By now it is a given that the new Springdale and Canterwood motherboard chipsets from Intel are pretty much the "real deal" in Pentium4 performance. What we are going to do today is take an up-close and personal look at DFI's Canterwood offering, the LANParty PRO875 motherboard.
By now it is a given that the new Springdale and Canterwood motherboard chipsets from Intel are pretty much the "real deal" in Pentium4 performance. What we are going to do today is take an up-close and personal look at DFI's Canterwood offering, the LANParty PRO875 motherboard.
DFI has always been known as a relatively stable, plain Jane motherboard manufacturer, to say the least the new LANParty series of boards is aiming to change all of that. Released with the performance crowd as it's primary target, the PRO875 is unlike anything we've seen before. With an appearance that is far from "normal" and an "included accessories" list that is unprecedented, this is going to be a fun review to write.
THE i875P CHIPSET:
With the information already covered thoroughly in our ABIT IC7-G Review I'm not going to dwell too much on the chipset specs, feel free to head over there and check 'em out if it tickles your fancy. I will however briefly show you what the i875P is all about.
Chipset - Intel® 875P / ICH5 RAID - Supports Intel® CSA Gigabit LAN - Supports Dual Channel DDR 400 with ECC function - Supports Performance Acceleration Technology (PAT) function - Supports Advanced Configuration and Power Management Interface (ACPI)
Below is an Intel document flow chart that details the difference between the i865 and the i875P chipsets to paint an even clearer picture for you.
What is pretty apparent in looking at the above picture, and in going thru the details in our other review, is that that the primary difference between the two chipsets is the fact that the i875P includes the heralded PAT (Performance Acceleration Technology) from Intel. Is this feature worth the extra jack you'll pay for a Canterwood based motherboard, specifically this DFI LANParty PRO875? Well that's exactly the question we aim to tackle in this review as we square off this board against the Springdale offering from ABIT, the IS7. Before we get the cart ahead of the horse here, lets take a gander at the features and layout of this PRO875 board.
LANParty PRO875 DETAILS:
Here's a direct shot from the DFI webpage with the specifications of the PRO875:
CPU
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor with Hyper-Threading Technology - 800MHz and 533MHz FSB
Intel® Pentium® 4 Northwood Processor - 533MHz and 400MHz FSB
Intel® Celeron® Northwood processor - 400MHz system data bus
Supports Dynamic mode to optimize system performance
Synchronous operation with processor system bus - PC2100/PC2700/PC3200 (DDR266/DDR333/DDR400) with 800MHz FSB CPU (supports PAT mode). DDR333 will run at 320MHz memory frequency when used with 800MHz FSB CPU. - PC2100/PC2700 (DDR266/DDR333) with 533MHz FSB CPU - PC2100 (DDR266) with 400MHz FSB CPU
Supports ECC/non-ECC DIMMs
Supports unbuffered DIMMs
BIOS
Award BIOS, Windows® 98SE/2000/ME/XP Plug and Play compatible
Supports ACPI specification and OS Directed Power Management
Supports ACPI STR (Suspend to RAM) function
Wake-On-Events include: - Wake-On-Keyboard/Mouse - Wake-On-USB Keyboard - Wake-On-Ring (external modem) - Wake-On-LAN - RTC timer to power-on the system
HARDWARE MONITOR
Monitors CPU/system temperature and overheat alarm
Monitors CPU/1.5V/5VSB/VBAT/3.3V/5V/±12V voltages and failure alarm
Monitors CPU/chassis/second fan speed and failure alarm
Automatic chassis/second fans on/off control
Read back capability that displays temperature, voltage and fan speed
CPU Fan Protection function monitors the CPU fan during system boot-up
CPU Temperature Protection function monitors CPU temperature during system boot-up
AUDIO FEATURES
20-bit stereo full-duplex codec with independent variable sampling rate
High quality differential CD input
True stereo line level outputs
S/PDIF-in/out interface
6-channel audio output
ONBOARD CSA GIGABIT LAN
Uses 82547EI Gigabit LAN CSA interface
Integrated power management functions
Full duplex support at both 10, 100 and 1000 Mbps
Supports IEEE 802.3u auto-negotiation
Supports wire for management
ATA RAID
Uses HighPoint 372N RAID controller
RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 1.5
Two independent IDE channels support 4 hard disk drives (ATA/33, ATA/66, ATA/100, ATA/133 or EIDE)
Supports PIO modes 0/1/2/3/4, DMA modes 0/1/2 and UDMA modes 0/1/2/3/4/5/6
PCI IDE INTERFACE
Supports ATA/33, ATA/66 and ATA/100 hard drives
PIO Mode 4 Enhanced IDE (data transfer rate up to 14MB/sec.)
Bus mastering reduces CPU utilization during disk transfer
Supports ATAPI CD-ROM, LS-120 and ZIP
ICH5R SATA IDE/RAID0 INTERFACE
Supports two SATA (Serial ATA) interfaces which are compliant with SATA 1.0 specification (1.5Gbps interface)
Supports RAID 0
CPU SOCKET
Socket 478
ACCELERATED GRAPHICS PORT (A.G.P.)
Supports 1.5V AGP 8x (2.13GB/sec.) and AGP 4x (1066MB/sec.) for 3D graphics applications (AGP 2x and 3.3V AGP card are not supported)
Supports AGP 3.0 and AGP 2.0 spec.
REAR PANEL I/O PORTS
4 USB 2.0/1.1 ports
1 RJ45 LAN port
2 DB-9 serial ports
1 DB-25 parallel port
1 mini-DIN-6 PS/2 mouse port
1 mini-DIN-6 PS/2 keyboard port
3 audio jacks: line-out, line-in and mic-in
I/O CONNECTORS
2 connectors for 4 additional external USB 2.0/1.1 ports
1 front audio connector for external line-out and mic-in jacks
1 connector for an external game/MIDI port
2 internal audio connectors (CD-in and AUX-in)
1 4-channel audio output connector
1 S/PDIF-in/out connector
1 connector for IrDA interface
2 RAID IDE connectors
2 Serial ATA connectors
2 IDE connectors
1 floppy connector
2 ATX power supply connectors
1 Wake-On-LAN connector
3 fan connectors for CPU fan, chassis fan and second fan
EXPANSION SLOTS
1 AGP slot
5 PCI slots
COMPATIBILITY
PCI 2.2 and AC ’97 compliant
Intel AGP version 3.0
PCB
4 layers, ATX form factor
30.5cm (12.05") x 24.4cm (9.6")
All specifications above are subject to change without prior notice.
You'll notice that this thing is pretty much packed with features, IDE RAID, SATA RAID, Gigabit LAN, USB 2.0, dual channel memory, etc, etc, etc... So it's safe to say that DFI pulled out all the stops when putting this board together on the feature front.
The real exciting thing about this board though is the packaging and what comes in it. Let's head over to page two and look in detail at the board and it's accessories, then we'll move onto benchmarking and overclocking. :)
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