• Back to the review (Intel 845G Integrated Graphics Core and its Competitors (SiS 650, VIA P4M266, VIA KM266, NVIDIA nForce 420-D and 415-D)

• VIA P4M266 chipset

Mainboards of this company are always very colorful, and this time the PCB is dark purple with lilac connectors and a dark green heatsink. The main peculiarity of the board is support of both memory types (SDR and DDR SDRAM). The board ships in the OEM package.

Accessories:

• Documentation: a user manual in English;
• Cables: 1 ATA66/100/133, and 1 FDD;
• Bracket with D-Sub connector;
• CD with software including:
• drivers;
• PC-Cillin 2000;
• Magic BIOS;
• Recovery Genius;
• Award WinFlash;
• Several system monitoring utilities;
• DirectX 7 and 8.

As usual, there are some downsides in the layout: audio-ins are between the AGP slot and a back panel of the computer, and in the left-hand corner connectors and switches are located too close to each other. It can be difficult to reach some jumpers when the board is already installed. Their functions are shown on the textolite.

The 3-channel switching voltage regulator incorporates 14 capacitors of 1500 uF.

The following controllers are integrated:

• audio controller based on the Avance Logic ALC201A AC'97 codec with a connector for front audio-outs.

Non-unsoldered connectors: RJ45 and USB2 connectors and several chips.

The system monitoring is supported by the Winbond W83697HF chip. What is controlled:

• processor voltage (+3.3, +5 and +/-12 V), VBAT and +5 V Standby;
• speed of 2 fans;
• temperatures of the processor (a built-in sensor) and the board (a built-in sensor).

There are 2 connectors for adjustable connection of fans and 1 for non-adjustable connection.

Brief characteristics of the board: memory slots - 2 DDR SDRAM + 1 SDR SDRAM; expansion slots - AGP/ 5 PCI/ CNR; I/O ports - 2 COM/ LPT/ 2 PS/2/ 4 USB 1.1; dimensions - 305x210 mm.

Adjustment can be carried out with:

jumpers and switches	Jumper to clear up the CMOS
	Jumper to start up computer with PS/2 devices
BIOS based on the 6.00PG version from Phoenix-Award	Setup of memory timings	+	RAS Active Time, RAS Precharge Time, RAS To CAS Delay, CAS Latency, Bank Interleave, DRAM Command Rate
	Setup of memory frequency	+	100/133 MHz
	Setup of AGP bus	+
	Setup of PCI bus	+
	Changeable scaler of AGP and PCI buses	-
	Manual assignment of interrupts	-
	Changeable FSB frequency	+	100-200 MHz in 1 MHz steps
	Changeable CPU multiplier	+	x8-x50
	Changeable core voltage	+	1.6-1.85 V in 0.025V steps
	Changeable memory voltage	+	2.5, 2.6, 2.7 and 2.8V
	Changeable chipset voltage	-
	Changeable AGP bus voltage	+	1.5 and 1.6 V

We used the latest available version of the BIOS - A03.

Unfortunately, the sample we got had quite low 2D quality: in the resolution above 640x480 the image was too blurry. I hope this is a drawback of the given sample. On the whole, the board is not very efficient (but I think because of the chipset), but it offers a wide range of settings (though I don't think they will be made use of because boards with an integrated graphics adapter are bought not by those who want to overclock them and set the maximum possible performance).

Test results:

• Back to the review (Intel 845G Integrated Graphics Core and its Competitors (SiS 650, VIA P4M266, VIA KM266, NVIDIA nForce 420-D and 415-D)

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