Intel D875PBZ (Intel 875P Canterwood) Motherboard Review

Intel D875PBZ
Chipset	Intel 875P Canterwood
Processor	Pentium 4 FSB 400/533/800MHz Celeron Northwood FSB 400MHz HyperThreading
Memory	PC2100/PC2700/PC3200
HDD	2x UltraDMA/100 2x SerialATA(RAID)
Additional	8 USB 2.0 Gigabit Ethernet
Price:	$155

Quite recently, we reviewed products of several companies aimed at the high-end sector of the market. These are primarily Asus, Gigabyte and Abit. There are also second-rank manufacturers, like Chaintech and DFI (see the recent review on Pro875P LanParty motherboard).

However, there is also one more large motherboard manufacturer on the market - Intel corporation. But its produces has some specific features:

• The company itself does not produce motherboards - this is done by its partners
• The major market for its produce is the corporate sector, and the motherboards are distributed by system integrators
• From the viewpoint of the "home-based user", the attraction of Intel motherboards is very low: they offer poor package bundle (sometimes it is missing completely), the price is very high, no fine tuning tools, which is quite natural (Intel has always been strongly against the idea of overclocking).

So if you come across a motherboard under Intel's trademark in the retail, it is highly probable an excess of some distributor.

Intel D875PBZ Specifications

This motherboard came to our test lab without a package bundle.

Intel D875PBZ Board Layout

The PCB design is very convenient in the assembler's viewpoint: the power connectors are positioned well, there are no issues of blocking the memory slots with a video card. Besides, near to each important component (connector, jumper) there is a distinct marking.

The board offers 4 connectors to plug in fans: the CpuFan is reserved for a processor cooler and is positioned near the processor socket, the Vreg Fan is near the power supply module, and the Front Fan near the BIOS chip.

One more connector, (RearFan) is placed near the chipset. However, the chipset does not require active cooling at all: there is a huge radiator on top of it.

Under the North Bridge there are 4 DIMM slots, all partitioned into two groups, with two slots in each group. The first two slots refer to the first controller channel, with the other two to the second controller.

Unfortunately, there is no multicolored marking. In fact, this board is aimed at system integrators with enough skills :) . The maximum memory capacity makes up 4GB; and ECC memory modules are allowed.

Once voltage is applied to the motherboard, a greed LED positioned near the BIOS chip lights up.

There is an AGP Pro slot with a latch installed onboard. Only 1.5V (or 0.8V) AGP 4x/8x video cards are allowed into the slot.

Besides, there are five PCI slots on D875PBZ motherboard.

Expansion options

The board also supports only two SerialATA channels served by the south bridge ICH5R. It allows merging SerialATA disks into a RAID array of level 0.

Also, the ICH5 offers support for eight USB 2.0 ports, six of which are mounted on the rear panel, with 2 more ports connected through headers. The board also offers a high-speed Intel 82547 LAN controller that provides data transmission speed as fast as 1000 Mbit/s (or Gigabit Ethernet).

Note that it is connected via the dedicated CSA bus.

And that's all - there are no other features the D875PBZ supports. Actually, there is a contact pad for the AD1985 audio chip made by Analog Devices, but it is not installed.

Now take a look at the board's rear panel.

Intel D875PBZ offers only one jumper intended for clearing the BIOS settings. Its operation principle is somehow different from other, similar jumpers. In the nominal position (1-2), the system starts up normally; in the (2-3) position we immediately get into the BIOS regardless of any settings (including the memory latency timings). The user can also change any passwords. But if we leave the jumper completely open, then the "BIOS recovery from diskette" function will snap on (the closest analog is Asus CrashFree BIOS).

Now on to the BIOS settings in more detail.

BIOS

The BIOS setting in motherboards by Intel have been consistent for several years by now. This allows system integrators not to invest into extra training for own employees and system administrators.

In a separate section, the user can change the memory latency timings. "SDRAM Cas Latency", "Precharge to Active"(Trp), "Active to precharge" (Tras) and "Active to CMD"(Trcd) as well as some finer settings are accessible to change.

In this section, you can set the memory operating frequency: available are both synchronous and asynchronous modes.

What's more, there is a parameter in charge of the memory supply voltage (Vmem).

Its adjustment range varies within the nominal 2.625V to 2.775V (in 0.05V increments).

Now move on to the section to do with the system monitoring.

The board displays the following information: the main voltages, temperatures of the processor and the system (two sensors). Besides, the board keeps track of the rotational speeds of three fans.

It is important to note here that the rotational speed of the fans is in direct dependence on the processor temperature and air temperature inside the housing. In fact, if there is the apprehension that the processor's performance is downgraded as a result of overheating, then the fans can be activated to the full speed (i.e. set the "Fan Control" to "Disable").

There is one more feature worth to be mentioned - the so-called "onboard log" where all the alarms are registered.

Now a few words on the overclocking options. It is rather strange to see such feature on an Intel motherboard, but it is there (in the "Burn-In Mode" section).

In particular, the user can either increase the FSB by 2% or raise it by 4%.

As a result, the maximum possible FSB speed is 208 MHz, at which the board was running stably.

Clearly, this figure is definitely not enough for hardcore overclocking. Also, there is no way to raise voltage on the processor. Therefore, we can say that the "Burn-In" mode is intended solely for reliability tests.

The power converter uses a 4-phase power scheme, in which there are four 1200 mkF and five 820 mkF capacitors.

During the tests, the board demonstrated exceptional stability.

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:

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.

Conclusion

Pros:

• Excellent stability and performance;
• Support for SerialATA (2 channels; ICH5R);
• Integrated LAN controller (Gigabit Ethernet);
• Support for the USB2.0 interface (8 ports).

Cons:

• Price too high
• No integrated audio.

The board's specific features:

• This Intel board offers overclocking features

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