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ECS P965T-A


Date
: 10/24/06 – 07:01:38 AM

Author
:

Category
: Motherboard

Page 1 : Introduction

Manufacturer:
ECS

Price:
$78.99 USD (Newegg

Of Intels two chipsets that support the Core architecture, the mainstream P695 and the 975X, were again looking at a motherboard utilizing the mainstream chipset. Today we have one of ECSs mainstream additions to their line-up of socket 775 boards supporting the Core processor by way of the P965.

The
ECS P965T-A
is an ATX motherboard that should provide a nice upgrade path to anyone looking to move to a Core based processor while retaining excellent backwards compatibility with all previous socket 775 processors.

Page 2 : Board & Specifications

The P965T-A comes with a basic bundle that includes the typical cables, driver CD, IO shield and the manual; everything you need is here.

The board uses the P965, which added support for the Core architecture as well as a few other additions over the 945P. These additions include USB Port Disable (ability to enable/disable individual USB ports for security reasons), Fast Memory Access (updated graphics memory controller hub optimized for better memory bandwidth and latency), and Quiet System Technology (more efficient algorithms for managing fan speed).

The board itself is shown below. It has most of the features you could want in a motherboard, however it lacks some of the more expensive options like dual GbE, dual, SATA RAID and FireWire. The board does feature dual PCI-E graphics slots. The south bridge utilized is the ICH8 which most notably drops any native PATA support as well as the AC97 digital controller. The board does feature one PATA channel through the third party JMicron JMB361 PCI Express to SATAII/PATA Host Controller. The board features a total of 5 SATA channels and one IDE channel. High definition (Azalia) audio is provided by the Realtek ALC883 codec.

Realteks RTL8110SC PCI GbE host takes care of the networking here. The board provides all the standard I/O including support for 7.1 channel audio and GbE. The board lacks any digital audio outputs which are pretty standard on boards today such as the P965 board we last looked at.

I really like the placement of the front panel IO jumpers away from the edge of the motherboard, but wish they were better labeled and/or color coded. Plenty of clearance is given around the CPU socket. The memory slots sit very close to the graphics slot, so changing memory could require a bit more effort. Theres room for improvement, but overall the layout is just fine.

Page 3 : BIOS & Installation

The BIOS the ECS P965T-A ships with is not for enthusiasts. The only front-side bus adjustment comes in the form of 100 MHz to 333 MHz in 33 MHz steps, hardly useful for overclocking. There is no option for multiplier adjustment. There is the ability to adjust the processors voltage from +.05 V to +.15 V in .05 V steps. Similarly, with the latest BIOS update, came better memory options allowing memory frequency selection (533/667/800) and memory voltage adjustment from +.05 V to +.35 V in .05 V steps.

Simply put, this board should not be bought with the intent to overclock until a BIOS update adds 1 MHz FSB adjustment. Due to these restrictions there are no overclocking results to report on. Hopefully ECS will continue adding such options in the future as they have with their memory controls and frequent BIOS updates.

Installing the ECS P965T-A went without a hitch as its very nearly identical to the Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H with the exception of easier to reach front IO pins and an included manual.

The following components were used for the installation:

Page 4 : Testing

The standard testing procedure was used. We average out multiple runs of each benchmark to get the computed score. The benchmarks used include Super PI, ScienceMark, RightMark 3DSound, PCMark 2005, 3DMark 2003, 3DMark 2005, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Far Cry. HDTach results were again omitted; I/O control hub/hard disk performance was identical to results obtained on previous Intel chipsets with the same HDD.

Well begin our tests by looking at memory performance.

Memory performance, on the average, is a little behind compared to these other boards and their respective chipsets. In comparison to our other 965P board, it is on par in terms of memory bandwidth offered, however the latency is much lower. Overall the 965P doesnt seem to deliver a huge advantage in memory performance over previous chipsets as this board continues to show.

Page 5 : Testing (continued)

All of the boards are close in performance here, even more so for those utilizing the same platform. The Realtek codec and ICH8 get the job done nicely using few CPU cycles with respect to the other solutions tested.

Page 6 : Testing (continued, gaming)

Performance is generally on par with the rest of the bunch and actually gains some ground over the Foxconn solution we tested in the Futuremark tests. This trend continues on into FarCry and Unreal Tournament 2004 where we see tangible performance differences between the ECS and Foxconn boards.

Page 7 : Conclusion

The ECS P965T-A is a solid board on what is now arguably the fastest platform for near any task, provided youve got the right CPU of course. ECS has given this board a lot to make it appealing to your average user, but has also left a lot out that would have otherwise made it a real winner for the enthusiast. The board has been incredibly stable and performs well, but until something more is done to this boards BIOS what you see is what you get.

This board would be a good solution to use in a workstation or relatives machine where reliability, performance and price should come first.

Advantages:

Wide processor support
Affordable

Disadvantages:

BIOS lacking proper overclocking features

I'd like to give our thanks to ECS for supplying the motherboard that made this review possible.