Page 1 of 24 HEXUS.net : Review : ECS PF88 Extreme Hybrid

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Page 1 of 24 HEXUS.net : Review : ECS PF88 Extreme Hybrid
HEXUS.net : Review : ECS PF88 Extreme Hybrid Mainboard
Page 1 of 24
Product: ECS PF88 Extreme Hybrid Mainboard
Author: Tarinder
Date Of Review: 12th May 2005
Sample Provider: ECS ELITEGROUP
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ECS PF88 Extreme Mainboard
Enthusiasts are a fickle bunch of people, if you ask me. One minute they're swooning over the creamy, hardto-elucidate quality that Intel brings to the table with its Hyper-Threading-equipped Pentium 4 processors.
Next minute, the same enthusiasts are having performance pangs that only AMD's Athlon 64 S939 CPUs can
satiate. That's why it's not uncommon for informed users to jump ship every so often, to really see if the
grass is greener on the other side.
The most fundamental question that a prospective PC purchaser needs to make, then, is which platform to go
with. Once chosen, due to chipset and socket differences, you're stuck with a particular platform unless you
take the drastic step of changing motherboards, which entails a long afternoon of hardware and software
changes. Think about it, no other PC-related component is so much hassle, and changing back is just as much
trouble. ATI and NVIDIA's graphics cards all share the same interfaces, so it's a simple matter of uninstalling
drivers, popping in another card, and installing new drivers; a 10-minute job at best. Changing system
memory is a cinch, and SATA hard drives can now be plugged, on-the-fly, into most modern board's ports.
The ideal state of affairs would be the ability to run both Intel and AMD's CPUs on one board, with one
operating system. Whilst technically feasible, ATX PCB considerations and the extra cost of paying for a
socket that may or may not be used has always stopped the adventurous motherboard makers from having a
go. ECS, however, has decided to throw away any pre-conceived mainboard design ideas by launching a single
motherboard with the capacity to support most of today's top-end performance platforms, beginning with
Intel's LGA775 and AMD's Socket-939. You'll be wondering how it's done. Read on to find out.
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Take a few seconds to ponder the ECS PF88 Extreme's layout. For all intents and purposes, barring the extralong connector (hint, hint) running through the middle of the board, it's a regular LGA775-supporting board. In
fact, with 2 x16 PCI-Express slots you'd be forgiven for thinking it's ECS' take on Intel-based SLI, but, as you
may have guessed, the second, orange-coloured PCI-Express x16 slot is reserved for something else. Can you
figure it out?
I'll discuss the merits of this standalone motherboard before detailing just how it can be transformed into a
S939 board. In its basic form, then, the PF88 Extreme is a SiS chipset-powered PCI-Express LGA775
mainboard, with a SiS656 northbridge and SiS965 southbridge, linked together via a 1GB/s interconnect.
There's plenty of room around the socket area, and it makes for easy mounting of Intel's fiddly LGA775
reference coolers. What's more, unlike Intel, the SiS656 supports the newest iteration of dual-core Pentium
CPUs immediately.
LGA775's designed to run with DDR2 memory in mind. The PF88 Extreme carries the usual 4 DIMM slots that
offer dual-channel bandwidth by populating same-coloured slots (or all 4, for that matter). Right off the bat,
the PF88's SiS656 northbridge, located just to the left of the CPU socket, supports dual-channel DDR2-533 and
DDR2-667, bringing it in line with Intel's i9xx models. The northbridge also supports the first orange-coloured
PCI-Express x16 slot, just to the left. Unlike most retail Intel 925-series, however, ECS/SiS implement 2 IDE
ATA133 ports, great if you're still using a bunch of older hard drives and/or optical devices. A 24-pin EPS 12v
power connector is also something that we see on the majority of Intel boards. Indeed, thus far, and not
looking to the left, this could quite easily be another generic i925XE we're reviewing.
