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ECS KA1 MVP


Date
: 02/10/06 – 03:05:11 AM

Author
:

Category
: Motherboard

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer: Elitegroup Computer Systems
Price:

It didn't take ECS, Elite Computer Systems very long at all to make their return to the Overclockers Online main page, less than a month in fact. In their debut here at
O2
, Simon gave a brief introduction to who ECS is, I will not repeat what he has already provided but add a little bit more information about this technology giant. In 1994 ECS became the first motherboard manufacturer in Taiwan to be publicly listed on the TSE (Taiwan Stock Exchange). Since that time ECS has done nothing but grow and expand. Not only do they produce quality motherboards these days, but the newly ISO 14001 certified factories in Guangdong province of China also produce barebones and complete systems including notebooks and high-end servers.

ECS has good relationships with all chipset makers and is early to market with all of the new technologies including the motherboard I will be looking at today, the
KA1 MVP
from their
Extreme
line of motherboards. Sporting the ATI RD480 and SB450 southbridge chipset, the KA1 MVP is the latest in a long line of successful motherboards from ECS. This board has everything including, SATAII with RAID0 and RAID1, 8-channel audio, Dual Lan, and is Dual core and Crossfire ready. So let's quit wasting time talking about it and have a look.

Page 2 : Package & Contents

Anytime a motherboard comes in, the package does not stay closed for very long. This was again the case with the ECS KA1 MVP but I did manage to restrain from pillaging the package to see what was inside long enough to get some shots of the exterior.

It is quite easy to tell that the KA1 MVP is from the
ECS Extreme
series of enthusiast minded motherboards. The logo is more predominant than the model of the board inside. That said, the front panel is very attractive and distinctively pleasing to look at despite the lack of any female presence. The dark green, silver, and black colors really compliment each other and give the package a sense of excitement while maintaining a level of sophistication without being over the top.

The front panel is so impressive in fact, that it gets two images. The large logo in the lower right states its claim to being CrossFire ready if the name didn't give it away already. I am not sure if ATI has recommended that MVP be in the name of CrossFire motherboards but ECS isn't the only one to use it. ECS also feels necessary to show that the motherboard is X2 ready as well as 64-Bit ready with appropriate logos clearly visible.

The sides of the package are identical and void of much information at all while maintaining the color theme from the front. Again, I really like the colors and design used in this package, well done ECS.

The rear of the package goes into a little bit more detail about what the capabilities of the motherboard are. The left hand side of the box is dedicated to CrossFire information:

While the right provides information about its other onboard features:

Upon pulling the outer sleeve off of the box, we are presented with a barrage of small logos and brief descriptions. There is everything listed here that we should expect on top of a few interesting features including the 'Top-Hat Flash', 'Q-Boot', and the misspelled 'DPU' which is explained as 'A
tome
machine to protect and restore files!'. I can only assume that the bold word is supposed to be time. Either way, this package seems to have plenty of extra features you don't see in every motherboard.

The bottom half of the rear panel is where the bundled software is listed. The suite of software includes VNC type software, file protection software, what appears to be imaging software, an all-in-one media center software and more. It has been a long time since hardware came with this much software and is a welcome sight with a motherboard. I have taken these close ups to save myself typing out those descriptions.

We will now open the lid on this overly large box. Not so much large as it is just thick, let's hope it is warranted as I am not a fan of wasted box space.

Now that is what I call a box full of stuff. My concerns of a large box and little inside are washed away like stop sign in a tsunami. All we can see are bags on top of bags on top of bags. There is clearly a shelf that keeps all of the contents away from the motherboard with a cutout near the top right corner for the "tall" components of the motherboard to stick up without having pressure on them from the level above, something often overlooked in motherboard packages.

This is the contents of the right half of the box. Starting at 1 o'clock and working our way around we have IDE and floppy ribbon cables, a pair of SATA cables, some mounting screws, a BIOS chip (more on this later), a 3 1/2" drive bay mount, and a parallel cable bracket that can be hung in an expansion slot.

