ECS P5SD-B+ Super 7 Motherboard
Reviewed by Jackie Lee Choon Yau (08/09/98)
Motherboard Specifications |
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Processor |
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Chipset |
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Cache memory |
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System Memory |
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PCI IDE |
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I/O Interface |
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Expansion slot |
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Power Management |
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Form Factor |
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BIOS |
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Introduction
ECS P5SD-B , this board should be very familiar to you as it is one of the 1st 100 Mhz AGP Socket 7 Motherboards available in Singapore. Elitegroup using the SIS chipset has enable us to take a peek at what kind of performance to expect when zooming at 100 Mhz using a socket 7 chip. But I guess they did not give up in their R&D into the up coming Super 7 technology and here it is. The VIA MVP3 based motherboard is the wonderful result. The ECS P5SD-B+ is bornt. For a drift of what's to follow, I will say that the best setting to run your AMD K6-2 300 Mhz or 333 Mhz is at 112 Mhz x 3 = 336 Mhz. Read further!
The Good
The ECS P5SD-B+ supports a maximum of 512 MB of memory with its 2 DIMMs slots and 2 SIMMs slots with ECC support. This dual power supply type motherboard is small enough for all normal casing and even a micro-ATX format case. Despite of the small in size, the board still contains all the standard features like 1/4/2 AGP/PCI/ISA Slots.
In addition, there is also an avenue for users who still wants to use their old PC 66 SDRAMs. The JP9, JP10 on the mainboard allows the DRAMs to sync with either the CPU Clock or the AGP Clock. However the same settings must be observed on JP 9 and JP 10 in order to work if not system will hang.
Other than the rams issue, the Elitegroup R&D has also done their homework from the viewing in the shoes of the end-users. ECS P5SD-B+ is designed with to fit almost all wants. There is a setting to set the CPU I/O Voltage @ JP 13 to set either 3.3 V or 3.52 V which is very important in stabilizing the system when subjected under overclocked environment @ increasing multipliers.or bus speed. Furthermore, this board also allows users to set their desired voltages in 0.1 V intervals from 2.0 V - 3.5 V.
Another good point is also the fact that this board support dual power supply. This could save you another S$100 at least for a ATX Power Casing. ECS P5SD-B+ using high grade SRAMs rated at 5 ns to maintain stable data buffer from the CPU.
The next good point is actually more for the Singapore context. The price of this motherboard is at a very affordable S$ 159 dated 05 September 1998. Very competitive indeed.
The final good point is the test of the motherboard with the fact that this board that I have received to run rock stable at 112 Mhz x 3 = 336 Mhz on both the AMD K6-2 300 Mhz and 333 Mhz and what's the best part is that I managed to run 112 Mhz x 3.5 = 392 Mhz. See below !
The Test
Test Configuration |
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Processor(s): | AMD K6-2 300, 333, 350 Mhz* |
RAM: | 64 MB Hyundai PC100 SDRAM DIMMs |
Hard Drive(s): | Quantum SE 2.1 GB |
Video Card(s): | Canopus Total3D 128V 4MB 1.54B |
Bus Master Drivers: | Windows 98 Bus Mastering Drivers |
Video Drivers: | 4.10.01.0250-1.30.05 |
Operation System(s): | Windows 98 (build 4.10.1998) |
Software(s) : | Direct X Version 6.0 |
Wintune 98 Result for K6-2 300 Mhz @ 3 x 100 Mhz
CPU | (1) AMD K6-2 with MultiMedia Extensions@300 MHz |
Video Board | Canopus Total3D 128V |
Video Mode | 1024x768@16bits/pixel |
RAM | 64 MB |
OS | Windows 98 4.10.1998 |
Area Tested | Value |
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CPU Integer | 795.6493 MIPS |
CPU Floating Point | 346.7219 MFLOPS |
Video(2D) | 67.60229 MPixels/s |
Direct3D | 79.74031 MPixels/s |
OpenGL | 62.14874 MPixels/s |
