• Intel 875P chipset (i875P Northbridge and ICH5 Southbridge)

The company was actually late with the i875P solutions. It was a hit last Spring, but by the moment of Prescott announcement and on the threshold of Grantsdale solutions most enthusiasts await for other novelties. Still, always following its policy of making even top products widely available, Albatron maximally pared down boards features and provided Pentium 4 Prescott support to be able to offer a relatively inexpensive solution with maximum performance for the latest processors. Those who value features more (at almost the same performance) might select i865PE models like PX865PE Pro II.

The layout is not ideal, but comfortable. Only the sockets along the left border might be a problem, and FDD connector is located behind PCI slots. The only present jumper is always accessible and described onboard. The tri-channel CPU voltage switching regulator has 6 x 2200µf and 3 x 1200µf capacitors. There are also AGP (2 x 1000µf) and memory (2 x 1000µf; strengthened by L elements) regulators. Standby power is indicated by a red LED.

As PX875P Pro is the top solution in its short series, it doesn't have circuited, but non-soldered elements. The second and the last in this series PX875P bases on the same PCB, but doesn't features LAN controller and thus being a real Canterwood for the masses. The board is sized 305x245 mm (full ATX, 9-screw mount, all parts fixed). The Winbond W83627THF chip is used to monitor:

• CPU, battery, +3.3, +5, ±12V and +5V Standby;
• Rpm of 3 fans;
• CPU and motherboard temperatures (using corresponding sensors).

Onboard ports, connectors and sockets:

• Socket 478;
• 4 x DDR SDRAM DIMM (up to 4GB of unbuffered DDR266/333/400 with or without ECC; distinguished by color for dual-channel installation);
• 1 x latched AGP;
• 5 x PCI;
• Standard ATX and 4-pin 12V power;
• 1 x FDD;
• 2 x IDE (Parallel ATA) on chipset
• 2 x SATA (Serial ATA) on chipset
• 3 headers for 2 x USB (2.0) each;
• 1 x CD/DVD Audio connector;
• 1 x IrDA;
• 1 x opened chassis sensor connector;
• Additional audio and S/PDIF connectors;
• 3 x cooler connectors (all with rpm control).

Backpanel (left to right blockwise)

• PS/2 mouse and keyboard;
• 2 x USB and RJ-45 (Fast Ethernet);
• 1 x LPT and 2 x COM;
• Game, Mic-In, Line-In, Front.

Absolutely standard backpanel, rather unusual for an i875P board. Usually other features make manufacturers omit Game and even the 2nd COM ports to situate numerous interfaces.

Bundle:

• A standard box;
• User's guide in 4 languages, quick start in English;
• 1 x Serial ATA (w/adapter), 2 x ATA66/100/133 and FDD cabling;
• Backpanel stub with 4 x USB;
• Software CD;
  • Drivers;
  • Adobe Acrobat Reader;
  • PC-cillin 2002;
  • DirectX 9.0b.

Integrated controllers

• Avance Logic ALC655 AC'97 5.1 audio codec with front audio inputs/outputs connector and S/PDIF;
• 3Com Marvell 920-MV00á 10/100Mbps LAN (Fast Ethernet).

The integrated audio quality was tested in 16-bit, 44kHz mode using RightMark Audio Analyzer 5.1 and Terratec DMX 6fire soundcard:

Summary: Good.

Proprietary technologies

• AGP Protection (protects from +3.3V graphics card installation)
• Watch Dog Timer (Automatic CMOS reset after overclocking crashes)

Settings

We used the BIOS R1.00 as the latest available at the moment of testing. It's interesting that this BIOS has the "PAT Mode" setting, which sense is not very clear to us as Intel says PAT is always enabled in i875P. But this shouldn't bother you much.

Test results:

• Intel Pentium 4 Prescott: Half a step forward

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