Intel D975XBX: Intel brings their Bad-Axe to Market

INTEL D975XBX: Features

Intel designed a very well laid out board with all major connections easily reached. The board is lacking most clearance issues and was simple to install in a mid-size ATX case. The board features a 5-phase voltage regulator power design that contributed to excellent stability. The MOFSETS are now passively cooled via decorative heat sinks that certainly offer additional stability over the prior Intel D955XBK board that was a 4-phase design with inadequate cooling around the CPU area.

The DIMM module slots' color coordination is correct for dual channel setup. The memory modules are simple to install with a full size video card placed in the first PCI Express x16 slot. The power plug placement favors standard ATX case design and the power cable management is very good. The floppy drive port connector is conveniently located on the edge of the board along with the 24-pin ATX power connector.

The Intel ICH7R IDE port connector is located on the edge of the board and did not present any connection issues in our mid-size ATX case.

The Intel SATA ports are conveniently located below the ICH7R chipset and to the left of the primary IDE connector. The SATA ports feature the new clamp and latch design. Unlike other 975x boards, the SATA ports are not color-coded for primary and secondary operation. We found the positioning of the SATA ports to be excellent when utilizing the ATI CrossFire cards in the primary and secondary PCI Express connectors.

The Silicon Image SiI 3114 SATA RAID port connectors are clustered on the left edge of the board. The Intel USB connectors and chassis panel are located below the SiI 3114 port connectors and to the left of the Intel SATA port connectors. The BIOS configuration jumper block is a traditional jumper design located above the IDE port connector. The location of this jumper was acceptable during repeated usage.

The board comes with (3) physical PCI Express x16 connectors and (2) PCI 2.3 connectors. The layout of this design offers a good balance of slots and allows for additional add-in peripheral cards.

The first physical x16 connector located next to the MCH heat sink is the primary PCI Express connector and is set up for electrical routing in x16 or x8 operation. The x16 interface supports full duplex transfers up to 8 GBytes/second in x16 operation and single-ended transfers are supported up to 4 GBytes/second in x8 operation.

The next physical x16 connector is the secondary PCI Express connector and is set up for electrical routing in x8 operation. This connector also fully supports x4 and x1 PCI Express add-in cards. The final physical x16 connector is set up for electrical routing in x4 operation and fully supports x4 or x1 PCI Express add-in cards.

We did not have any issues installing an ATI X850 Crossfire Edition setup in the primary and secondary x16 PCI Express slots. This configuration will physically render the first PCI slot useless. There were no issues utilizing this slot with video cards containing single slot cooling systems.

Returning to the CPU socket area, we find ample room for alternative cooling solutions. We utilized the stock Intel heat sink, but also verified several aftermarket cooling systems such as the Thermaltake Big Typhoon would fit in this area during our tests. However, due to the large MCH heat sink and the MOFSET heat sinks, installation of large air or water cooling solutions could be problematic. While the MOFSET heat sinks are decorative and provide additional cooling, they did present issues when changing out heat sinks due to their height and proximity to the mounting holes.

The MCH and ICH chipsets are passively cooled with heat sinks that do not interfere with any installed peripherals. In fact, this system kept the chipsets cool enough that additional chipset voltage was not a factor in our overclocking tests. Intel places the eight-pin 12V auxiliary power connector at the top of the CPU socket area, but out of the way of most aftermarket cooling solutions. However, the 4-pin auxiliary power connector is located in a difficult position and can hamper airflow with cabling that crosses over the heat sink.

The rear panel contains the standard PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports, parallel port, serial port, LAN port, and 4 USB ports. Located below the parallel port and to the right of the serial port is the Coaxial S/PDIF port. The LAN (RJ-45) port has two LED indicators representing Activity and Speed of the connection. The audio panel consists of 5 ports that can be configured for 2, 4, 6, and 8-channel audio connections along with the Optical S/PDIF port.