All you need to know about your products!
 |
 |
|
3DNews Vendor Reference English Resource - All you need to know about your products! |
|
||||
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|
||||
|
||||||
ECS KN1SLI Extreme (nVidia nForce4 SLI)Author: Aleksandr MitrofanovDate: 19/09/2005
As the nForce4 SLI chipset is getting popular, second-rank manufacturers have started producing motherboards on its base. The overall saving during production has resulted in that some companies managed to produce products at a price not exceeding 140$. An example - Albatron has released the K8SLI motherboard at 130-135$, and Epox came up with its model EP-9NPAJ SLI at 125-130$. ECS can hardly be called a second-rank manufacturer. So many petty manufacturers feared that ECS might release a cheap and competitive motherboard. The apprehension have partly come true: engineers at Elitegroup were able to develop quite an interesting board, at quite affordable amount. The model has been dubbed KN1SLI Extreme, and among its peculiarities is the programmatical switching between SLI modes, additional dual-channel SerialATA II controller, support for the Firewire, and a system for cooling the power supply model. At the same time, the retail price of the board is within 135-140$. In view of the very good package bundle of the board, it looks like the board KN1SLI is going to be one of the best at the "price/quality" relation. In today's review, we'll find out how true these assumptions will prove.
ECS KN1SLI Extreme Specifications
PackageThe board is packaged into a box of proprietary design,  Package bundle
The package bundle is worth the price of the product. In fact, we should note that to make the most of the motherboard's capabilities, SerialATA cables, matching adapters, as well as brackets for USB ports are missing.   Those brackets which are in the bundle allow implementing only a part of the board's capabilities. In particular, the bracket for two Firewire ports fully meets the board's capabilities, but the number of USB ports is evidently not enough - of six 6 additional ports, there are merely two.  This shortcoming has been partly made up for by the bracket for a SerialATA port which allows plugging in external devices. Besides, of interest is the 3" panel for the front panel of the housing, with which two USB 2.0 ports and two Firewire ports can be added (using a bracket which is available in the bundle) Another component is a module for restoring the BIOS (TopHat Flash) which is another BIOS chip: The last plus of the package bundle is the LAN cable. The lack of specific bundle items can hardly be regarded as a shortcoming - the price of the board is at the level of the cheapest products made on the base of the nForce4 SLI (135-140$ on the date of running the tests). To support the SLI, there is a SLI-connector which is meant to connect two video cards, as well as a bracket for additional fixation of two video cards operating in the SLI mode.  The user's manual has nothing to complain about: all is written distinctly and clearly. The format of the booklet is a somehow inconvenient, but on the whole there is nothing big about that.  Finally, in the box we found an ECS logo sticker, as well as a CD with third-party software (InterVideo WinDVD Suite: WinDVD, WinDVD Creator, etc.), as well as Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0, Data Processing Utility,I'm InTouch, MediaRing, ProMagic, ShowShifter. As regards the regular disk with drivers, there is a kit of ECS proprietary utilities. Besides, on the disk there is the nVidia nTune utility. In the end, the package bundle deserved a 10/10 mark.
ECS KN1SLI Extreme Board LayoutAt first glance, the board's PCB design seems quite simple - there are many empty spots. However, the assembly operator may come up against the issue of blocking the DIMM slot latches by a video card installed in the first PCI Express x16 slot.
