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EPoX EP-5LDA+ GLi


Date
: 12/20/05 – 04:54:05 PM

Author
:

Category
: Motherboard

Page 1 : Introduction

Manufacturer:
EPoX

Price:
NA

The Intel 915 and 925 chipsets didn't have a long life. Since Intel's introduction of the Pentium D earlier in the year, these two chipsets have all but reached an end to their usefulness to an enthusiast. On that introduction it was announced that the Pentium D would not be compatible on prior chipsets and so we were introduced to the 945 and 955 chipsets.

Today we have our first look at a board using one of these dual core supporting chipsets. The
EPoX EP-5LDA+ GLi
, based on the i945P is an impressive board on paper. In the following pages we'll examine this board and try to give you a good idea of what you could expect out of this motherboard from our experiences setting up, benchmarking, and overclocking this board. We'll also be drawing a direct comparison to the chipset the 945 replaced. Let's first check out how EPoX bundles this guy…

Page 2 : Package

The EPoX packaging is simple and easy to read. On the back of the box is a well organized collection of many of the boards features and specifications. I'm not so sure how useful a handle on a motherboard's box is though.

Inside this box are the motherboard, documentation, cables, an IO shield, driver CD, and some other goodies that you'll see below. The documentation provided includes a manual for the motherboard and a slick quick installation guide. The usefulness of EPoX's documentation is top notch and gives the user plenty of information to debug most situations that might arise.

Also included were extra USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394 port cables. EPoX's manual lists these two items as optional, but these two brackets are typical when you buy a new motherboard which makes me unsure if these are more of a standard inclusion or not.

EPoX includes an SLI bridge, though unless nVidia and ATi open up their drivers to other chipsets this little guy will find itself collecting dust on a shelf.

The optional PowerPack is shown below. Inside are eight mini heatsinks with thermal tape applied to them, a tool pen, and temperature probe. The PowerPack is optional, but most users probably already have tools for the job and may have the other items lying around as well (I do, but the problem is finding anything).

So that wraps up the look at this motherboard's package and bundled accessories. Let's take a quick look at the specifications and then continue with an examination of the board itself.

Page 3 : Specifications

The following specifications come straight from EPoX's site:

What sets the 945P apart from the 915P is support for the Pentium D dual core processors and official support for the 1066 FSB. Additionally, this new northbridge has support for what Intel calls Flex Memory Technology, allowing the installation of different capacity memory modules while still maintaining dual channel mode. The board also features Intel's latest southbridge, ICH7R, which has support for SATA II (NCQ and up to 300 MB/s transfer), Intel's Matrix Storage Technology (RAID 0, 1, 10, or 5), and configured with an additional PCI-E graphics port that works at 4x. EPoX goes even further with this board by employing a five phase power design, increasing the stability of the system with better pulse width modulation.

The final thing setting this board apart is the Debug LEDs on the board. With these LEDs, the user is able to narrow down the root of errors during boot easily by following the sequence of codes listed in the manual and observing those on the motherboard.

Page 4 : Layout

Shown below is the EP-5LDA+ GLi as it appears right out of the anti-static bag. The board consists of three PCI slots, one 1x PCI-E slot, one 4x PCI-E slot capable of handling a graphics adapter, and finally one 16x PCI-E graphics slot. The memory expansion consists of four DDR2 DIMM sockets supporting up to 4GB total memory. On the storage front, there is a single ATA-100 IDE port, floppy connector, and four SATA ports. The great thing to point out on this board are the power and reset switches located to the right of the BIOS chip; very handy for testing rather than manually shorting the power pins.

The overall placement of things is good, the only flaw is in the location of the 24-pin ATX power connector. Where it's located on the board is going to difficult for routing the cable to so that it doesn't interfere with large cooling solutions and/or a system's rear cooling exhaust; nothing that can't be fixed with extra careful routing and some twisty ties, but certainly not ideal.

The board has connections for Gb LAN, 8-channel audio, four USB 2.0, parallel, serial, and PS/2, and S/PDIF optical and coaxial out.

Both bridges are only passively cooled and are held down with easy to remove clips. These new clips seem easier to remove than push-pins because there isn't a need to flip the board over, however this could pose problems for mounting 3rd party coolers that rely on those mounting holes.

The EP-5LDA+ GLi supports up to 4 GB of DDR RAM across four DIMM sockets. In order for dual channel DDR2 to function memory needs to be paired according to the color coded banks.

Page 5 : Installation

Installing the EPoX EP-5LDA+ GLi was smooth and simple. I left the setup out of a case so I could switch motherboards more easily and frequently. During the setup I only encountered one problem, but using the debug LEDs was able to determine it was an issue related to the memory. With that, I tried a few things and quickly figured out the board has compatibility issues with Patriot's Dual Channel DDR2 PC2-5600 memory.

