FIRST LOOK: Soltek 865Pro-775

Soltek SL-865Pro-775 Motherboard Specifications
CPU Interface	Socket 775 Pentium 4 (Prescott)
Chipset	Intel 865PE/ICH5
Bus Speeds	200MHz to 327MHz (in 1MHz increments)
PCI/AGP Speeds	33.33/66.66, 36.36/72.73, 40.00/80.00
DDR Speeds	Auto, 400, 333, 266
Core Voltage	0.85V to 1.80Vin 0.0125V increments
DRAM Voltage	Auto, 2.6V to 2.9V in 0.1V increments
AGP Voltage	Auto, 1.5V to 1.8V in 0.1V Increments
Memory Slots	Four 184-pin DDR400/333/266 Slots Dual-Channel Unbuffered Memory to 4GB
Expansion Slots	1 AGP 8X Slot 5 PCI Slots
Onboard SATA/RAID	2 SATA 150 drives by ICH5 2 SATA drives by Promise PDC20579 Promise Drives ONLY RAID 0,1,JBOD
Onboard IDE/RAID	Two ATA100/66 by ICH5 - 4 drives Plus One ATA 133/100/66 (Promise) - 2 drives Promise Drives ONLY RAID 0, 1, JBOD)
Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394	8 USB 2.0 ports IEEE 1394 FireWire Ports by VIA VT6307
Onboard LAN	2 X Gigabit PCIe LAN Both by Marvel 88E8053
Onboard Audio	Realtek ALC650 6-Channel AC'97 2.2 Compliant
Tested BIOS	1.2 Beta

The Soltek 865PRO-775 was designed to compete in price with the better 865 boards for Socket 478, while providing support for the new Socket 775. The feature set is very comparable to other top 865 boards. Soltek did not include the RAID version of the ICH5 southbridge, deciding instead to add additional SATA and IDE RAID ports with a Promise controller. This brings drive support to 4 SATA devices and 6 IDE devices which should satisfy almost any user. Also included are firewire ports and a 6-channel audio codec.

The BIOS controls have wide adjustment ranges that should allow overclockers to push the Soltek to wherever the processor can go.

Overclocking

One of the reasons an 865PE chipset might be useful is because it is one of the best overclocking chipsets ever produced by Intel. At stock voltage we found we could reach 265FSB with a 2.8 LGA 775, or about 3.7GHz, at default voltage. This is one of the best overclocks we have achieved with a Socket 775 processor with a SATA hard drive, and it is certainly an improvement over the 10% OC limitation we are seeing on some 915 motherboards.