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Coming on down the board and steadfastedly ignoring the two BIOS chips (another hint), the SiS965
southbridge is a solid companion to the PCI-Express SiS656 northbridge. SiS integrates 4 independent SATA
ports that can be setup in RAID 0, 1, 0+1, and JBOD configurations. Further, continuing the PCI-Express
theme, it supports 2 x1 lanes. Amongst other notables, the '965 features 8-channel sound, albeit only AC'97, 8
USB2.0 ports, 6 PCI slots, and a Gigabit Ethernet MAC. SiS also has another southbridge, imaginatively titled
SiS966, that supports high-definition audio, and it may well be included in a board revision.
More SATA goodness is to be found via the use of Silicon Image's Sil3132 controller. As the name implies, it
supports 2 ports, red on the PF88 Extreme, and rides off the preferred x1 PCI-Express lane. I've bemoaned the
lack of PCI-Express peripherals in the past, so it's nice to see ECS specify it instead of a regular PCI-based
3112. It also gains points by supporting SATA2, and by consequence, Native Command Queuing (not present in
SiS965). Software RAID 0 and RAID 1 are also available, as is RAID 5 and RAID 10 if run with the optional port
multiplier.
Other feature goodies include 2-port FireWire (VIA6307), 3 PCI slots, 8-channel sound routed through Realtek's
trusty ALC850 CODEC, and a Marvell physical layer that serves as another routing device for the SiS965's
Gigabit Ethernet MAC.
The I/O section reflects the feature-set well. There's 4 USB2.0 (another 4 available via on-board headers), a
single FireWire 1394a port, RJ-45 for Gigabit Ethernet, 2 Serial ports, and 6 speaker ports that combine to
offer 8-channel sound. Given the PF88 Extreme's aggressive pricing of only £65 including VAT and the decent
feature-set and layout on offer, ECS would already be on to a winner. But there's more, oh so much more to
it. Remember the purple-coloured slot and the second PCI-Express x16 slots from the previous page? It's kind
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of hard to miss them. That's how, in essence, ECS is able to turn the PF88 Extreme from an Intel-only
mainboard into, at the moment, a S939 AMD Athlon 64-supporting board.
Bought separately for just over £30 including VAT, ECS offers its SIMA platform converter card, the A9S.
And there you have it. An add-in card that fits into the purple-coloured Elite Bus connector on the PF88
Extreme. The A9S supports all current Socket-939 CPUs and will also run dual-core X2s with a BIOS update.
Power-delivery circuits and a 4-pin cable (that you remove from the mainboard and attach here) give the card
the necessary power stability and juice. 2 DDR1 slots offer up to 2GB of system RAM that's run in dual-channel
mode. ECS has chosen to go with incompatible DDR1 and DDR2 for AMD and Intel, respectively. It could have
engineered the PF88 Extreme to run with LGA775 and DDR1, much like Intel's i915x chipsets. That would have
eased the financial burden of switching over to AMD, as now you have to invest in not only a CPU but also in
DDR1 RAM. ECS has tried to strike a balance between future-proofing LGA775, which is supported at 266MHz
FSB and will rise in the future, and present DDR400 support for AMD's S939 CPUs. Given a choice, I'd liked to
have seen DDR1 implemented on both sides. It would then have simply been a matter of purchasing the A9S
and the S939 CPU of your choice.
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ECS has used a SiS756 PCI-Express-compatible northbridge on the convertor card. There's very good, practical
reasons for it, too. It carries the dual-channel DDR400 memory controller which connects up to the DIMM slots
mentioned above. Being PCI-Express, it also feeds down to the second orange-coloured x16 slot on the
motherboard. The first, used in an Intel-based setup, can't be accessed as the convertor card blocks the slot
completely. Even if it could, it's mapped out for the SiS656 northbridge. In a conventional AMD S939 setup,
the SiS756 is usually paired with the '965 southbridge; exactly the same southbridge that's already featured
here. The convertor card, once positioned in the Elite Bus slot and activated by removing a bank of jumpers,
disables the SiS656-SiS965 interconnect and forces the PF88 Extreme to run with the AMD-designed SiS756SiS965 combination, again through a 1GB/s interconnect. Having said that, power is still being delivered to
the LGA775 northbridge.
The space constraints of locating both an Athlon 64 socket and 2 DIMM slots are manifested in the inability to
run a reference, PIB cooler that's shipped with high-end S939 CPUs. Note how, using Crucial Ballistix RAM, the
first DIMM slot is blocked off, thereby inadvertently disabling dual-channel memory.