In the left hand side we had even more goodies. This time starting in the lower left hand corner we see the expansion slot mount for external USB 2.0 and double firewire connections (both 4-pin and 6-pin), a pair of CDs, what appears to be a card of some sorts, another couple SATA cables, our rear I/O panel, an eSATA expansion bracket and cable, a 4-pin molex > double SATA power connection adapter, an ethernet cable, a case badge and on top; the manual. As we have seen there is quite a bit of hardware that comes with the ECS KA1 MVP. A few interesting pieces, such as the eSATA bracket which is nice and a bit of an odd piece, the ethernet cable. It is not usually something found in motherboard boxes.

This is the external USB/Firewire bracket we saw earlier. It really is a smart little addition because it can let users either mount the external connections at the rear, in an expansion slot, or at the front of the case, in an open floppy slot. For the extra few cents to make the 3 1/2" bracket, I think ECS has done something quite intelligent here with no large extra cost.

In the second group photo I mentioned some sort of card. This is that mentioned card. It is a shunt card that might be required to sit in the second graphics slot when using just a single video card. These cards may or may not be needed, depending on the setup.

The last notable from the package of goodies is this ingenious little guy here. What ECS has done is developed a BIOS chip that can be placed on top of the existing BIOS chip that will override the one on the board and allow you to boot the system should something happen to your BIOS. No more corrupt BIOS from a bad flash resulting in RMA or waiting for a replacement chip. The TopHat Flash will have you back up and running in seconds. I think this is a great idea.

With the hardware removed and shelf tossed aside, the KA1 MVP reveals itself. Resting inside the protective anti-static bag is this fine looking piece of printed circuit board including the one-of-a-kind MOSFET cooling hood and fan, neon lime green in color. It won't be in that bag for very long though.

Page 3 : Specifications

The old saying goes that "a picture is worth a thousand words". Well this one that I pulled directly from the ECS web site is only worth about 280 according to MS Word:

And for those of us who prefer to absorb information through stimulating little images, ECS has been kind enough to provide those for us lazy folks as well. These are the same images we saw earlier on the box that provided a general idea of the features that are listed in detail above.

There are a few specifics that stand out in my mind. The lack of SATAII support on the ATI 450 South Bridge is patched by the additional two SATAII ports on the Sil3132 controller that will allow for RAID 0 or RAID 1 configurations. The ECS KA1 is one of only 3 Xpress 200 Crossfire motherboards currently on the market that have incorporated a second SATA controller that provides SATAII support. Testing will determine if they can compete in those configurations with the NVIDIA nForce 4 RAID performance.

The 8-channel audio provided by way of Realtek hardware is also a nice touch providing 7.1 channel support out of the box. The ALC880 codec is a step up from the AC '97 standard making the onboard sound that much better. It is labeled as a High Definition Audio codec and incorporates some advanced features not available on the AC '97 equipped boards. What I found interesting about the specifications above is that the SPDIF output is not in the rear I/O block but just a header on the motherboard. Here is the link directly to Realteks web site which can provide more information about the onboard ALC880.

The one notable absence from the ECS web site is any information about the large amount of software that is provided with this motherboard. I am a bit surprised because based on the box, there is quite a bit offered.

Page 4 : Layout

Right now we will take a look at the layout of the ECS KA1 MVP to see what is being offered and how well it is designed.

We have to start this section with a full body shot. The board is quite colorful with the purple PCB, yellow/blue/orange/green plastic connections, and the neon green hood in the upper right. The standout aspects of this board are the two PCI-E 16X slots and the passively cooled chipsets. Let's start with the PWM area and work clockwise around the motherboard.

First thing I want to look at is the capacitors right next to the CPU retention bracket. They appear to be very tight and somewhat tall but this shot shows that they shouldn't interfere with any CPU coolers, even the TT Blue Orb or the like that spread out horizontally.

The bright green hood that is in charge of cooling the capacitors and mosfets is just a small 40mm fan. This fan's job is to pull hot air off of the PWM area and looking at it here, it should help get the hot air coming off of the CPU heatsink out the rear of the case as well.

This is the bounty that the bright green hood is protecting. The 3-Phase power setup is pretty much the standard these days with plenty of boards capable of high clocks running with one. Newer motherboards targeted at extreme overclocking and power stability use a 4-phase or higher design but 3 seem to be plenty adequate for most setups. The 4-pin CPU power connector is also seen in this photo near the top of the image and a 3-pin fan header at the bottom. This is a great spot for a fan connection as it is right near the upper rear of the case where exhaust fans like to hang out.

