ULi M1695 PCIe/AGP for Athlon 64 – Part 2 with SLI
by Wesley Fink on August 5, 2005 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Basic Features: ULi M1695/M1567 Reference 2
The ULi Reference Board 2 sports exactly the same features as Reference Board 1 with a couple of significant additions. Reference 2 supports a riser card to actually mount video cards in the two x8 PCIe video configurations that is a BIOS option on both boards. Furthermore, the two additional PCIe slots are x4 capable - supporting the option of x4 or x2 PCIe configuration available in the BIOS.ULi M1695/M1567 Reference 2 | |
CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 |
Chipset | ULi M1695 Northbridge - ULi M1567 Southbridge |
BUS Speeds | 200MHz to 400MHz in 1MHz Increments |
PCIe Speeds | 75-125MHz in 1MHz Increments |
PCI/AGP | Fixed at 33/66 |
Core Voltage | Startup, 0.825V to 1.55V in 0.025V increments |
CPU Clock Multiplier | Startup, 4x-25x in 1X increments |
HyperTransport Frequency | 1000MHz (1GHz) |
HyperTransport Multiplier | 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000 |
DRAM Voltage | NO Adjustments |
HyperTransport Voltage | NO Adjustments |
Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 4GB Total |
Expansion Slots | 1 PCIe x16 (or 2 PCIe x8 with riser card) 1 AGP 8X 2 PCIe x4 (or x2) 2 PCI Slots |
Onboard SATA/RAID | 2 SATA Drives by ULi M1567 (RAID 0, 1, JBOD) |
Onboard IDE/IDE RAID | Two Standard ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) |
Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports supported by ULi M1567 No Firewire (Optional) |
Onboard LAN | 10/100 Ethernet by Realtek PNY |
Onboard Audio | AC '97 2.3 6-Channel by Realtek ALC655 |
BIOS Revision | Award OC50624A (7/12/2005) |
Despite the fact both Reference boards have essentially the same BIOS and features, Reference 2 has many physical changes.
The most important is the addition of holes for card holder brackets to mount the riser card.
With the riser card installed, you can see how to mount two PCIe video cards sideways in the two x8 slots. It may look tight in the picture, but we had no problem at all mounting two NVIDIA 6800 Ultra video cards that were double-slot width.
The riser card and sideways slots allowed testing dual video and SLI on the Reference 2 board, but it is hardly a configuration that we would recommend for a production board. Our hats are off to ULi for a clever way to turn a single slot into two x8 and SLI, but this would be a very insecure mount and a space-waster on most boards. To ULi's credit, the two x4/x2 PCIe slots are still usable with the riser, but the AGP and all PCI slots are completely covered with the side-ways card mount.
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Kinesis - Thursday, August 18, 2005 - link
Someone may have asked this, but I didn't see it, my apologies if this is a duplicate. But will these boards support AMD's dual core chips?ElJefe - Saturday, August 20, 2005 - link
Not only will it support it... it is the only one out that DOES support it truly. It needs no bios revision, it is built into the original bios to support it. asus, gigabyte and abit all warned me that it is highly likely that if you purchase any of their boards and put a dual core cold on them as a new system, the computer wont "post" and just sit there. youll need to buy a 939 chip or borrow someones if it isnt this m1695 asrock board. really, there hasnt been much growth since this has been reviewed in boards, so none have put the dual core bios as their official starter/tested/stable bios yet.and from reading 100's of legitimate forum entries from all 3 of those main companies, i can say that I would never do dual core without going for a board that is brand new. the problems and conflicts are rather universal and rather pathetic.
I am not sure why there isnt talk of this much in forums around here, but if you read the forums of those places you will see obvious problems (abit is the worst at the moment though, which is most unfortunate as they were my favorite company for many years)
bozilla - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link
I'm not sure if someone asked this...but is it possible to use existing AGP card and PCI-e card on the same board with Crossfire for example with this chipset? Let's look at this like this. I have an AGP X800XT PE now and I want to buy a X850XT PE Crossfire edition in PCI-E and put both in the motherboard that comes out with this chipset. Possible?Wesley Fink - Saturday, August 6, 2005 - link
nVidia has sent us the following information:"The ULI board isn't certified for SLI. It hasn't been submitted."
nVidia added that modified nVidia drivers generally indicate a board that is not certified.
nserra - Monday, August 8, 2005 - link
Well it isn't selling any way, why certify it?ElJefe - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link
just a tip:someone said that Asrock usa isnt going to sell this mobo in the US of A, that is not true, i called today and it definitely is going to be sold here very soon.
mino - Saturday, August 6, 2005 - link
Actually this is understandable. Why bother to certify an preview board ? For a company like Uli this would be a waste of time and money.deathwalker - Saturday, August 6, 2005 - link
I'm looking forward to the release of Mobo's on this chipset. I want to upgrade to a socket 939 system and at the same time be able to keep costly components that I have(6800gt agp card for one)for use in it. I hope we se a micro ATX version that I can drop in a Aspire X-Qpack case. Good job Anandtech for picking up on this upcoming release and covering it for your dedicated subscribers. I don't think Tom's Hardware even knows this exists..not a whisper on there site about this chipset.Zebo - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
Not really because I already bought a AN8 Utlra.. A, as in Abit. That's really what ULi needs for wide-spread adoption.. ABIT/DFI/ASUS/Gigabyte/MSI branded boards with wild OC options.. not Asrock/tul/ECS. I waited and waited for a decent SiS755 board which was also very promising.. which never came. I'm betting the same will happen here, especially so now that board makers have to make room in their stable for ATI based chipsets.nserra - Monday, August 8, 2005 - link
But Uli offers AGP 8X, no one does this, so they will be “forced” to support it.