Intel
We
first received an Intel D975XBX as part of a Pentium
955XE review kit, since then there have been a
few refreshes of the product resulting in the
sample we have tested for this review. The sample
was sent to us with the Core2 X6800 CPU and is
a revision 304 board. Currently the latest available
online are 305’s. As this was a reviewer
sample there was no retail box or bundle, only
the board itself and the quick install guide.
Experience tells us that retail samples will come
with a huge box of extras, software CD’s
with software trials for packages like Norton
Antivirus and some well written documentation.
The
board itself is well designed and more than likely
the board that many manufacturers base their own
designs upon. This doesn’t stop the product
from having its own identity. Starting with the
PCIe/PCI slots we can see that Intel have 3 PCIe
slots, two which will primarily be used for graphics
cards (including crossfire) with the third differing
from the normal 1x on other boards. The third
slot on the Intel board is a PCI Express x16 (electrical
x4) slot. Also mixed in there are 2 PCI slots
though you do loose the use of one when using
a second dual slot graphics card. Switching the
3rd PCIe with the 1st PCI would have been a better
layout in our opinion.
Like
the Abit AW9D-Max the D975XBX has 8 internal SATA
connectors and 1 IDE connector. Unfortunately
the Intel branded board also falls foul of the
dreaded IDE socket facing out from the side of
the board. Small case owners beware!
Further
similarities to the Abit board come in the form
of the power connectors, again it’s a 24/8
design however consumers with older PSU’s
are catered for by the addition of a 4pin Molex
socket to provide additional power. One of the
Intel’s distinguishing features is the additional
heatsinks surrounding the CPU socket, these assist
with keeping the board components cool when pushing
the board beyond its recommended specifications.
Possibly
the best enthusiast feature of the whole board
is a jumper. That’s right, a jumper. Located
next to the IDE connector is a yellow jumper,
this jumper is used to recover from bios changes
which cause the board to fail POST or become unstable.
Rather than completely clear CMOS changing the
jumper allows you to enter the bios at stable
settings and change any item which was causing
problems. Switch the jumper back and you boot
at your chosen settings.
Finally
turning to the side of the product we can see the
output connectors which Intel have chosen. They
are as follows, PS/2, Serial, Parallel, coaxial
digital audio, firewire, usbx4, GB Lan, optical
digital out and analogue digital out which uses
the Sigmatel 92xx chipset.
BIOS
The BIOS on Intel’s D975XBX is a pretty
plain affair. It is more configurable than Intel
Bios’s in the past however there is not
much to get worked up over. The three main areas
which are worth noting are the CPU voltage which
is selectable up to 1.6v, memory which reaches
the rather modest 2.2v and memory settings of
which 800mhz is the highest with the main timings
available.
Intel
Software
Intel’s main software components are the
Desktop Control Centre and Desktop Utilities.
These two applications we are able to monitor
and tweak the motherboard properties. Whether
it be temperature monitoring or adjustment of
bios memory settings the Intel software caters
for the needs of most end users and is one of
the best motherboard packages out there.