I did note earlier that the CPU socket is somewhat squished in here with the northbridge almost touching it and the memory slots being mighty close. We have ruled out the capacitors towards the rear of the case but will have to look at the northbridge and memory slots a little closer during installation.

The standard layout of grouping the IDE, floppy, and 24-pin ATX power connection is a welcome site as it eases the cable management work while installing a motherboard. ECS doesn't appear to have strayed from what works so far.

In the previous photo you may have noticed this little red LED at the top of the board. It is an indicator light to let the user know when the memory modules are safe to remove. I can't complain about something like that but at the same time, is it really necessary? We also see the ITE IC that is in charge of legacy I/O devices such as floppy disks and keyboards. It also acts as the gateway for monitoring data from the motherboard. For a full list of details, visit ITE.com.tw. The last thing I will mention in this photo is the BIOS WP jumper. This jumper provides the ability to Write Protect the BIOS so when setting up a system for your not-so-computer-literate friend, be sure to leave this on 1-2 and take care of the BIOS updates your self.

Ahhh, the southbridge. It is so nice to see a passive heatsink on the southbridge these days. So many motherboards that have a VIA southbridge require active cooling and that means small and loud little fans. The ATI RD480 southbridge has gotten a bad rap for its performance and testing will help make our judgment so I will reserve comment until then. The 4 SATA I connectors are located here and look to be free from any obstruction but if you look at the left edge of this photo you can see the blue and red PCI-E 16X slots coming into view. They seem to line up with these connections rather well. More food for thought when we get to the installation section.

I just can't get through a review without ripping something off. The first to get pulled is the southbridges passive cooler. As advertised, it is the ATI SB450 under here.

When I first saw this plate I thought wow, cool. Then I quickly thought, wow, what a waste of space. Then I saw the PCI-E slots and the SATA I connections and thought double wow, something should have swapped places with this plate. Again, the installation section will either confirm or resolve my concerns.

To the left of the fancy plate is the BIOS chip, the Silicon Image SATA II connections and the CMOS battery. As you can see, and have seen, this board labels stuff quite well. Sure it may not be right beside the jumper or connection but the label is somewhere on the PCB. Case and point is the "Top-HAT Flash" label. a little high and outside but it is still easy enough to figure out what it is referring to.

This is another example of the label being a little off but still there. The front panel connectors are at the far right while the map for those pins are at the far left, above the USB headers. I have enlarged the inset image of that map. I personally would rather have the map on the other side of the motherboard than not at all. Again, perhaps that plate could not be there and the map would have plenty of room to hang out near the pins it is describing. Our clear CMOS jumper is also down here. Sure it is great when I am testing the motherboard outside of the case and within arms reach without me even having to get out of my chair but in a case it might be too close to the bottom and surrounded by cables not to be a hassle to get at.

As we travel along the bottom edge we have our 1394 headers, audio connections and an unusual visitor to this area…a 4-pin molex connection. I think it is a much better spot then up near the CPU socket for an additional power connection as running a cable along the bottom of the CPU case will get in the way of less stuff. A little unorthodox but should work out well for most.

Obviously a busy section so I will keep it brief. The heart of any CrossFire motherboard is the dual PCI-E 16X slots. We are also provided with two PCI-E 1X slots and two legacy PCI slots. Tucked in amongst the slots is a 1394 controller in the VIA6307 IC that handles both headers along the bottom edge. You may or may not have noticed it either but there is a single solid capacitor here. I only mention it because this is the only solid capacitor on this motherboard. Last but not least, count the LEDs. Those with the right answer get a hero cookie at the end of the tour.

Being the major player in a CrossFire motherboard, I figure the northbridge should get its own photo. A passive heatsink indicates good noise levels of this board being combined with a passive southbridge. If there is one thing going for this chipset it is that.

Underneath that passive heatsink lays the beast, waiting to get unleashed. Maybe a little over dramatic but you get the idea.

