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• NVIDIA nForce 420-D

One more board from this very famous company is based on the NVIDIA's chipset. We tested a preproduction sample, but it is of very high quality and has a lot of accessories.

Accessories:

• Package: a standard low-key design;
• Documentation: a brief installation manual (a full version will ship with production models) in English;
• Cables: 1 ATA66/100/133 and 1 FDD;
• Bracket with gold-plated audio-outs (Front, Rear, Center/Bass), Coaxial SPDIF In/Out, TosLink SPDIF In/Out;

• CD with software including:
• drivers;
• Adobe Acrobat Reader;
• DirectX 8.1;
• Award WinFlash;
• Leadtek SpeedGear.

Despite the full-sized ATX form-factor there are some drawbacks in the layout: several connectors are placed in front of the PCI slots and the power connector is between the AGP slot and the back panel, which can create problems in their handling when expansion cards are inserted; and in the lower left-hand corner the connectors and switches are placed too close to each other. It's not difficult to reach jumpers even when the board is already installed. Their functions are shown on the textolite.

The 3-channel switching voltage regulator incorporates 2 capacitors of 2200 uF and 8 of 1500 uF.

The following controllers are integrated:

• audio controller based on the chipset's capabilities and Avance Logic ALC650 AC'97 codec with a connector for front audio-outs and a bracket for the rear panel;
• network controller based on the chipset's capabilities supporting 10BaseT/100BaseTX.

Thanks to the Winbond W83627SF-AW I/O controller the board supports (and has connectors for) smart-card readers.

Non-unsoldered connectors: none.

The system monitoring is supported by the Winbond W83627SF-AW chip. What is controlled:

• processor, memory voltage, +3.3 and +5 V;
• speed of 3 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 - 3 DDR SDRAM; expansion slots - AGP/ 4 PCI/ ACR; I/O ports - 1 COM/ LPT/ 2 PS/2/ 6 USB 1.1; dimensions - 305x245 mm.

Adjustment can be carried out with:

jumpers and switches	Jumper to clear up the CMOS
	Jumpers to choose a channel mode		Center/Bass Center/Bass/ Bass/Center
	Jumpers to choose a mode of the 5th USB port		Onboard/ ACR slot
BIOS based on the 6.00PG version from Phoenix-Award	Setup of memory timings	+	CAS Latency, Memory Timings
	Setup of memory frequency	+	Auto, 200, 266 and 333 MHz
	Setup of AGP bus	+
	Setup of PCI bus	-
	Changeable scaler of AGP and PCI buses	-
	Manual assignment of interrupts	-
	Changeable FSB frequency	+	Default, 102, 103, 105, 107, 109, 110, 111, 114, 133, 135, 138, 139, 142, 146, 147, 149, 153 and 157 MHz. NB: when memory is set to 333 MHz you can't change a FSB frequency
	Changeable CPU multiplier	+	x5-x12.5
	Changeable core voltage	+	-0.05, -0.025, +0.025, +0.05, +0.075, +0.1 and +0.125 B relative to the rated value
	Changeable memory voltage	+	+0.1 and +0.2 V relative to the rated value
	Changeable chipset voltage	-
	Changeable AGP bus voltage	+	+0.1 and +0.2 V relative to the rated value

We used the latest available version of the BIOS of 12/03/02.

Unfortunately, we couldn't test operation of the board with the DDR333 memory because the system worked very unstably. At the rated frequencies the board performs excellently: it is fast enough, offers a good suite of tools for adjusting and overclocking the system, stable and of rather high quality.

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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