Albatron PX865PE Pro II (865PE): It's Springdale Time

Albatron PX865PE Pro II: Basic Features

Albatron has taken an interesting route with the PX865PE Pro II by adding not just a high quality DAC in the form of VIA's VT1616 AC'97 Codec, but also VIA's Envy VT1720 DSP. This 24-bit/96kHz solution is definitely a step in the right direction, as we'd love to find this type of high quality audio on many more motherboards to come.

It's no surprise to see that Albatron's engineers opted to implement Intel's new bus dubbed Communications Streaming Architecture, or CSA, for gigabit Ethernet. This technology is taken advantage of by Intel's PRO/1000CT, which can also be found on motherboards like Gigabyte's 8KNXP/Ultra, MSI's 875P Neo-FIS2R, ABIT's IC7-G, and Soyo's 875P DRAGON 2. The average desktop user won't have much of a use for this technology, but anyone that is transferring a significant amount of data over gigabit Ethernet will enjoy the bus. We've illustrated the benefit of CSA technology in previous articles, an example of which can be found here in our 875P chipset article.

Albatron added some fairly decent rear ports to their PX865PE Pro II. Albatron included two PS/2 ports, one serial port, one parallel port, two rear USB 2.0 ports, one Gigabit LAN port, various SPDIF ports, and Mic In, Line In, and Line Out, which are driven by the onboard sound. We would have liked to have seen one FireWire port, but USB 2.0 should suffice for most users.

Like all motherboards with an 875P/ICH5(R) chipset combination, there are two Serial ATA connectors located next to the ICH5(R) South Bridge. Albatron decided to add just two onboard Serial ATA connectors instead of four like some other motherboard makers. This isn't a terrible loss considering Albatron added a Promise PDC20276 controller which means there are now two additional IDE connectors available via the Promise controller, and therefore you can still connect more than two Serial ATA drives by simply purchasing a parallel-to-serial adapter. In case you've forgotten, the new ICH5 South Bridge has its own link that allows a stream of 266MB/s of data to each of the two Serial ATA connectors, which is certainly better than the PCI bus constrained 133MB/s. This is good for users that have many devices running over the PCI bus, which makes native SATA support a plus.

We've already talked a little bit about the Promise PDC20276 controller, but just to refresh your memory, this controller allows you to connect one drive to each of the two yellow IDE connectors located at the bottom of the motherboard. In combination with the standard Primary and Secondary IDE connectors that support two devices each (or up to four IDE drives total), and the two ICH5-controlled Serial ATA connectors, the PX865PE Pro II supports a total of eight drives. Of course most users have no need to connect this many drives to their system, but there will be some users that need this type of support, and so the Albatron PX865PE Pro II will fit the bill.

Albatron doesn't skimp with anything on the PX865PE Pro II as is plainly obvious by looking at the IEEE 1394 FireWire support included with this motherboard. IEEE 1394 FireWire is supported via an onboard PCI controller dubbed the VIA VT6307.

VIA talks about their VT6307 controller here. As we've said before, USB 2.0 should suffice for the vast majority of users out there, but there are certain people (such as DV camera users) that will require FireWire connectivity. Thankfully Albatron bundles a two-port FireWire bracket (since there isn't any rear FireWire available), and this means that you don't have to waste time and money buying one.

Oddly enough Albatron only bundles a four-port USB 2.0 bracket which, in addition to the two rear USB 2.0 ports, only adds up to six total USB 2.0 ports available despite the fact that the ICH5 South Bridge supports a total of eight USB 2.0 ports. Perhaps Albatron will include the additional two USB 2.0 ports when the PX865PE Pro II starts shipping, but if six USB ports are plenty for your needs you shouldn't worry about it.