Audio headquarters take up residence in a familiar location along the back edge of the motherboard, about half way up. The specifications are not lying, it is in fact an ALC880 chip that is in charge of the noise production of the KA1 MVP.

As we wind down the tour we have a look at the Marvel GigaLan controller IC. I still don't have a gigabit switch or fancy cable so this doesn't exactly excite me that much, although, I am starting to acquire a number of machines with gigabit connections so maybe an upgrade of my old 10/100 networking gear is in order.

I thought I should get a shot of what the capacitors used on this motherboard are seeing as I cannot identify them. From my searching with this limited amount of signage, RLS 0543, I came across a company by the name of Illinois Capacitor but couldn't match up these exact caps in their product listing due to lack of part numbers on them but I am pretty sure they came from them.

The last time I saw RLX capacitors was on an Asus K8V Deluxe motherboard and I was not able to identify them then nor have I been able to identify them now. I am a failure, persecute me.

The tour of this motherboard winds down with the obligatory shot of the backside. We have seen the specifications and know what is already here but it is sometimes easier to register it all with a photo. The green hood is obviously the standout but other than that, nothing special.

I cannot lie and say there are not layout concerns with this motherboard because there is. The big plate wasting space may not be my friend during installation while I potentially fumble getting video cards to fit with the SATA I or SATA II connections being used. The northbridge and the memory slots may be a little tight to the CPU socket and that big green hood just keeps raising a red flag for some reason. I also cannot forget that the two PCI-E 16X slots look awfully close to each other. Again, I will reserve judgment until the install rolls around but I will certainly be looking for a lot of things so you can expect a large install page.

Page 5 : Chipset

The
ATI Radeon Express 200 CrossFire
chipset has not only a long name but also a long list of features. The biggest of them is the support for two graphics cards to work in unison through the technology ATI has branded as CrossFire. In the specifications page of this review I provided full specs of the ECS KA1 MVP motherboard and this list will look quite similar. One note, ATI's web site is terrible when it comes time to try and find information about their chipsets. Take a note from NVIDIA guys, much more information available from them.

As I mentioned, ATI really doesn't provide much in the way as far as real information about their chipsets. There is nothing that I could find on their web site specific to the RD480 or the SB450 that I didn't already know. Any Google searches just pointed to motherboard manufacturers web sites specifications sheets about specific motherboards. If ATI wants to get serious about their chipsets I think they need to have a central location where one can study and learn the features, again, like NVIDIA provides. Not just a list of specifications like above, but some insight into those specifications where geeks like us can actually find answers we are looking for.

I think at this point we are all aware of what ATI CrossFire is and what it is capable of. Unfortunately for this review I won't be producing any results as I have no CrossFire Edition X800/850 to match up with my X800GTO. I will still provide what little information I can grab from ATI's web site. The section that I am getting it from can be found here.

I will mention this one last time, the ATI web site is not the source to find CrossFire information. A general overview yes, but in-depth information about the technology behind the marketing is just not there. Sure the site looks great and you can download wallpapers but if youre looking for diagrams and complete information you are left to search the internet for news releases and second hand information from other sources.

At this point I am getting sick of looking at specifications and features, or gawking at some pictures of a stagnant board with no power going to it so let's just get this bad boy installed, do some overclocking, and run some benches…that's what we are all here for anyway, right?

Page 6 : Installation

It is time to find out if my layout concerns are warranted or not.

Every motherboard review requires a good CPU that can ensure it tests the capabilities of the board. My CAB2E baby here is sure to do that. This particular Opteron 146 has been tested up to 290*10 @ 1.600v and runs all week long under full load at 2.7GHz with stock 1.36v in my DFI LanParty Ultra-D. That means without even having to touch volts we can run 300*9 to test the motherboard and with a good chunk of voltage can bump it up to 322HTT with a multiplier of 9.

I will not be using these Corsair 3500LL Pro modules for testing or overclocking but I figured if they fit with the big coolers then any kit of memory will. We will try the first slot with a Thermalrite XP-120 first.

As you might have guessed, not a chance. This really isn't a by-product of the motherboard more of the CPU coolers design and the extra height of these modules. You can see the back of the cooler isn't an issue with the capacitors as there is a little bit of room but clearly no room at the front.

