Overclocking
With a decent CPU and memory combination you will go far with this motherboard. The board advertises “1.2GHz FSB” on the box and we can safely say that the board can do this and more without a problem. With the Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.73GHz processor, that uses a 1066MHz front side bus, installed the board could sit all day at 4.2GHz/1200MHz FSB without a hitch. We ran prime95 torture test for many hours and not once did it flinch.
Above this, our memory was only PC4300 DDR2 but it would boot at 1260MHz, 1280MHz, 1300MHz (this was the last CPU-Z screenshot that we saved) and then we got greedy at 1320MHz FSB and went straight for 1340MHz without saving a CPU-Z - a big mistake. Our memory was running at 335MHz, compared to its rated 266MHz and so we ended up with problems getting the motherboard to reboot. After clearing the CMOS, the motherboard refused to overclock past the 1300MHz FSB mark again, no matter how hard we tried to coax it. The 4.62GHz overclock couldn’t be recorded in windows! How we cried.
To get it stable enough to run any tests however it was clocked down to 1280MHz FSB, but it was only benchmark stable not prime95 torture test stable but you cannot really complain at almost 4.5GHz on the stock Intel cooler.
The thing is, we are confident that the motherboard will do more, but our memory and lack of cooling meant that we fell short of a fully stable 4.5GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. We tried some faster memory, in the shape of Corsair's PC2-5400 DDR2 memory, but the board would not boot with it installed. ECS have told us that the board should work fine with Corsair memory modules, and their engineers have tested Corsair and many other common DDR2 Memory modules that are available on the market and got them to work - it looks as if this issue is an exclusive case, but we'll be interested to see what other reviewers findings are in the same situation.
Final Thoughts...
To get to the point: after a while the LEDs and northbridge fan are so irritating they make you want to rip them off the board. Unfortunately you cannot turn off the LEDs and you need the northbridge fan to keep the hot northbridge stable, but at least it's removable and upgradeable.
You can quite easily cut down high pitch whines by using sound insulation in cases like Akasa's Pax Mate, which works pretty well. Without modifying the northbridge fan to run at 7 volts, or replacing it completely, we couldn’t live with this board day in day out regardless of its overclocking merits and price. Replacing the northbridge cooler is not that hard to swap out, with a number of third party alternatives available on the market. Obviously, if you don’t care about whiney fans and flashing LEDs, then it’s not something worth loosing sleep over.
We don’t want to appear overly negative on an issue that will not be quite as annoying once the case is installed in to a case because, in general, this board is extremely functional, easy to use and setup ready for users with a wide range of overclocking experience - it's a very easy to get to grips with motherboard. The yellow “PCI Extreme” slot works very well and is a feature we’d like to see on other motherboards.
The board also overclocks like a king: we can’t argue with 4.5+GHz with a stock Intel cooler, we were only set back in our tracks by a lack of memory speed and a lack of cooling at its limit, not by the motherboard. With an ideal setup we’d love to see how far this board could really stretch its bus speed. The extreme ethos that ECS have chosen to base their board around is well deserved in our opinion.
Final, Final Thoughts...
The ECS PF21 Extreme will appeal to some, but the one thing we've found is that people turn their noses up without actually considering it seriously, just because it is not manufactured by a typical favourite in the enthusiast's world. You could consider this board a sleeper hit, if you will. Many people should consider it though, particularly because of the price, the performance and features, as well as remaining completely stable at the advertised 1.2GHz FSB.
The BIOS headroom is also huge 500+MHz for CPU bus in 1MHz increments, which makes us wonder what the ECS techs have been able to clock it to and are expecting others to do! Along with the massive scope for clock speed adjustment, the comprehensive timings and voltages available in the BIOS are great to see. Pairing these together make it an extremely overclocking friendly motherboard to use to clock the hell out of your brand new Pentium 4 processor.
The ECS PF21 Extreme is a motherboard with a few minor cosmetic concerns that will not faze the serious overclocker. Under the cosmetics there's one mean motherboard with a hell of a lot of potential.
