Next Generation Motherboard Platforms - Part 1: The Athlon Craze

The three DIMM slot configuration on the Fester is one you will see recreated on virtually every Athlon motherboard produced from now until the end of the year. Until the Athlon truly makes its introduction into the server market, we probably won't see more than four DIMM slots on a Slot-A motherboard simply because of DRAM integrity issues, as well as cost. The Fester, like the other two boards tested, had problems with 256MB or registered DIMMs, regardless of size, which limits the maximum memory to 384MB for now.

A prominent feature on the Fester is the careful attention to hardware monitoring, provided for by the Winbond 90808 since the AMD 751 South Bridge features no integrated hardware monitoring functions. While the Fester placed a thermistor near the memory slots, one on the back side of the Slot-A, and a third very long thermistor directly beneath where your CPU's heatsink would be, AMD definitely set the standard, not for the placement but for the inclusion of basic hardware monitoring support on Athlon motherboards.

Since many motherboard manufacturers will follow the Fester design almost religiously until they can perfect one of their own, expect to see this hardware monitoring configuration (or one like it) used in most motherboards. This is still more that can be said about some Super7 boards that are just beginning to boast hardware monitoring support. This time around AMD is setting a clear example for motherboard manufacturers on how to properly support this killer chip.

When price isn't a concern, the Fester is the board we all wish we could go out and buy, but realistically, if the Fester were to ever be sold it would end up being the most expensive Athlon motherboard ($200 minimum) on the planet simply because of AMD's attention to quality versus keeping costs low. When you think about it from a profit margin perspective, there is very little money to be made by selling motherboards. So it's better to make less per board and have a popular board because of quality than make more per board and sell less because of a lack of quality.