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Installing an older AMD reference cooler or appropriate aftermarket heatsink cures the problem. A couple of
Corsair XMS3200XL sticks have just enough room to breathe.
Look back to the previous page and you'll just be able to make out a two rows of black jumpers between the
first PCI-Express x16 slot and the Elite Bus connector. These need to be removed when engaging the A9S addin SIMA card. What you get is........
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Note how the A9S card and AMD cooler then block the access path to the first PCI-Express slot?. That's one
reason why there's a second one behind.
The A9S card is also the reason why there's 2 BIOS chips on the board. One for Intel and one for AMD. Once
the convertor card is plugged in correctly, the board switches the BIOS to AMD's. The PF88 Extreme ships with
just the Intel chip in place, and AMD's is supplied with the A9S card.
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Once installed, the PCI-Express card is moved to the left. With an ATI RADEON X850 XT PE 256MB in situ one
niggly problem arose. Accessing the clear CMOS jumper, which is on the far left, with the motherboard in a
regular CoolerMaster WaveMaster case, is frustratingly difficult without removing the card. ECS should also
have used a big-headed jumper, found primarily on ABIT boards.
The same setup with an Intel CPU, cooler and DDR2 RAM in place. Much cleaner, but that's kind of obvious,
isn't it?
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ECS hasn't skimped on board features or packaging. The PF88 Extreme arrives in an oversized box that's
replete with goodies.
ECS bundles in a multi-purpose bracket that adds in 2 USB2.0 and a single 6-pin FireWire port. There's also a
foot-long eSATA cable, designed to be used with Silicon Image's 3132 controller, attached to the back of a
case, and provide on-the-fly connectivity to external SATA hard drives, usually in enclosures and powered
from the mains. 4 orange-coloured SATA cables and black IDE/floppy cables are a nice touch. There's also a
custom I/O shield, molex-to-SATA power connectors, and a decent manual, with colour illustrations, written
in good English. I also liked the fact that ECS provided a one-touch software installation CD, which took care
of many of the board's drivers without the need to install each one manually. On the software front, ECS adds
in InterVideo's WinDVD 5, WinDVD Creator, WinRip 2. Pro Magic Plus, a Ghost-like app., ShowShifter, another
media-related application, and InTouch, a remote-accessing tool, complete the bundle.
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The PF88 Extreme arrives in two flavours. One is the regular bundle, as seen above. The other includes WiFi
support through a USB extender and 802.11g dongle; handy for gaining a better signal than having the dongle
plugged into the back. Pricing for the standalone PF88 Extreme is £65 including VAT for the regular bundle
and around £80 including VAT for the WiFi-equipped version. You could add 50% to those prices if the board
had, say, ASUS' name on and not ECS'. A decent bundle to go along with a well-featured board.The ECS PF88
Extreme's BIOS is a unique setup in that it has to cater for both Intel and AMD CPUs. When using either brand
of CPU and appropriate BIOS, we see the following Phoenix AwardBIOS page.
With respect to Intel CPUs, let's trundle on over to the frequency/voltage section first.
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CPU ratio only presents itself when using unlocked/engineering sample Intel-based processors. I found it
impossible to run with anything other than the default multiplier. More of an early BIOS issue than anything
else. CPU Front-Side Bus can be set, with respect to a 200MHz FSB CPU, to anything between default and
450MHz. Further, the PCI bus can be locked to ensure that peripherals don't hinder overclocking efforts. PCIExpress speeds aren't expressly stated, though. CPU-to-DRAM ratios need to be doubled in order to correspond
to what we're used to with other boards. For example, most i925XE's can be set to DDR533 using a 3:4 ratio.
ECS, however, states DRAM frequency in DDR terms, so the same setting is achieved via a 3:8 ratio. Others
available are SPD, 3:4 (DDR266), 3:5 (DDR333), 1:2 (DDR400), and 3:10 (DDR667, or SPD in the case of Crucial
Ballistix DDR2 PC5400 RAM). ECS also offers up to 0.075v extra juice for the CPU and 0.15v extra for DDR2. I'd
liked to have seen extra adjustment on both lines, really.