 No other problems will come up for the assembly operator: the main 24-pin connector is installed on the board's edge. The additional 4-pin controller is installed in the upper right-hand corner of the board, near the cooling system. Besides, there is another 4-pin Molex connector which has to be enabled in installing two power-consuming video cards. The connector is installed near the first PCI Express x16 slot, which makes plugging in a power cable a bit difficult.  Now let's look at the processor socket - the orange frame is fastened with metal screws. On the reverse side of the board, there is a plastic enforcement plate.  Near the socket, there is a 3-pin connector (CPUFAN1) for plugging in a processor cooler. Besides it, there are four more connectors like that onboard: CASFAN2 and CASFAN3 near the battery; there is also a NBFAN1 connector, to which a cooler on the chipset is connected. Finally, the CASFAN1 connector installed near the power supply module which is enabled for the cooling system. Coming back to the cooler, let's look into the respective cooler. Its radiator is made of aluminum, and the fan is 40x40 mm in dimensions. Also note that the fan's noise level does not prevent comfortable operation (perhaps while the bearing is still fresh).  There are four DIMM slots on the board, and the maximum memory capacity makes up 4 GB. Near the slots, there is a red LED which warns the user of voltage on the memory modules.  The memory slots are partitioned into two groups. The first group relates to the first channel, the second one to the respective; the slots are colored differently to facilitate installation of modules. As regards the expansion capabilities, the board offers two PCI Express x16 slots (both having holders):  It should be noted that between the PCI Express slots a SLI-terminator with which switching between the single-slot and the SLI modes is done is missing on the 1st generation nForce4 SLI boards (or on cheap boards). Like on other high-end boards, the KN1SLI implements a feature for programmatical switching between the SLI modes. In fact, we found no respective item in the BIOS settings (like on Asus A8N-SLI Premium). Besides the PCI Express x16 slots, the board uses one PCI Express x1 and three PCI slots.  Of note is that near the PCI Express x1 slot and each PCI slot there is a LED which blinks in case a respective slot is not enabled (sort of a gift to modding fans).  One of the PCI slots is colored orange. Therefore, engineers at ECS provide a PCI Extreme slot which is meant for expansion cards of increased requirements for the quality of signals.
Expansion capabilitiesLike the remaining boards built on nForce4 Ultra\SLI chipset, the ECS KN1SLI Extreme offers support for 4 SerialATA-II channels. Respective connectors are fitted near the chipset, which essentially facilitates plugging in cables.
Two more SerialATA channels are implemented with a Sil3132 chip made by Silicon Image. The respective connectors are also colored orange.  In the end, 10 hard disks altogether can be plugged in to the ECS KN1SLI board: 6 disks through the SerialATA II, with 4 more through the ParallelATA. It is nice to note the possibility to bring one SerialATA II port outside the CPU unit with a special bracket (available in the bundle). Then, the board offers two LAN controllers. The first one is the 88E1111 chip made by Marvell (connected to the PCI bus) of 1000 Mbit/s bandwidth:  The second one is the RTL8100C chip made by Realtek (also connected to the PCI bus). Its bandwidth is 10/100 Mbit/s.  Thus, we get two RJ45 connectors on the rear panel of the board at a time. KN1SLI Extreme uses a controller to support the Firewire.  That is the TSB43AB22A chip made by Texas Instruments. Therefore, the board offers support for two IEEE1394 ports: both are connected with a bracket (available in the bundle).
Besides the Firewire, the board supports 10 USB 2.0 ports, four of which are positioned on the rear panel, with 6 more plugged in via brackets (the board comes bundled with a bracket for 2 ports). The last thing to dwell on is the integrated audio. ALC850 chip is used as the codec, which supports output for 8 channels.  The board's rear panel looks like this:  You can see the lack of one COM port as well as a LPT port. While the last one is implemented with a bracket, the second COM is missing completely. However, engineers at ECS had to make that move to position an output hole for the cooling system on the rear panel, as well as an optical and coaxial SP-DIF output. ECS KN1SLI Extreme uses two jumpers: JP1 to reset the CMOS settings (in the bottom left corner of the board), and JP3 to protect the BIOS against reflashing. It is positioned near the BIOS chip which is welded into the board.  However, you shouldn't be afraid of unsuccessful flashing (or other damage to the BIOS code). Together with the board, there comes a TopHat Flash module that is meant to restore the BIOS flashing:  The module is put on the welded chip and thus the use can launch the system (from the backup BIOS chip) and restore the damage BIOS flashing. By the way, we had to look closer at the BIOS settings.
BIOSThe BIOS of ECS KN1SLI Extreme is built on the Award BIOS Phoenix version.
