Supermicro makes the i820 work.
Written: Jul 24 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Stable, Easy to use, RIMM support, ATA/66, and PC133 support
Cons: MTH memory translator hub
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| soveryfun's Full Review: Supermicro PIIISCD |
I've used supermicro motherboards for over 8 years now. They have all been very stable platforms for mid to high end use. Usually you end up spending more on a supermicro than the competition. But in recent years they have been very price competitive. With Intel's introduction of the 820 Camino chipset there has been a problem. Intel was planning on a change in the industry. Memory has been lagging behind motherboard and chip speeds and it's a bottle neck for standard PC's. Intel planned on the RAMBUS memory to be popular and just assumed that everyone else would follow their lead. Boy where they wrong. You can purchase RamBus memory in either 600Mhz or 800Mhz forms. But expect to pay no less than 500 bucks for 128 Megs of memory. In short this bird didn't fly. So instead of redesign a different chip intel created a chip called the MTH (Memory Translator Hub) They choose to takle the problem by adding more hardware. As you would know performance is compromised by doing this. Supermicro took this and ran with it. They created 3 boards trying to fill everyones needs. The PIIISCD, PIIISCE and the PIIISCA. the main difference is the PIIISCD uses standard SDRAM in either PC100 or PC133 flavors. It also has STR memory support. Which just allows you to bring back the pc from sleep mode quicker. The PIIISCE uses just the RIMM Rambus memory with the same features as the other board. Then the PIIISCA with can use either RIMM or DIMM. You can't put both DIMM and RIMM on at the same time. But what this board allows you to do is use DIMM then when you can afford RIMM or need RIMM you can pull the DIMM and plug in the RIMM. The board can have onboard sound or not. I picked the PIIISCA to try out. PC133 memory and 133 bus intel 550 coppermine processor. Also the boards support ATA/66. Loaded Windows 2000 on it. Since it's release they updated the BIOS to enhance the performance of the coppermine processor. This system was quick and stable. It's being used with AutoCAD and Pro/Engineer. The video card I used is an ELSA Gladiac with the new GeForce GTS. With only 128 megs of memory this thing hasn't choked yet. We threw some highly complex models at it and it still held on tough. With this chipset you get slight improvements from the BX the main thing that was noticed was the support for RIMM and ATA/66. I am planning on building one for home use and games like Quake III Arena. As soon as I have my benchmarks I'll add to this. If you build PC's give this a try it's feature packed and stable. As for overclocking it looks possible but the manufacturer doesn't support it. As always. Keep in mind I used an ASUS board with the 820 intel and it looks like the better buy till you read the fine print. They don't support PC133 memory. They have a few utilities for overclocking but the supermicro has more features.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 140.00
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Epinions.com ID:
soveryfun
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Location: Evans, CO
Reviews written: 13
Trusted by: 2 members
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