Intel-based DRAM control was best left at default settings, which translated into 4-4-4-12 timings at DDR533
speeds.
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A relatively low 12v line didn't impact upon board stability in any way. Voltages were consistent as any other
board's, too.
AMD BIOS
It will come as no surprise that the PF88 Extreme uses a second BIOS that's used in conjunction with the A9S
add-in, AMD-supporting card. Firing up the board with card, CPU and DDR1 in place shows, expectedly, a BIOS
geared up towards S939 CPUs.
Note the lack of parameter adjustment compared to the Intel's. There's no CPU or DDR voltage manipulation,
although that may appear in later BIOSes. It's probably a sensible approach by ECS, given that AMD S939 CPUs
are run off an additional card and not the motherboard itself. FSB frequencies range from 200MHz-232MHz, so
it's not aimed at the enthusiast, either.
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There's a reasonable degree of DDR parameter adjustment. Running with a couple 512MB Corsair's XMS3200XL
sticks and leaving the settings on auto gave SPD timings of 2-2-2-5 1T, perfect for low-latency accesses.
Using an original S939 cooler pushed up an FX-53's BIOS CPU temperature to 55c. Windows' load hovered at
around 63c. Hot but not hot enough to prejudice results in any way. Heat is something that ECS will need to
keep a close eye upon, especially when running with FX-55 or dual-core CPUs. The odd socket positioning,
relative to most motherboards', didn't impact upon stability at all.
Motherboard
ECS PF88 Extreme
CPU Support
All LGA775 processors (including dual-core models)
Northbridge
SiS656
Memory Support
4 slots, DDR-II only. Supports DDR2-400MHz, 533MHz, and 667MHz at 200MHz FSB. 4GB m
AGP
None
PEG
2x x16 from SiS656/756
Southbridge
SiS965
Audio
8-channel feed from SiS965 to Realtek ALC850 CODEC
Audio Connectivity
6-port backplane speaker
PCI
1x 32-bit 33MHz PCI 2.1 slots
PCI Express
1x x1 slots
IDE
2 ATA133 compliant ports from SiS965
IDE RAID
None
SATA
4 ports from SiS965
SATA RAID
RAID0, 1, 0+1, and JBOD from SiS965
SATA RAID #2
RAID0 and RAID1 from Silicon Image Sil3132 PCI-Express-based controller. SATA2 complia
Networking
Gigabit Ethernet MAC controller on SiS965 via Marvell 88E1111 PHY
USB
8 USB2.0 ports from SiS965. 4x backplane USB2.0 and 4x internal I/O USB2.0
FireWire
2-port 1394a FireWire support from VIA VT6307 ASIC
Other I/O
PS/2, Parallel, 2x Serial
Onboard connectors and pin headers
Floppy, 2x ATA133, 4x USB2.0, 6x SATA, FireWire 1394a, Elite Bus connector, 3x usable
Form Factor
305mm x 245mm, ATX
Expected price
£65 inc. VAT. £31 for SIMA card
The strangest set of features yet!
