/533
|
|
BIOS
|
Award
BIOS, Inc. |
|
Memory
|
4
DDR2 DIMMS / Max 8GB / Dual Channel capable |
|
PCIe
|
2
– x16 (PCIe1 x16 / PCIe2 x4) / 2 – x1 |
|
NIC
|
Realtek
RTL8169/8110 10/100/1000 (PCI) |
|
IDE
|
ICH8
- 1x ATA133 / 5x SATA-II (RAID 0/1/5) |
|
Audio
|
Realtek
ALC882M HD 8-Channel CODEC with S/PDIF Optical/Copper |
|
Ports
|
10x
USB 2.0 (4 rear, 3x2 headers) / PS2 (2) |
|
Misc
|
Intel
Active Management / Intel Matrix Storage |
As
with most motherboards out today, the ECS P965T-A is packed
with ports and features. There is plenty of USB support and
more then enough SATA-II ports to make most people happy.
The only glaring things missing here are Firewire and the
GB NIC is PCI based rather then PCIe, which could hurt performance.
Another
point of interest in the specifications is that the maximum
RAM for the P965T-A is 8GB. Thus, this motherboard can support
2GB DDR2 modules, not that the average user or even heavy gamer
would use such vast amounts of RAM, but it's nice to know someday
you can.
As
you can see, ECS opted out of the Intel Pro 1000 for the Realtek
PCI based 10/100/1000. ECS also chose to enable 5 of the 6 available
SATA-II ports, not that 5 is to few, they just have the option
for a 6th in the reference design.
The
ECS motherboard arrived as expected, well packaged with a
well identified feature listing on the outside, hopefully
giving you a good indication of what you are purchasing.
Opening
the package lets take stock of what comes as “extra”
with the motherboard itself:
1
Red SATA cable (with included Molex to SATA power converter)
1
IDE Ribbon cable
1
Floppy ribbon cable
1
Driver CD
1
Manual
Wow,
I guess that is why we call it a budget board...
The
manual suppled with the P965T-A is similar to other manuals
I have from ECS. The layout is logical and easy to follow.
There is no color once you flip the cover, color coding being
something that is gaining popularity in other manuals I have
seen. It would be nice to at least have the motherboard view
in color (when denoting where everything is) so you can easily
locate connectors or risers etc (they are color coded on the
motherboard), at least have the Front Panel IO connector in
color for quick reference... There was a spot of confusion
however, the manual had an addendum page that noted a different
solution to the CMOS jumper setting. A close inspection of
the motherboard proves the addendum to be incorrect.
The
motherboard itself is standard ECS Purple. An overview of
the layout and you notice there are no fans, which is a growing
trend I am seeing in the ECS lineup. As I mentioned earlier,
everything appears to be color coded nicely to help you locate
connectors and risers.
The
socket used on the ECS P965T-A is of course of the LGA775 format
and is located on the right rear quadrant as with most solutions
today. There appears to be ample room surrounding the socket
retention mechanism for most HS/Fan combinations. You can note
here the fan less cooling solution employed by ECS, also in
this area is the 4/8 pin 12V-Aux power connector, nice to see
the 8 pin option here. The 12V-Aux connector, when used in 8
pin mode, utilizes both 12V rails of dual rail PSU's.
Moving
to the left rear of the motherboard we see the dual x16 (the
2nd of which is actually x4) graphics slots, and two x1 PCIe
slots. There is also your additional molex power connector for
that 2nd graphics card power requirement and 3 PCI slots, although
we are seeing fewer and fewer things utilize PCI these days.
Unfortunately both PCIe graphics slots can not be used for Crossfire,
as the 965 chipset does not support peer to peer writes, a requirement
for Crossfire. I scoured the web, but did not come up with anything
on SLI abilities for this motherboard, I would stay tuned on
that one. According to the documentation, the x1 slots are unusable
in the scenario where you are using 2 graphics cards. Glaringly
missing in all of this is IEEE-1394, mainly because there are
none on this motherboard.
Moving
to the left front section of the motherboard we see our Front
Panel connector, USB risers and infrared riser. Also in this
section are your 5 SATA-II connectors a single IDE and the often
overlooked floppy drive connector. The ECS P965T-A should give
you ample disk connectivity (7 Drives).
Finally
the right front section of the board where we connect our
20/24 pin main power. We also have the memory slots, which
are color coded for Dual DDR2 functionality, you simply plug
each module into the same color. Note that there is separation
between the memory modules when running just two, which probably
will be the primary scenario, this should allow ample cooling
of the memory sticks.
The
Rear I/O Panel for the ECS P965T-A features (from left to right)
2 PS2 ports for your mouse and keyboard, LPT, RS-232, 10/100/1000
RJ45, 4 USB slots and the 6 connector Audio panel.
Installing
the P965T-A, like many motherboards, is only an issue if something
is amiss, that being said, the ECS installed without issue.
A benefit of the chipsets being cooled without the use of fans,
there is little concern to the size of the graphics card(s)
you install, as they will not be blocking airflow to a fan.
As mentioned earlier, memory is inserted in either the orange
or purple slots if you want to run them in Dual DDR2 mode. Making
sure to connect the Samsung HD to SATA1, lets boot her up.
NEXT