ECS PF21 Extreme
With a decent CPU and memory combination you will go far with this motherboard. The board advertises “1.2GHz FSB” on the box and we can safely say that the board can do this and more without a problem. With the Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.73GHz processor, that uses a 1066MHz front side bus, installed the board could sit all day at 4.2GHz/1200MHz FSB without a hitch. We ran prime95 torture test for many hours and not once did it flinch.
Above this, our memory was only PC4300 DDR2 but it would boot at 1260MHz, 1280MHz, 1300MHz (this was the last CPU-Z screenshot that we saved) and then we got greedy at 1320MHz FSB and went straight for 1340MHz without saving a CPU-Z - a big mistake. Our memory was running at 335MHz, compared to its rated 266MHz and so we ended up with problems getting the motherboard to reboot. After clearing the CMOS, the motherboard refused to overclock past the 1300MHz FSB mark again, no matter how hard we tried to coax it. The 4.62GHz overclock couldn’t be recorded in windows! How we cried.
To get it stable enough to run any tests however it was clocked down to 1280MHz FSB, but it was only benchmark stable not prime95 torture test stable but you cannot really complain at almost 4.5GHz on the stock Intel cooler.
The thing is, we are confident that the motherboard will do more, but our memory and lack of cooling meant that we fell short of a fully stable 4.5GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. We tried some faster memory, in the shape of Corsair's PC2-5400 DDR2 memory, but the board would not boot with it installed. ECS have told us that the board should work fine with Corsair memory modules, and their engineers have tested Corsair and many other common DDR2 Memory modules that are available on the market and got them to work - it looks as if this issue is an exclusive case, but we'll be interested to see what other reviewers findings are in the same situation.
Final Thoughts...
To get to the point: after a while the LEDs and northbridge fan are so irritating they make you want to rip them off the board. Unfortunately you cannot turn off the LEDs and you need the northbridge fan to keep the hot northbridge stable, but at least it's removable and upgradeable.
You can quite easily cut down high pitch whines by using sound insulation in cases like Akasa's Pax Mate, which works pretty well. Without modifying the northbridge fan to run at 7 volts, or replacing it completely, we couldn’t live with this board day in day out regardless of its overclocking merits and price. Replacing the northbridge cooler is not that hard to swap out, with a number of third party alternatives available on the market. Obviously, if you don’t care about whiney fans and flashing LEDs, then it’s not something worth loosing sleep over.
We don’t want to appear overly negative on an issue that will not be quite as annoying once the case is installed in to a case because, in general, this board is extremely functional, easy to use and setup ready for users with a wide range of overclocking experience - it's a very easy to get to grips with motherboard. The yellow “PCI Extreme” slot works very well and is a feature we’d like to see on other motherboards.
The board also overclocks like a king: we can’t argue with 4.5+GHz with a stock Intel cooler, we were only set back in our tracks by a lack of memory speed and a lack of cooling at its limit, not by the motherboard. With an ideal setup we’d love to see how far this board could really stretch its bus speed. The extreme ethos that ECS have chosen to base their board around is well deserved in our opinion.
Final, Final Thoughts...
The ECS PF21 Extreme will appeal to some, but the one thing we've found is that people turn their noses up without actually considering it seriously, just because it is not manufactured by a typical favourite in the enthusiast's world. You could consider this board a sleeper hit, if you will. Many people should consider it though, particularly because of the price, the performance and features, as well as remaining completely stable at the advertised 1.2GHz FSB.
The BIOS headroom is also huge 500+MHz for CPU bus in 1MHz increments, which makes us wonder what the ECS techs have been able to clock it to and are expecting others to do! Along with the massive scope for clock speed adjustment, the comprehensive timings and voltages available in the BIOS are great to see. Pairing these together make it an extremely overclocking friendly motherboard to use to clock the hell out of your brand new Pentium 4 processor.
The ECS PF21 Extreme is a motherboard with a few minor cosmetic concerns that will not faze the serious overclocker. Under the cosmetics there's one mean motherboard with a hell of a lot of potential.
ECS PF21 Extreme
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