Things were installed onto a SATA setup. After setting up Windows and loading the chipset and LAN drivers from the included disk, things proceeded fine and all the updates were installed. With all the updates in place I installed the audio drivers and video drivers. The audio software has a basic look to it that would look nearly perfect with some added polish to fonts and some of the images, but the functionality is what counts.

EPoX includes a couple of great software utilities run within Windows that allow easy motherboard function monitoring and BIOS updating. They are pictured below:

The onboard Realtek audio allows you to adjust many settings ranging from speaker connectivity to environmental audio effects. Realtek continues to improve the appearance and user interface of their software. As an onboard solution, the Realtek performs very well and allows good control over the audio.

Page 6 : BIOS & Overclocking

The EP-5LDA+ GLi uses a Phoenix-Award BIOS. The BIOS provides all the options you'd come to expect from an enthusiast motherboard offering all the expected voltage tweaks and frequency adjustments. You can get a better look at some of the individual screens below.

The EP-5LDA+ GLi allows manual adjustment of memory timings from 3-2-2-4 up to 6-6-6-15 which affords plenty of room for tweaking.

Memory voltage is adjustable up to .35 V over the memory's default voltage, northbridge voltage is adjustable up to .3 V above default voltage, and CPU voltage is adjustable from -.1 V under to .2625 V over default voltage. There is no adjustment available for the PCI-E voltage.

Overclocking the 2.8 GHz Prescott on the EP-5LDA+ GLi yielded above average results. I was able to achieve a stable 3.36 GHz frequency throughout testing, however was unable to post at a single MHz higher on the FSB. The only trouble I encountered through use was that the PCI-E lock just didn't seem to work. Locking the board at the reference 100 MHz PCI-E clock frequency did nothing but cause the overclocked system to not post upon saving the settings. It's my opinion that there needs to be more work done to improve this BIOS function and the board's memory compatibilities, but overall the overclocking experience with this board shows great stability and headroom.

Page 7 : Testing

For testing I wanted to compare this board with something it would be intended to replace; the MSI 915G Combo-FR. I ran through a complete run on both the Combo-FR and Neo2 Platinum (both 915 based motherboards) and other than MSI running the "200" MHz FSB out of spec on the Neo2 Platinum, both boards performed equally and I chose the one that performed in spec for the comparisons.

The suite of benchmarks used consisted of PCMark 2005, ScienceMark 2.0 Build 21MAR05, SiSoft Sandra 2005 SR2, Super Pi 1.1, Everest v2.20.405, 3DMark2k1 SE, 3DMark2k3, 3DMark2k5, HDTach 3.0.1.0, and RightMark 3DSound. A run through games (Doom3, Half-Life 2, FarCry, and Unreal Tournament 2004) yielded insignificant results and have been omitted to spare us the redundancy.

The tests were conducted using the following systems:

Judging by the graphs up to this point, things look about dead even with two exceptions being Everest's memory bandwidth and latency. The results on their own could lead one to think that the 915P Combo-FR is superior in memory operations to the EP-5LDA+ GLi, but ScienceMark shows them on equal ground and Sandra narrowly tips the scales into EPoX's favor.

Focusing on the audio CODEC's performance we see that the Realtek ALC880 is a bit more taxing on the processor than the C-Media 9880L used on the 915G Combo-FR.

Continued on the next page…

Page 8 : Testing (continued)

The EPoX EP-5LDA+ GLi shows the slightest advantage in a handful, though the bigger picture is that performance isn't going to change much by only changing your motherboard.

Page 9 : Conclusion

That about wraps things up. I have to say that this outing with EPoX was nice. The board really sets itself apart from EPoX's typical green PCB styling and offers those concerned with aesthetics an attractive product. The performance is all EPoX though, and their reputation for great reputation hasn't failed them in this product. While we weren't able to push the chipset (it officially supports a 1066 FSB), the stability this board was able to offer over previous boards I've used from MSI and Albatron using the same processor was excellent and allowed a much higher CPU frequency to be achieved.

Those interested in multiple monitors will appreciate the option to use a second PCI-E graphics adapter for such purposes. Another nice addition to have is IEEE 1394 and the RAID options afforded by the ICH7R southbridge. While I don't see this board itself as a reason to upgrade, if you're looking at moving to a Pentium D then this board has a lot of extras (software and PowerPack bundle) that make it stand out.

Advantages:

Dual-core support
Dual PCI-E graphics support
Good overclocker
Very stable

Disadvantages:

Belated – this is what the 915 should have been
PCI-E frequency lock doesn't appear to function always
Memory compatibility needs to be improved

I'd like to give our thanks to EPoX for supplying the motherboard to make this review possible.