Moving the memory to the second slots proves to be successful. Yes this is a big cooler but many of the best coolers are such as the TT Big Typhoon, Scythe Ninja, and others. In the first slots, your memory will have to be standard size and the cooler will have to be designed to clear their height. If you run bigger modules like this Corsair kit you should be able to run them in the second slots with any cooler.

I thought for kicks I should try to flip the XP-120 around and sure enough it fits either way with the modules in the second slot.

With normal height memory modules there is no issues with either the Titan Vanessa L-Type or XP-120 as seen above. Again, any cooler designed to clear standard modules should fit fine. I will also mention that to run dual channel the modules have to be right next to each other and it is tight. I prefer split dual channel slots for better airflow around the RAM.

Switching gears we will now install the motherboard into the Antec Take 4 for testing but that ended prematurely. I was wondering why I thought the hood would be an issue and now I know why. With a rear fan on the case, the motherboard doesn't even come close to lining up with mounting holes. This may be a special situation with this case but any case with a large exhaust fan that comes close to the I/O panel may also have an issue.

I will be moving out of the case to continue testing fitment with this board. First up were video cards and those SATA connections. The primary PCI-E slot is the bottom one in this configuration and as you can see, those SATA II ports are not going to be used with regular cables. It is a given that yes this card has a large two slot cooler but have you seen the X1900XTs or X1800XTs? They all have large coolers very much the same as this Arctic Cooling one. Right angle cables might be the asnwer to this issue.

With my Sapphire X700Pro in the main slot there is no issue.

The same goes for a PowerColor X1300Pro but despite the thin cooler and shorter stance of the lower end X1300, it is still tight to get a SATA cable connected to these ports but definitely do-able.

Moving to the top slot in which a CrossFire setup will include, we can see that again the large cooler of the Arctic Cooling silencer is going to interfere with the four SATA I connections. I did try getting cables hooked up and it was possible on all four channels, but with any longer a card you will likely lose the one or two connectors up top. Right angle connections won't be of much help do to the orientation.

The last issue I wanted to check was the gap between the two PCI-E 16X slots. With the HIS X800GTO in the top slot there is a little bit of pushing going on. Now, I know what you are all saying…that video card has a huge Arctic Cooling silencer cooler on it, and that is true. Keep in mind however who is going to be using this board and what for. This is a CrossFire motherboard where people won't be putting two X1300s in here to run in unison, enthusiasts are going to be running crossfire setups with big video cards and likely Arctic Cooling Silencer coolers as they are among the best around.

All of the X1900s and most of the X1800s come with a double slot cooler that is just as big as the Arctic Cooling Silencer and the cards are even longer than this X800 GTO. This will definitely cause issues with fitment of the cards and the use of the SATA connections. These are things that sit poorly with me because there is a huge plate in a dead spot of the motherboard that would be much better served to house SATA connections where they can be used with any video card. Adding a couple right angle SATA cables to the package might be a good idea for ECS as it should provide access to those bottom two connections when using a large video card down there.

Page 7 : BIOS

Our look through the BIOS will be fairly complete but I did leave out a few of the boring screens.

The main category page is a typical Award BIOS. The menu is broken up into 8 different sections and they are all pretty much standards as far as they are labeled.

Advanced BIOS Features:

There is not any differences in this section to any other BIOS and will primarily be used to set boot order.

Advanced BIOS Features:

Here is where all of the CrossFire initial setup will take place giving us the ability to adjust everything to do with the PCI-E 16X slots. The top two links head to the DRAM configuration and HT control sections.

As we can see, there arent the abundant memory timings that have shown up in recent high end overclocking motherboards such as the DFI LanParty series but the settings to get a grip on basic memory overclocking are present.

Integrated Peripherals:

Another standard section where we have access to enable/disable on of the integrated features of the motherboard such as the hard drives, onboard audio, ethernet, FireWire, USB, and SATA controllers. In these menus you can enable or disable the SATA to function as RAID or IDE drives.

I left out the IDE and PCI device sections but show the
Super IO Device
section because I thought it was interesting to see that we could setup the computer to wake on any number of events. The resume by keyboard and mouse both work which is a nice feature instead of having to jumper the pins when working in the test bed fashion that I do outside of a case.