Hardware and Software
Test Platforms
System
ECS PF88 Extreme System
Intel i925XE system
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Processor(s)
Intel Pentium 4 660 & AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 (via A9S add-in card)
Intel Pentium 4 660
ECS PF88 Extreme w/A9S card
EPoX EP-5LWA+ 925XE
1GByte (2x512MB) Crucial Ballistix DDR2-667 & 1GByte (2x512MB)
Corsair XMS3200XL
1GByte (2x512MB) Crucial Ballistix
DDR2-667
4-4-4-12 for DDR2, 2-2-2-5 1T for DDR1
4-4-4-12
Mainboard
Memory
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Memory timings
Graphics Card
ATI RADEON X850 XT PE - PEG16X - CATALYST 5.3
Disk Drive
BIOS Version
160GB WD IDE & 36GB SATA Raptor
16/4/05 for Intel, 25/04/05 for AMD
Operating System
Mainboard
Software
23/02/2005
Windows XP Professional, SP2
SiS 2.04a
Intel INF Update Utility 6.3.0.1007
Benchmark Software
HEXUS.in-house Cryptography Benchmark
HEXUS Pifast Benchmark
ScienceMark 2.0 (7th February 2005)
Realstorm 2004
CINEBENCH 2003 multi-CPU render
HEXUS.in-house MP3 Encoding Benchmark using LAME 3.97a (Intel HT compiler) - 701MB WAV
picCOLOR 32-bit v4.0
KribiBench v1.1
Microsoft Movie Maker 2.1
SimpliSoft HDTach (USB2.0, SATA, and PATA transfer tests)
DOOM 3 Timedemo 1
3DMark2001SE b330
UT2003 HEXUS Bot Match
Notes
ECS gave us the opportunity of evaluating the PF88 Extreme motherboard in the full knowledge that both AMD
and Intel BIOSes are works in progress. The board was manually updated to the latest available at the time of
writing, being 16/04 and 25/04 for Intel and AMD, respectively. However, even with these builds, a few
problems were apparent. The board would often freeze on the OS-loading screen, necessitating a reboot.
Reboots often didn't function correctly and a cold start was needed at times. Further, I was advised not to
run AMD's BIOS with 5x HTT setting applied. Once successfully in Windows, though, the PF88 Extreme, with
both Intel and AMD CPUs, was a paradigm of stability. I'm adamant that future BIOS releases will cure the test
board's ailments.
A single OS?
Adding in the A9S card and removing jumpers takes but a minute. One can turn the PF88 Extreme from an
Intel-based motherboard to an AMD's in a jiffy. However, when attempting to load the PF88 Extreme's
Pentium 4 edition of Windows XP Professional with the A9S in place, each attempt was meet with abject
failure, usually resulting in the system rebooting just as XP finished loading. The culprit in this case appears
to be Windows XP itself, which isn't happy going from a 2-CPU (well, HT-equipped P4) to a single-CPU AMD
system. Going the other way around, from AMD to Intel, worked flawlessly.
I'll be comparing the ECS PF88 Extreme's performance against two established motherboards based on Intel's
premier i925XE and AMD/VIA's K8T890 chipsets. The PF88 Extreme purports to offer the best of both worlds,
so it will be interesting to see just how competitive it is, in terms of performance, with two of the fastest
boards on either platform.
Explicit running speeds of the boards were as follows:
3630.8MHz - EPoX 5LWA+ (i925XE) - Intel Pentium 4 660
3600.5MHz - ECS PF88 Extreme - Intel Pentium 4 660
2405.4MHz -ABIT AX8 (VIA K8T890) - AMD Athlon 64 FX-53
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2399.8MHz - ECS PF88 Extreme - AMD Athlon 64 FX-53
Note that the PF88 Extreme's clock generator doesn't inflate the FSB, unlike EpoX's. Please bear the running
speed in mind when comparing results. Other than clock speed, the PF88 Extreme, in both Intel and AMD
guises, was setup in an identical manner to the two comparison boards. Looking at memory tests first.
When using the A9S convertor card and AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 CPU, ScienceMark 2.0 would repeatedly crash
before spitting out the result. That's the reason why there's no figure shown there. Note, that with identical
settings, i925XE has almost a 10% memory bandwidth advantage over PF88 Extreme.
Latency, too, is much, much higher than Intel's 925XE.
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The performance colours to look out for are grey and orange, which represent the PF88 Extreme with either
AMD or Intel CPUs. Pifast, though, runs just fine with the A9S card in place. In fact, the result is
commendably close to a VIA K8T890's. On the Intel side of things, the PF88 Extreme is just over 5% slower
than an i925XE, although 1% of that advantage is gained by using an inflated FSB.
Our cryptography benchmark shows VIA K8T890 and PF88 Extreme/A9S neck-and-neck. The P4 variant lags
just a little behind.
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Commendable performance in KribiBench.
Very little to choose between the three boards in Realstorm's raytracing benchmark.
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The results thus far show excellent comparative AMD performance and a reasonable Intel showing. It seems as
if ECS' Intel-based memory controller isn't as hot as, you guessed it, Intel's.
