Digital-Daily : Motherboard Reviews : intel-d875pbz

Intel D875PBZ (Intel 875P Canterwood) Motherboard Review

Author: Aleksandr Mitrofanov
Date: 09.04.2004

Performance

As contenders to our board in question, I took Asus P4P8X built on the dual-channel Intel 865P chipset (and flashed with the BIOS from P4P800 Deluxe), and Abit IC7-G based on the i875P chipset, and Abit AI7 (i865PE).

In our test configuration, we used the following hardware:

Test configuration
Processor	Intel Pentium4 2.4C (Northwood - D1)
Cooler	Zalman 7000Cu
Video card	Ati Radeon 9500 128Mb (8x1; 400/300) Ati Catalyst v3.8
Sound card	Creative Live 5.1
HDD	IBM DTLA 307030 30Gb
Memory	2x 256 MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM HyperX, manufactured by Kingston
Case	Inwin506 with PowerMan 300W power supply unit
OS	Windows XP SP1

The memory was running synchronously with the processor bus (i.e., the speed = 200 MHz, which is equivalent to DDR400). Besides, the following latency timings were set:

CAS Latency = 2T
Trp = 3T
Tras = 6T
Trcd = 3T

Let's first take a look at the results of synthetic benchmarks.

Now on to the gaming benchmarks.

Conclusion: Intel D875PBZ demonstrated a high performance level, on par with such high-end boards like Asus or Abit. In the review of the latter, I spoke out an assumption that those boards downstate memory latency timings to attain higher speed.

Final Words

No doubt the quality of Intel D875PBZ is at a very high level. This is proven through the stable operation and good performance level. However, operation speed is not yet all - what is more important is the board's ability to expand as well advanced options. At these two, this Intel motherboard can't be regarded as a leader. In particular, there is no integrated audio controller, present on even the cheapest boards. It would be understandable if the purpose was to minimize the price: anyway, on most motherboards (except nForceII + MCP-T motherboards) the quality of integrated audio is poor. However, if you look at the board's price, you might get easily scared: the tag says ~$155.

Nevertheless, no need to get scared - Intel motherboards are still rare guests at retail shops. They are mainly aimed at the corporate sector where overstated prices are absolutely customary (the higher price is often justified by the longer guarantee period and a much higher quality of technical support).

In the same terms you should regard the "overclocking" options integrated in the Intel D875PBZ board. For example, increase of memory voltage and adjustable latency timings, which gives the system integrators increase the list of memory types used. But the possibility to raise the processor clock speed is not more than an extra load for various stability tests.
Intel D875PBZ (Intel 875P Canterwood)