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

Final Words

After thoroughly benchmarking and stress testing the Albatron PX865PE Pro II we have come to several conclusions:

1. The Albatron PX865PE Pro II is an excellent motherboard for overclockers. The PX865PE Pro II is already able to overclock better than motherboards based on the 875P chipset, and that includes ABIT's IC7-G motherboard. We've already seen some other excellent FSB overclocks from other 865PE motherboards in preliminary testing, but rest assured the Albatron PX865PE Pro II is right up there with the best of them.

2. The Albatron PX865PE Pro II isn't just for overclockers though. With onboard Serial ATA and IDE RAID support, IEEE 1394 FireWire, Gigabit LAN (CSA), and high quality VIA Envy sound with SPDIF among other intriguing features, the PX865PE Pro II is a feature-packed motherboard, especially when you consider that some vendors are selling the PX865PE Pro II for just under $190 in the U.S. This is a good price considering the huge amount of quality onboard features you're getting.

3. Since the Albatron PX865PE Pro II is a high-end motherboard it's not cheap. However there are already some vendors selling the stripped down version of the PX865PE Pro II, dubbed the PX865PE Pro. This motherboard comes with onboard 3COM LAN (no CSA), sound (ALC650 Codec), and two ICH5-bound Serial ATA connectors. When you consider the excellent overclocking results and the fact that the PX865PE Pro is already available for under $115 from a couple of online vendors in the U.S., this is quite a good price that will only get lower as time passes. We would like to have seen a stripped down version of the PX865PE that did offer CSA support, but still carried a lower price tag, unfortunately we can't always have it all.

Next week we will be posting an article detailing which 865PE and 875P motherboards our labs were able to successfully run with several different types of memory modules from Kingston, Corsair, OCZ, and TwinMOS. In addition, we will have a full roundup of at least 13 motherboards based on the 875P chipset and more 865PE reviews the following week. As you can see there's quite a bit coming up, so stayed tuned…

Updated 5/23/2003