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Once again, decent performance from the hybrid ECS PF88 Extreme.
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There's nothing wrong with SiS' PATA controller. The average PATA read speed, from a 160GB Western Digital
hard drive, is just where it should be.
SATA performance is also right on the money.
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USB2.0 performance is the best of the lot. SiS' 965 southbridge, in storage speed terms, is plenty fast enough.
Low CPU utilisation on all three counts, too.
Excellent performance on the AMD side of things, once again, eclipsing the benchmark laid down by a welltuned VIA K8T890 mainboard. A lack of comparative bandwidth and latency pushes the P4-based score down
by over 1,000 marks when compared to a class-leading i925XE's. The breakdowns and can be viewed here and
here.
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A similar story unfolds in DOOM 3, where there's general benchmark parity with the A9S convertor card and a
lack of throughput when benchmarked in standard LGA775 form.
UT2003's results echo what's been written above. Motherboards are intrinsically boring. Their primary role is
to act as a conduit for the other parts of a system; the base on which everything is built upon. Refreshes
come and go, and each new iteration of chipset sees some feature integrated into a bridge, be it PCI-Express
or SATA2. Other chipset makers then follow suit and status quo is quickly re-established. That's why it was a
pleasant surprise to see one of the largest motherboard produces, Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS)
attempt to do something totally different with the PF88 Extreme.
ECS took on the challenge of designing a single motherboard that could accommodate the latest platforms
without the need for swapping boards over. The solution that ECS came up with, in respect of catering for
both LGA775 and S939 chipsets, is a novel one. Through the use of a proprietory interface, Elite Bus, and a
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separate add-in SIMA card, a user is able to change over from the PF88 Extreme's default LGA775 layout to
S939 in a matter of minutes. On a technical level, it's accomplished by using a single, on-board southbridge
that can be set to communicate with either northbridge, onboard or SIMA-attached. ECS also plans to
introduce SIMA cards for AMD's S754 and Intel Pentium 4 CPUs, for extra platform flexibility.
Breaking down the PF88 Extreme's attributes into manageable sections, the default configuration, sans SIMA
card, provides for a competent SiS chipset-powered PCI-Express (single card) Intel LGA775-based system. All
the features one would expect are thrown in, including 4 DDR2 DIMM slots, on-chip SATA, discrete SATA2,
FireWire 1394a, 8-channel sound (non-HD, sadly), Gigabit LAN, and a bundle that reflects the board's deluxe
nature. ECS' aggressive pricing ensures that the PF88 Extreme will retail for around £65 inc. VAT, and whilst
the performance isn't quite up to i925XE standards and the BIOS could do with greater levels of adjustment,
it's competent enough given the package's street price.
Evaluating the PF88 Extreme in ignorance of its multi-platform support is missing the entire point of the
board, really. Adding in the ~£30 A9S SIMA card, any choice of S939 CPU, and a couple of decent stick of DDR1
memory transforms the PF88 into a high-performing AMD motherboard. The BIOS is lacking, certainly, and 2
DIMM slots may not be ideal for all, but at least it opens up the way for you, the user, to experiment with the
other side without having to install a new motherboard. It won't appeal to the die-hard enthusiast interesting
in pushing components to the absolute limit, but system integrators should immediately recognise the value
inherent in a fast turnaround of platforms. The one blot on ECS' multi-platform vision is the need to re-install
or 'rescue' Windows XP when changing from Intel to AMD setups.
I've been pleasantly surprised by the ease of switching between Intel- and AMD-based systems. With this
initial release, it would perhaps have been prudent for ECS to run with DDR1 memory throughout, mimimising
the upgrade/sideways cost of moving to AMD's S939 CPUs, via the optional SIMA card. I'd also like to see
greater levels of BIOS adjustment, thereby pandering to the needs of the enthusiast, and a slight PCB redesign, with a single switch, rather than 20-odd jumpers, for enabling the SIMA card would be nice.
ECS has brought something very new to the table - a motherboard that carries a number of modern features
and one that opens up the way for multi-CPU support. In the oft-boring, stagnant world of motherboard
design, the ECS ELITEGROUP PF88 Extreme is a breath of very fresh air.
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