Albatron PX925XE Pro-R Motherboard Based on Intel 925XE Chipset(Socket LGA775)

It's another motherboard on a seasoned chipset from Intel. Albatron PX925XE Pro-R belongs to top models from this manufacturer. But as Albatron has always been notable for moderate prices, this model offers a good price/functionality ratio. We have already reviewed a lot of motherboards on i925XE chipset. And as the PX925XE Pro-R is almost no different from the reviewed models by its functions, there is no point to describe all the features of this motherboard in detail. You can find all the necessary data in the article "Intel 925XE Motherboards Roundup". The only thing I want to note is very good performance characteristics of the new motherboard (according to the test results, Albatron PX925XE Pro-R is outperformed only by Gigabyte GA-8AENXP-D) and a good quality of integrated audio based on a HDA codec from Avance Logic.

PCB layout looks very good, though you may have some problems to plug cables to the connectors along the left edge of the motherboard as well as to IDE RAID connectors in case of long PCI cards installed. Access to the only jumper may be hampered when the motherboard is in a case, there in no brief description of jumper functions on the PCB. +5 V Standby on the motherboard is indicated by a red LED. The 3-phase switching voltage regulator of the processor incorporates four 1500 uF capacitors and eleven 560 uF capacitors. The motherboard also contains voltage regulators for PCIE x16 (four 1000 uF capacitors) and memory (six 1000 uF capacitors, reinforced by inductors). There are no unsoldered elements on the PX925XE Pro-R. Motherboard dimensions — 305x245 mm (full-sized ATX, nine-screw mount, all motherboard edges are firmly fixed). System monitoring is carried out by the Winbond W83627THF chip.

System monitoring (Winboard W83627THF):

CPU voltage, +3.3, +5 and ±12 V, VBAT and +5 V Standby
RPM of 3 fans
CPU temperature (by the embedded CPU sensor)
Board temperature (by the on-board sensor)

Onboard ports, sockets, and connectors:

Processor socket (Socket LGA775, for Intel Pentium 4, Prescott, Pentium 4 Extreme Edition)
4 x DDR 2 SDRAM DIMM (DDR2 400/533, up to 4GB; differ by color, grouped by two)
PCIE x16 (with a latch)
2 x PCIE x1
3 x PCI
Power connectors: standard ATX (24 pins) and a 4-pin connector for 12V
1 x FDD
3 x IDE (Parallel ATA)
4 x SATA (Serial ATA) — all of them are in the chipset (ICH6R South Bridge)
Two connectors for brackets with additional USB ports
1 x CD/DVD audio connector
Standard IrDA connector
Headers for additional Audio-Outs and S/PDIF-In
Connector for a bracket with a Game port
3 x fan headers (all with RPM control).

Back panel (left to right, blockwise)

PS/2 mouse and keyboard
1 x LPT and 2 x COM
3 x Audio (Mic-In, Line-In, Front)
3 x Audio (Center/Sub, Rear, Side)
2 x USB and 1 x RJ-45 (Fast Ethernet)
2 x USB and 1 x RJ-45 (Gigabit Ethernet)

Package Contents

Package: standard design
Documentation: motherboard user's guide in four languages, IDE RAID setup guide and a poster with short instructions how to install and setup the motherboard in English
Cables: 1 x Serial ATA (with power adapter), 2 x ATA66/100/133 and an FDD cable
Rear panel bracket with 4 x USB
Rear I/O shield
CD with software:

Motherboard drivers
Adobe Acrobat Reader
PC-cillin 2004 (antivirus)
Virtual Cable Tester (utility that monitors network connections)
DirectX 9.0b.

Peculiarities

Watch Dog Timer: automatic restoration of old BIOS settings, if the motherboard cannot startup with the new settings
Over Temperature Protection: CPU overheating protection

Integrated Controllers

Avance Logic ALC880 HDA Codec supporting 7.1 surround sound audio, with front line-in/out and S/PDIF jacks
Two network controllers, one of them is based on the VIA VT6105 LOM chip supporting 10/100 Mbit/sec Base-T (Fast Ethernet), and the second is based on the Broadcom BCM5789 chip supporting 100/100/1000 Mbit/sec Base-T (Gigabit Ethernet)
IDE RAID based on the ITE IT8212F chip supporting RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and JBOD and two ATA133 connectors.