Memory | 510.9356 MB/s |
Cached Disk | 46.88052 MB/s |
Uncached Disk | 2.196219 MB/s |
(Recommended Setting for AMD K6-2 300 Mhz)
CPU | (1) AMD K6-2 with MultiMedia Extensions@334 MHz |
Video Board | Canopus Total3D 128V |
Video Mode | 1024x768@16bits/pixel |
RAM | 64 MB |
OS | Windows 98 4.10.1998 |
Area Tested | Value |
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CPU Integer | 889.1096 MIPS |
CPU Floating Point | 386.2466 MFLOPS |
Video(2D) | 72.86232 MPixels/s |
Direct3D | 83.06587 MPixels/s |
OpenGL | 63.93391 MPixels/s |
Memory | 572.0135 MB/s |
Cached Disk | 53.691 MB/s |
Uncached Disk | 2.074854 MB/s |
Wintune 98 Result for K6-2 300/333/350Mhz @ 3.5 x 100 Mhz
CPU | (1) AMD K6-2 with MultiMedia Extensions@334 MHz |
Video Board | Canopus Total3D 128V |
Video Mode | 1024x768@16bits/pixel |
RAM | 64 MB |
OS | Windows 98 4.10.1998 |
Area Tested | Value |
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CPU Integer | 911.4008 MIPS |
CPU Floating Point | 400.5465 MFLOPS |
Video(2D) | 73.36405 MPixels/s |
Direct3D | 79.13942 MPixels/s |
OpenGL | 63.12158 MPixels/s |
Memory | 573.6048 MB/s |
Cached Disk | 51.51627 MB/s |
Uncached Disk | 2.097614 MB/s |
(Recommended Setting for AMD K6-2 333 Mhz)
CPU | (1) AMD K6-2 with MultiMedia Extensions@359 MHz |
Video Board | Canopus Total3D 128V |
Video Mode | 1024x768@16bits/pixel |
RAM | 64 MB |
OS | Windows 98 4.10.1998 |
Area Tested | Value |
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CPU Integer | 938.0224 MIPS |
CPU Floating Point | 414.0416 MFLOPS |
Video(2D) | 66.34047 MPixels/s |
Direct3D | 77.64576 MPixels/s |
OpenGL | 59.51451 MPixels/s |
Memory | 583.0336 MB/s |
Cached Disk | 48.72286 MB/s |
Uncached Disk | 2.114347 MB/s |
Wintune 98 Result for AMD K6-2 333 / 350 Mhz @ 4.5 x 83 Mhz
CPU | (1) AMD K6-2 with MultiMedia Extensions@373 MHz |
Video Board | Canopus Total3D 128V |
Video Mode | 1024x768@16bits/pixel |
RAM | 64 MB |
OS | Windows 98 4.10.1998 |
Area Tested | Value |
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CPU Integer | 963.5997 MIPS |
CPU Floating Point | 429.6633 MFLOPS |
Video(2D) | 63.87348 MPixels/s |
Direct3D | 76.26485 MPixels/s |
OpenGL | 60.23907 MPixels/s |
Memory | 593.8746 MB/s |
Cached Disk | 46.71239 MB/s |
Uncached Disk | 2.226269 MB/s |
Wintune 98 Result for AMD K6-2 350 Mhz @ 3.5 x 112 Mhz
CPU | (1) AMD K6-2 with MultiMedia Extensions@391 MHz |
Video Board | Canopus Total3D 128V |
Video Mode | 1024x768@16bits/pixel |
RAM | 64 MB |
OS | Windows 98 4.10.1998 |
Area Tested | Value |
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CPU Integer | 1027.566 MIPS |
CPU Floating Point | 450.7057 MFLOPS |
Video(2D) | 80.3041 MPixels/s |
Direct3D | 83.83698 MPixels/s |
OpenGL | 64.84975 MPixels/s |
Memory | 644.8094 MB/s |
Cached Disk | 58.78302 MB/s |
Uncached Disk | 2.223256 MB/s |
As you might have observed that the settings for AMD K6-2 350 Mhz @ 392 Mhz for this board has made AMD K6-2 break the 1000 MIPS barrier. For a more details, please read on.
Settings | K6-2 300 Mhz | K6-2 333 Mhz | K6-2 350 Mhz |
300 @ 3 x 100 Mhz | Rock Stable | Underclock??!! | Underclock??!! |
336 @ 3 x 112 Mhz | Rock Stable* @ 2.3V | Rock Stable | Rock Stable |
350 @ 3.5 x 100 Mhz | Rock Stable* @ 2.3V | Rock Stable | Rock Stable |
360 @ 4 x 90 Mhz | Hang @ Win 98 | Rock Stable* @ 2.3V | Rock Stable* @ 2.3 V |
375 @ 4.5 x 83 Mhz | No Display | Rock Stable* @ 2.3V | Rock Stable* @ 2.3V |
392 @ 3.5 x 115 Mhz | No Display | No Display | Rock Stable* @ 2.4V |
400 @ 4.0 x 100 Mhz | No Display | No Display | Ram Counter |
Default using Core Voltage 2.2 V and I/O Voltage 3.3V
* means CPU I/O Voltage @ JP 13 to set to 3.52 V
Results | 300 | 336 | 350 | 360 | 375 | 392* |
MIPS | 796 | 889 | 911 | 938 | 964 | 1028 |
Memory Speed | 511 | 572 | 574 | 583 | 594 | 645 |
Cached Disk | 47 | 54 | 52 | 49 | 47 | 59 |
Norton SI V3.0.3 | 114.2 | 132.3 | 123.4 | 126.1 | 125.1 | 148.9 |
Norton SI V3.0.3 Index = 140.2 for a Intel Pentium II 300 Mhz |
Therefore if you are running Office Applications for your system, I would recommend that you use the higher CPU Processor Speed Setting for the higher Floating Point Calculations and Memory Speed.
