ECS PF21 Extreme

ECS PF21 Extreme - The Board (contd.)

As with just about every 925X/XE-based motherboard, High Definition sound is included as standard and is controlled by the C-Media CMI9880 codec, which provides up to 8 channel audio as well as Dolby Digital encoding and Dolby Virtual Surround out through S/PDIF on the back I/O panel. There are also dual ethernet ports controlled by the Realtek 10/100 RTL8100C and the Marvell Gigabit 88E8001 Ethernet chips.

The back panel is rather interesting, if a little unconventional. However, the standard ports are all still present. There are two PS/2 ports and a single COM port, as well as a mini-Firewire port. The S/PDIF optical input and output ports feature auto-closing doors to stop dust from creeping in to the ports - it's basically a flap on a spring. There are also four USB 2.0 port and the two Ethernet ports directly above them. Finally, there are five analogue audio jacks that provide 8-channel sound supported by the included High Definition audio chip.

The interesting part of the back plate is the integrated 40mm fan and lime green shroud which is meant to expel hot air from the CPU cooler and power regulation components but without the power regulators being heatsinked and nearly all PC cases having adequate ventilation either from the PSU above the CPU or on the back of the case itself, we find it hard to see the actual practical worth of a tiny fan that will shift very little air in reality. At least ECS have given the user the option to remove it by unscrewing the two supporting screws that attach it to the motherboard. Surprisingly, the fan was almost silent unlike the northbridge fan, so you might as well leave it in because you are unlikely to notice the noise anyway.

The BIOS

A standard Phoenix AwardBIOS has been used by ECS and there is a wide range of voltage adjustments available to the user. There is voltage adjustment between 1.125v and 1.5875v for the processor, 1.5v and 1.675v for the PCI-Express x16 slot, and 1.8v to 2.2v available for supply to the DDR2 memory modules. This should be more than enough voltage adjustment for your avid tweaker. However, there is no voltage adjustment available for the chipset, which is a slight shame.

The BIOS also lacks support for control of fan speeds for the northbridge and rear exhaust fan unfortunately. The front side bus speed is adjustable from 200 to a huge 510MHz in 1MHz increments and DDR timings are fully provided excluding command rate timing, however due to the limitation of the 925 based chipsets only 400/533MHz speeds are selectable. It’s quite disappointing that the chipset does not support 600MHz DDR2 memory modules, considering the board boasts a 1200MHz front side bus. However, that is not the fault of ECS, and if you select the memory to run in sync with your CPU's front side bus, you can still achieve high memory bus speeds.

Test Setup

ECS PF21 Extreme Motherboard; Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.4GHz (512KB L2, 2MB L3) & Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.73GHz (2MB L2); 2 x 512MB Micron PC4300 DDR2 (operating in dual channel with 4-4-4-12 timings); NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT (operating at 350/1000MHz); Western Digital Raptor 74GB; Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2; DirectX 9.0c; NVIDIA ForceWare 65.73 WHQL.

Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz Extreme Edition; Intel D925XCV (i925X) motherboard; 2x 512MB Micron DDR2 PC4300 (operating in dual channel with 4-4-4-12 timings); NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT PCI-Express (operating at 350/1000MHz); Western Digital Raptor 74GB; Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2; DirectX 9.0c; NVIDIA Forceware 65.73 WHQL.

AMD Comparison Systems - common components:

AMD Athlon 64 4000+; 2x 512MB Corsair XL Pro PC3200 (operating in dual channel at 2.0-2-2-5*); NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT AGP (operating at 350/1000MHz); Western Digital Raptor 74GB; Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2; DirectX 9.0c; NVIDIA Forceware 65.73 WHQL.

Motherboards:

• EQS M56K9-MLF (ATI Radeon Xpress 200G)
  
• ABIT AV8 (VIA K8T800 Pro)
  
• Shuttle SN25P (NForce 4 Ultra)

* - the EQS M56K9-MLF motherboard does not have the option to change memory timings configuration, so they are forced to the SPD of the memory modules installed.