The integrated audio quality was tested in 16bit, 44 kHz using the RightMark Audio Analyzer 5.4 test application and the Terratec DMX 6fire sound card:

Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB:	+0.15, -0.30	Good
Noise level, dB (A):	-88.4	Good
Dynamic range, dB (A):	87.2	Good
THD, %:	0.0039	Very good
Intermodulation distortion, %:	0.020	Good
Channel crosstalk, dB:	-89.0	Excellent
IMD at 10 kHz, %:	0.012	Very good

General performance: Good (Details).

Settings

Jumpers and switches	Clear CMOS jumper	When the motherboard cannot startup because of overclocking, CMOS settings are reset automatically
In BIOS v1.0BA from AMI	Memory timings	CAS Latency, RAS to CAS Delay, RAS Precharge, Precharge Delay
	Memory frequency selection	Auto , 400-533 MHz at 1 MHz steps
	PCIE bus frequency control	100 – 150 MHz at 1 MHz steps
	HT bus setup	-
	PCI IRQ manual assignment	-
	FSB frequency setup	266-300 MHz at 1 MHz steps
	CPU multiplier	x12, x13
	CPU voltage control	0.8375-1.0875 V at 0.0250 V steps 0.850-1.075 V at 0.025 V steps 1.1125V-1.5875V at 0.0250 V steps 1.100-1.600 V at 0.025 V steps 1.700-1.900 V at 0.100 V steps
	Memory voltage control	Default , +0.1 V +0.2 V +0.3 V +0.4 V
	Chipset voltage control	1.475-1.700 at 0.025 V steps
	HT bus voltage control	Default, +0.1 V +0.2 V +0.3 V
	PCIE bus voltage control	-

We used BIOS R1.09, the latest available BIOS version at the time of our tests.

Preliminary test results

Testbed configurations:

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3.46 (Extreme Edition) (Socket LGA775)
RAM: Corsair CM2X512A-4300C3PRO x 2 (DDR2 533, 3-3-3-6)
HDD: Samsung SP1213C (SATA, 7200 rpm, 8 MB Cache)
Graphics: ATI Radeon X800 XT, 256 MB DDR
OS: Windows XP SP2

According to the test results, Albatron PX925XE Pro-R takes the second place among the reviewed motherboards on i925XE chipset. We liked very much the irreproachable stable operation and the lack of any glitches. Differences between motherboards' test results are insignificant, so it's hard to say for sure which motherboard is faster. And, of course, a couple of seconds must not play a pivotal role when choosing one of these motherboards.

Test	Foxconn 925XE7AA (DDR2 533)	Albatron PX925XE Pro-R (DDR2 533)	Abit Fatality AA8XE (DDR2 533)	MSI 925XE Neo Platinum Edition (DDR2 533)	Gigabyte GA-8AENXP-D (DDR2 533)
Archiving with 7-Zip, min:sec	7:53	7:29	7:33	7:34	7:18
Memory read rate, MB/sec	2978	3240	2995	2992	3421
Memory write rate, MB/sec	1246	1617	1230	1220	1558
MPEG4 (XviD) encoding, min:sec	5:25	5:20	5:24	5:25	5:15
MPEG4 (DivX) encoding, min:sec	3:57	3:53	3:56	3:56	3:51
Processing images in Photoshop, min:sec	35: 20:00	34:44:00	34:30:00	34:36:00	33: 05:00
Unreal Tournament 2004 (Fast@800x600x32), fps	69	70	69	68	72
Unreal Tournament 2004 (High@1280x1024x32), fps	64	66	65	64	68

Conclusion

Albatron PX925XE Pro-R is not the most feature-rich motherboard among those we have already reviewed. But it's not a shortcoming, because this motherboard... (1) has a full set of state-of-the-art technologies to be a top model, (2) is delivered from lots of bells and whistles, which sometimes only complicate your life. It has a positive effect on the test results, its price, and makes the new Albatron motherboard a good purchase.

References

Vladimir Senchihin (sench@ixbt.com)
May 16, 2005.

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