Health Status:

As with most mid range to high-end motherboards these days, the BIOS has a well stocked Health Status section that provides all the information we might want to know about the system. Notice the temperature of the CPU. I found that it reads about 10C higher than other boards do with this Opteron 146 CPU. I re-did the XP-120 mount to ensure that I didn't get it wrong the first time but the temps stayed the same.

Frequency/Voltage Control:

This is where all the action takes place. We get a full sweet of options for our overclocking including a dynamic feature.

The voltage limit without an additional boost is 1.550v for the vcore which is plenty enough voltage to get one started.

The Spread Spectrum option provides the ability to adjust it by a percentage and not just the simple "enable/disable" feature that most boards offer.

The CPU clock is adjusted manually via inputting the number which I much prefer over scrolling through a list 1MHz at a time. The maximum value is listed as 500 which is a bit lofty I think but I wouldnt complain if the HTT could run even close to that high.

The Dynamic Overclocking option is very simple and easy to figure out. Just select the frequency boost you want the system to overclock and it will dynamically control it. The maximum value here is 30MHz which would turn my 2.0 GHz Opteron 146 into a 2.3 GHz CPU. I won't be using this feature as my overclocking goals are much higher for this motherboard.

The memory voltage adjustment is a measly 2.6v~3.0v which gives you enough control for most memory out there but not enough to feed BH5 sticks the juice they want to run ludicrous speeds and timings.

The last of the options that we will see is the CPU Vcore boost that when coupled with the 1.55v initial setting can give us up over 1.7v theoretically. I say this because most boards will not be able to sustain that type of voltage despite having the option for it. Perhaps the ECS KA1 MVP will prove me wrong there.

Page 8 : Overclocking

After all the talk and photos on the previous pages, when it came time to sit down and do some overclocking I felt like I was at peace with the world. Nothing makes me happier than pushing hardware as far as it will go and then trying to push it just a bit more. That fun stopped rather abruptly unfortunately, here is the story.

I figured since I know the hardware I am working with better than the woman I sleep next to every night, I would take a different approach to the overclocking section. Normally I am as methodical as humanly possible but I didn't want to mess around with this board and I wanted to get straight to the good stuff, so I did. Upon going through the windows install at default settings I rebooted and jumped in the big blue sea, AKA the BIOS. A quick run through
Advanced Chipset Features
to set my memory timings that can handle 270HTT and on to the
Frequency/Voltage Control
section we go.

Knowing that this CAB2E 0546 Opty primes for weeks on end at 2.7GHz with 1.4v or less in my DFI LP Ultra-D, Infinity nF4 Ultra, and Foxconn NF4SK8AA-8EKRS, I decided to start there. So 270*10 with 1.4v it was. As you can see the ECS KA1 MVP can go toe to toe with the rest here. Satisfied with 8 hours on torture test blend it was back out to sea. The next jump was up to 280 and again, I know what this processor needs to do it and that is 1.45v on average. So I adjusted the settings and started to prime again.

Within an hour prime stopped and I increased the voltage to 1.5v, or so I thought. Remember back in the BIOS section we looked at the
Hammer Vid Control
setting and it went up to 1.550v? Well in reality it only registers up to 1.45v. Anything over that does not increase the vcore voltage in either the BIOS or Windows. I then upped the
CPU Vcore Adjust
by .25 with the
Hammer Vid Control
at 1.45 and that registers as 1.475v. This was not enough voltage for the CPU either for 280*10. I was finally able to get the system prime stable at 1.45v + .50mv = 1.5v in windows. This is .05v more than the other three motherboards at this frequency. The OCZ Platinum 2GB kit I am using in testing had no problems keeping up with the CPU at 280MHz 1T so the memory looks to be overclocking well in this board. The maximum voltage I could get tot he CPU in Windows from the KA1 MVP was just under 1.6v. This is not going to cut it for extreme overclocking but should do fine enough for most.

That is an image of what happens when I upped the HTT to 285…it shut down during POST. A quick CMOS reset later, some adjusting in the BIOS putting the memory on a divider and I tried again at 285 with nothing but the same result. Nothing I tried would get the KA1 MVP to POST at 285HTT. 284HTT, yes, there are no problems there most of the time but not at 285 or higher. As you might imagine I was slightly disappointed with this news. Regardless, there is more work to be done. Next up is memory.