As for the performance on 3D Gaming, I decided to run the Quake 2 Timedemos AMD Bulid V3.17 (3DNow! OpenGL) @ 640 x 480 and compare the Wintune Direct3D and OpenGL results for you.
Results | 300 | 336* | 350 | 360 | 375 | 392* |
DEMO1 / fps | 27.6 | 30.9 | 30.3 | 29.4 | 29.0 | 32.7 |
DEMO2 / fps | 27.1 | 29.5 | 29.3 | 28.5 | 28.1 | 31.8 |
CRUSHER / fps | 16.4 | 18.3 | 18.0 | 17.3 | 16.7 | 20.2 |
Direct3D / MP/s | 79.7 | 83.1 | 79.1 | 77.6 | 76.3 | 83.8 |
Open GL / MP/s | 62.1 | 63.9 | 63.1 | 59.5 | 60.2 | 64.8 |
The above shows the performance of 112 FSB on a Super7 motherboard. Please also note that to run this board at a high of 112 Mhz FSB requires very good and reliable PC 100 SDRAMs. Therefore, the best gaming setting is actually using the 336 Mhz for 300/333 CPUs and 392 Mhz setting for the 350 Mhz.
I would say that the recommended setting for AMD K6-2 300 Mhz and 333 Mhz would be 112 Mhz x 3 = 336 Mhz and the recommended setting for AMD K6-2 350 Mhz would be of course 112 x 3.5 Mhz = 392 Mhz In short, the ECS P5SD-B+ offers you with the flexibility of settings and CPUs to suit your home computing needs; be it Office applications or Gaming.
The first most observable imperfection is the lack of DIMMs slots. With only 64 MB PC100 SDRAMs, the maximum is only 128 MB. Please also note that one cannot install a combinations of DIMMs and SIMMs. In another words, no mixing of DIMMs and SIMMs for this board.
The next bad point is perhaps the fact that there are too many jumpers to configure before setting the board on go. This is actually a good point to overclockers but a bad point to novice system assemblers. For just the Bus speed setting, the voltage core setting and the multiplier setting, there are 16 jumpers to set. Phew !
The final bad point is actually not a problem to the board itself but to the VIA MVP3 Chip. Even though the board uses the latest CE version, it is still necessary for users to download at least two files from VIA Website @ www.via.com.tw
The two files are : -
2) VIA IrQ Routing Driver ver. 1.1
The Procedure is as such : (Extracted from VIA Website for your convenience)
There are four important steps to follow:
1) Go into BIOS setup and enable USB
2) Install Win98 on your system
3) Download and install the VIA IrQ routing miniport driver from our driver page
4) Download and install the VIA AGP driver from our driver page (for MVP3 & VP3 chipsets only)
Conclusion
The P5SD-B+ is an overall winner in price for performance. Its ability to support stable 112 Mhz FSB and flexibility to run the coming AMD K6-2 350 Mhz and higher should edge you closer into getting one for yourself. If you are having a budget constraint (due to economic crisis .....hee hee |8-)) and hope to get a very good and stable performer, I would certainly have no hold back to recommend this motherboard to you. This is the board I would recommend to you if you are buying any AMD K6-2 CPUs.I am still running 112Mhz x 3.5 on a AMD K6-2 350 Mhz as I am typing this review. I would have given my 1st Five Star Rating to this board if it has one more DIMMs slot and a 120 Mhz FSB option. By the way, the official distributor of ECS products in Singapore is Fuwell @ Sim Lim Square.
MOTHERBOARD RATING
Overall Rating (Out of a maximum of 5 Star) |
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Installation | **** |
Performance | **** |
Price | ***** |
Overclockability | **** |
Material Quality | **** |
Stability | ***** |
Overall Rating | ****1/2 |
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