 The memory settings are gathered in the "Advanced/DRAM Configuration" section:  In this section, there is a parameter in charge of selecting the memory operating frequency:  It should be noted that during the tests we had nothing to complain about the compatibility of the motherboard to varied memory modules. Now move on to the section to do with the system monitoring.  The board is able monitoring the current temperature of the processor and system, voltage levels, as well as the rotational speeds of the four (of five) fans. Unfortunately, missing is the feature for adjusting the rotational speed of the cooler depending on the processor temperature. As regards the support for Cool'n'Quiet, it is there: 
Overclocking and stabilityLet's take a look at the power converter. It uses a 3-phase power scheme in which there are six 1800 mkF, three 1500 mkF, and three 1000 mkF capacitors.  To improve cooling of the power supply module, engineers at ECS have installed an additional cooling system with a 40 mm fan. Due to that, hot air is blown outside the housing and it runs quietly enough.  We now move on to the overclocking features which are not gathered in a separate section but in the "BIOS Advanced Features" section.  First off, ECS KN1SLI Extreme allows adjusting the system bus speed within 200 to 400 MHz in 1 MHz increments. You can't enter the required value directly, so you have to scroll through all the interim values.   Another item is the feature for changing the processor's multiplier.   The adjustment range is within 4 to 11 (maximum for the 3500+ model), in 0.5 increments. Actually, the usefulness of such feature is quite doubtful since all Athlon64 processors offer the multiplier locked towards increase. The next item deals with raising the processor voltage (Vcore) by 375V in 25V increments.   Then - the user can raise voltage on the memory.  The Vmem adjustment range varies within 2.55V to 3.11V in 0.08V increments. There is another useful feature for adjusting the HyperTransport bus multiplier:  The thing is, as the reference HT frequency goes up (or, simply FSB), to preserve the operational stability the resultant HT frequency should be at about 1 GHz. As a result, as the FSB speed reaches 250 MHz, we have to reduce the HT multiplier to 4 (when setting the FSB speed to about 300 MHz, the multiplier = 3). Many users ignore this fine point and come across problems in overclocking. But engineers at ECS proactively introduced the Auto parameter (which is default, by the way), so the board itself does the job of reducing the HT multiplier to the required value. Also, you should not be afraid of the low HT multiplier since its influence on the overall performance is minimum. Now on to the practical overclocking. The board showed quite poor results: a stable operation at frequencies no more than 255 MHz.  However, further raise of the frequency resulted in a loss of operating stability (both in the synchronous and asynchronous mode).
PerformanceNote that ECS KN1SLI Extreme overstates the nominal FSB by 1 MHz:  As contenders to the board in question we used a system based on a motherboard with ATI Xpress 200 chipset (support for Athlon64 Socket939 + PCI Express video), as well as the motherboard Asus A8N-SLI Premium (nForce4 SLI). In our test setup, we used the following hardware:
Let's first take a look at the results of synthetic benchmarks.   Now on to the gaming benchmarks (i.e. real-world applications). 
It should be noted that Asus A8N-SLI Premium also overstates the HTT (by 1.5MHz). Final WordsECS KN1SLI Extreme is one of the best value motherboards built on the nForce4 SLI chipset. At the same time, its price is 10-15$ exceeds that for the remaining entry-level boards with support for the SLI. And no change in the situation is seen, since Elitegroup offers one more value board - KN1 SLI Lite. It's just this board that is positioned as the cheapest to support the nVidia SLI technology. As regards specifically ECS KN1SLI, of note are its wide functional capabilities: two LAN controllers (one of them - Gigabit), additional SerialATA II RAID controller, support for the Firewire. Also of note is the excellent exterior of the board and the quite rich package bundle (which contains a LAN-cable, a bracket with SATA port, a 3" panel to bring USB2.0 and Firewire ports over to the front panel of the housing). Finally, of special mention is support for the TopHat-Flash technology which is meant to restore the BIOS flashing. A couple of positive points. First, the board uses an additional system for cooling the power supply module. Secondly, switching between the SLI modes is effected programmatically (not with a SLI-terminator, the way it is done on 1st generation nForce4 SLI motherboards). As regards the overclocking capabilities, the board has nothing to boast. Despite the features for raising voltage on the processor and memory, great range of HTT selection, the maximum stable operation did not exceed 255MHz (which is too little as compared to other boards by first-rank manufacturers).
ConclusionPros:
Join the conference with all your questions, remarks and suggestions.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| |||||