I couldn't really test my OCZ 1024-3200 GE XTC due to the KA1 MVP only being able to provide 3v which won't come close to topping out the XTCs so it will be up to my favorite 2GB kit, the OCZ 2048-4000 EBPE kit that I reviewed some time ago. This memory kit utilizes Infineon CE-6 ICs that don't really need over 2.9v for any frequency so they are a perfect match for this motherboards capabilities. As you can see, I was able to run these sticks to nearly the max of the motherboard at 280 1:1 with the CPU. The timings were 3-4-4-10 with a 1T command rate. This is close to the same results I can get out of these sticks with my DFI LanParty Ultra-D so it looks like the ECS KA1 MVP handles memory quite well. If it had more memory tweaking options I might have been able to get them 1:1 with the board maximum of 284.

*During testing I was experiencing random POST issues with an HTT above 280 so for all of the testing I used 280*10 with the memory running 1:1 timed at 3-4-4-10 1T. This was for the overclocked results.

**Edited Apr 02/06**
I recently visited the ECS web site seeking out drivers when I noticed a BIOS update that was made available March 14/06. The BIOS version 1.1d soon found its way onto my Rev.1.0 KA1 MVP and it immediately roared to life. After setting defaults and rebooting I immediately went to work to see if the 285HTT limit was still there and within minutes had the machine getting POST at 330HTT+. After a short bit of investigation I soon found that consistant stable HTT levels were in the 315~320 range.

I also ran 3d testing by looping 3DMark 05 and playing a few games for a couple hours at a time with no issues. This certainly adjusts the OCing value of this motherboard and vaults it right up there with some of the better boards in this feature range.

Page 9 : Test Setup

I will be comparing the ECS KA1 MVP to the recently reviewed DFI Infinity, Foxconn 6150K8MA-8EKRS, Foxconn NF4SK8AA-8EKRS, and the Asus A8V-E Deluxe. Here is the list of hardware that will be used:

We can almost consider this review a mini-roundup of the latest chipsets as we will be directly comparing 5 different chipset combinations from 4 different manufacturers. The NVIDIA nF4 Ultra/SLI chipsets are very similar and provide the same features. The NVIDIA 430 MCP on the Foxconn 6150K8MA-8EKRS is also very similar to the nF4 Ultra/SLI chipset. By throwing in the Asus results we will then have a VIA representative to round out the mix. It will be interesting to see how the combination of the ATIRD480/SB450 handles the competition.

Like all motherboard reviews I do, there will be extensive benchmarking done. I have recently overhauled my test bed so I will break down exactly how everything will be run. First off, each system will be setup and a fresh windows installation placed on the hard drive. Upon loading windows for the first time the following chipset driver packages will be loaded and the newest appropriate drivers for any devices still requiring them. After that, Windows updates will be done.

DFI Infinity NF4 Ultra – NVIDIA ForceWare 6.66
Foxconn 6150K8MA-8EKRS – NVIDIA ForceWare 6.66
Foxconn NF4SK8AA-8EKRS – NVIDIA ForceWare 6.66
Asus A8V-E Deluxe – VIA Hypherion 3 in 1 5.04A

ECS KA1 MVP

At this point the hard drive will be defragmented and the benchmarking programs will be installed. A final defragment will commence following a reboot after the last program is installed and a reboot will lead to the fun and games. All benchmarks are run 3 times with reboots in-between and the results averaged for the recorded value in the charts on the coming pages. Any further notes about testing will appear in the testing section for the program that is affected.

Page 10 : System Benchmarks

Like all motherboard reviews, a few benchmarks to compare the performance amongst its peers are required and the KA1 MVP will be no different. I have updated my testing programs a little bit here and there but for the most part it is the standard benchmarking suite. We start off with the newest version of Everest Ultimate to gauge the memory bandwidth that the motherboard can push.

Everest Ultimate 06 2.50.480

At the stock speeds of the CPU the KA1 MVP makes a strong showing hanging out at the front of the class. I said the memory was overclocking well earlier with this motherboard and this shows why. Score a victory for the CrossFire chipset right out of the blocks.

