Socket 939 Roundup: Battle at the Top
by Wesley Fink on July 30, 2004 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
ECS KV2 Extreme: Features and Layout
| ECS KV2 Extreme Motherboard Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | VIA K8T800 PRO/VT8237 |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 511MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| CPU Ratios | 4x - 20x in 0.5x increments |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Disabled, 66.0, 75.4 |
| HyperTransport | 1GHz to 200MHz (5x-1x) |
| Core Voltage | 0.825V to 1.55V in .025V increments |
| DRAM Voltage | 2.50V to 2.7V in 0.05V increments |
| AGP Voltage | 1.45V, 1.53V, 1.57V, 1.60V |
| Chipset Voltage | None |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Unbuffered Memory to 4GB |
| Expansion Slots | 1 AGP 8X Slot 5 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA/RAID | 2 SATA 150 drives by VIA VT8237 plus 2 SATA 150 by SiS 180 Can be combined in RAID 0, 1, 0+1, JBOD |
| Onboard IDE | Two Standard VIA ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) plus 2 IDE 133/100/66 by SiS 180 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports supported by VIA VT8237 2 IEEE 1394a FireWire Ports by VIA VT6307 |
| DUAL Onboard LAN | Gigabit Ethernet by Marvel 88E8001 plus 10/100 by VIA VT6103L |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC655 6-Channel with SPDIF |
| Tested BIOS | 1.1A |
ECS hopes that the bronze-foil box with a feature flap clearly announces that the ECS KV2 Extreme is a premium board. The Extreme name is reserved for the top ECS boards, and with the Socket 939 currently a premium board, the KV2 announces that ECS wants to be a contender at the top.
The KV2 Extreme even has the individual interior boxes that we first saw on Abit motherboards, carefully fitted to protect the manuals and brackets . This should not come as a complete surprise, since ECS also manufactures some motherboards for Abit. The KV2 is a 6-layer, 3-phase design, which includes all the bells and whistles that you have come to expect from top-of-the-line motherboards. This includes Dual RAID, Dual LAN, 4 SATA ports, 2 Firewire ports, provisions for 6 IDE drives, and active North Bridge cooling.
Just so you don't miss it, ECS even has a silver plaque on the purple KV2 announcing it is a member of the Extreme series. The layout of the board is generally excellent, showing great attention to the smallest details. ECS has placed the ATX, IDE, and floppy connectors in our preferred upper right edge location. Even the extra IDE for the 5th and 6th IDE is out of the way for the PCI slots.
The BIOS adjustments on the early versions of the KV2 were very sparse, but ECS quickly updated the KV2 Extreme with the CPU Frequency adjustments, ratios, and PCI/AGP lock that you would expect on a premium 939 motherboard. Our only complaints about the available options are that the vCore is still rather meager with a top of 1.55V; 1.70 volts would have been preferred. Also, the vDIMM to only 2.7V is low for a board that intends to compete in this arena - a range to at least 2.85V and preferably 3.0V would be better.
The range of CPU Frequency adjustments to 511 is incredible, but we found that we could only use a very small portion of that frequency range. While we verified that the AGP/PCI lock is working with a PCI Geiger, we were still limited in our overclocking attempts compared to other VIA boards in this roundup.
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Klaasman - Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - link
#32 Socket 940 boards require ECC memory. 939 don't but they might run it. Go to AMD's website and see.FactorOfTwo - Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - link
Do any Socket 939 boards support ECC memory? I am having a hard time finding a definitive answer to this question.TheLiquidH20 - Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - link
Quote - The general performance of the VIA and nVidia-based 939 boards was virtually the same in DirectX 9 games, with one notable exception. Microsoft's Halo performs almost 15% better on the nVidia nForce3 Ultra .Could this have something to do with Halo being a direct port of the xbox ? Seeing that the Xbox is basically one , big intergrated nForce ? . Would explain microsoft adding some optimazations for niVdia hardware .
Klaasman - Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - link
Ive got an ABIT AV8 and I wouold like to get a copy of that 1.3 bios you claim you had.rjm55 - Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - link
This is the first time I've seen AnandTech use color in the benchmark graphs. It really makes reading the data a LOT easier. Thanks!Wesley Fink - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
#5 and #26 - I received a retail K8T Neo2 about 10 days ago and the board is now entering retail. I received the retail K8N Neo2 about 4 days ago and I am told it should enter retail in the next week to 10 days. That is the best information I have, but the date has already slipped from early July to the end of July. MSI should have the most reliable information on when the board will finally hit the retail channel.kmmatney - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
Thanks for using the AutoGK encoding benchmark! I prefer the XVid codec, over DivX, but I very much appreciate the benchmark. AutoGK is by far the best freeware encoding suite I've come across.kd4yum - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
See #5ibid
Where is the MSI 939 board?!
Wesley, I asked same question in another Comments section. I can't get answers from MSI (phone) or Newegg (phone). Can you?
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
#23 - I am now working on a 925X roundup and had switched mental gears. It looks like I need to check my mind set before correcting reviews :-) Now fixed.kd4yum - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link