SiSoft Sandra Pro SR3

In all the SiSoft Sandra Pro benchmarks conducted the KA1 MVP again stands up and goes toe to toe with the nForce 4 chipset. Performance wise, it appears that the RD480 and SB450 combination have what it takes to compete.

Science Mark 2

Super Pi Mod 1.4

The Super Pi results again favor the KA1 MVP slightly. Keep in mind that the margin that it is ahead here is minimal but just the fact that it seems to win at both 2M and 32M digit runs means that it is quite the capable chipset.

HD Tach 3.0.1.0

This is where the word on the street had the SB450 lagging behind and technically, yes, it does. It does not lag behind nearly as much as I had heard or was anticipating. The most notable discrepancies are on the burst speed for both controllers on the KA1 MVP. The Silicon 3132 controller fairs the worst there but the average read speed is nearly the same with the single Raptor and in RAID 1. Raid 0 however, is another story with the Sil 3132 controller falling far behind the competition but the 4 main SATA ports seem to be holding up.

ImTOO MP3 WAV Converter v2.0.36

I ripped a CD to WAV files using EAC with the '-alt preset standard' command and then used ImTOO to convert those WAV files to MP3. The stopwatch was used for the times so give a 1 sec +/- error factor to each result.

This is another virtual tie amongst all the candidates in converting one of my favorite albums, Moses Mayes and the Funk Family Orchestra, from WAV to MP3.

PCMark 04 v1.3.0/05 v1.1.0

Futuremark has a number of programs out that are used to gauge a computers performance for comparison purposes. The PCMark series combines a number of different tests from converting files to web page rendering to multi tasking in it's arsenal of benchmarks. PCMark 04/05 are good programs to gauge an overall performance value of a system.

I think through all the tests, the ECS KA1 MVP had no problem proving it can perform as well as the popular nForce 4 chipset. We will now have a quick look at some graphics benchmarks courtesy Futuremark and some gaming results.

Page 11 : Graphic Benchmarks

The 3DMark series from Futuremark just released its 4th version with the very tough 3DMark 06. 3DMark gauges DirectX performance including shader model 1.0/2.0/3.0 in the various versions and continues to be a great way to compare 3d gaming performance.

As expected all motherboards seem to be very close in 3d gaming performance with no real advantage being shown by anyone.

In the gaming performance section I chose 3 games that tend to lean on the CPU and system more than the graphics card. In these three games the KA1 MVP appears to have a slight edge over all other motherboards tested. This is probably the most important result set because the CrossFire motherboard is built for gaming performance and it appears to provide it.

Page 12 : Conclusion

I think it is safe to say that the ECS KA1 MVP is a very nice addition to the CrossFire capable motherboard market. The performance in desktop activities are equal if not better than that of the very popular NVIDIA nForce 4 chipset and the gaming benchmarks show great performance as well. There are a few concerns I have with this board that involve the layout. The poorly placed SATA I/II connections and tight PCI-E cards are not life threatening by any means but do take away from the excellent performance and capabilities of the KA1 MVP.

The overclocking is the other area that I was a little disappointed with but I think that I may be at fault for that having gone into the review with great expectations of the ATI CrossFire chipset. There is definitely a lot of headroom for overclocking for gamers and the average overclocker but the hard core overclocking enthusiasts will be let down a little bit. A BIOS update may alleviate the issues there going forward.

**Edited Apr 02/06**
As noted, a BIOS update has drastically changed the overclockability of this motherboard and I felt it must be noted with an edit of the original review.

With all of that said I think the ECS KA1 MVP is a very solid motherboard for a wide range of people. If you are in possession of a pair of ATI CrossFire ready video cards then you will surely want to have a peek at the KA1 MVP because it certainly performs and has rock solid stability with plenty of "umph" to give your system that extra little boost.

Advantages

• MMMMM CrossFire
• Solid desktop performance
• Great gaming performance

  Disadvantages

• Some issues with layout and SATA connections
• Overclocking was not spectacular (BIOS revision fixed)

  I would like to thank ECS for providing the KA1 MVP for review.