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[nextpage title=”Introduction”]
K8SLI from Albatron is a socket 939 motherboard (i.e., targeted to Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX, Athlon 64 X2 and Opteron CPUs), based on NVIDIA nForce4 SLI chipset. Its main advantage is its price, lower than other SLI-based socket 939 motherboards available on the market. Does lower price mean lower quality and lower performance? We will check this out on our review.
Figure 1: Albatron K8SLI Rev 1.1 motherboard.
K8SLI appearance is very simple and follows the same design used by other boards manufactured by Albatron. What immediately caught our attention was its size. It is extremely compact for a SLI motherboard, thus not requiring big cases. On the other hand, its size can prevent the installation of bigger CPU coolers.
Another criticism regarding its layout is to the position of its black SATA ports. With two video cards installed it is almost impossible to use these ports.
Figure 2: nForce4 SLI active heatsink.
The manufacturing quality of this board is very good and all its main capacitors are from Japanese Chemi-con.
No special procedure is required to activate SLI mode on K8SLI. Just connect two compatible video cards and the SLI mode will be activated. It is also not necessary to connect any extra power supply cable when SLI mode is used, but we recommend you to use a good quality power supply with at least true 450 watts.
Figure 3: PCI Express slots.
K8SLI has four DDR-DIMM sockets, supporting up to 4 GB RAM DDR266/333/400. Albatron used purple color on sockets 1 and 2 and green color on sockets 3 and 4. To use DDR Dual Channel mode just install each module on sockets with the same color.
[nextpage title=”More Features”]
Now talking about its storage capacity, it has two ATA-133 ports and four Serial ATA II ports controlled by nForce4 SLI chipset. These ports support NCQ (Native Command Queuing) and NVIDIA RAID feature, which allows the use of up to eight hard disk drives (four Serial ATA and four ATA-133) under RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 or JBOD. K8SLI comes with only one Serial ATA cable and a Serial ATA power adapter.
Figure 4: Four Serial ATA-300 ports.
Figure 5: Cables and accessories.
On its networking side, K8SLI has “only” one on-board LAN port. We say “only” because the majority of competing motherboards have two on-board LAN ports. The LAN port from K8SLI is Gigabit Ethernet (1,000 Mbps) controlled by nForce4 SLI chipset supporting hardware-base firewall by NVIDIA and needing only one small chip for making the physical layer interface (in the case of this motherboard Vitesse VSC8201RX was used).
Albatron K8SLI has a six-channel on-board audio, produced by the chipset using Realtek ALC655 codec, which has a signal-to-noise ration of 90 dB and a coaxial SPDIF output soldered on the motherboard.
This motherboard also brings eight USB 2.0 ports (four soldered on the back part of the motherboard and four available through I/O brackets, which don’t come with the motherboard).
Figure 6: K8SLI back panel.
A very interesting feature available on this board is called ABS (Albatron BIOS Security), which is a small card containing an extra BIOS, to be used to recover the original BIOS if the motherboard doesn’t turn on anymore because of a wrong BIOS update procedure or because of a CIH/Chernobyl-like virus attack.
Figure 7: Albatron Bios Security.
[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]
Albatron K8SLI main features are:
- Socket: 939.
- Chipset: NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI.
- Super I/O: Winbond W83627THF.
- Parallel IDE: Two ATA-133 ports.
- Serial IDE: Four SATA-300 ports controlled by chipset (RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 and JBOD).
- USB: Eight USB 2.0 ports, four soldered directly on the motherboard and four available through an I/O bracket (that doesn’t come with the motherboard).
- FireWire (IEEE 1394a): None.
- On-board audio: Produced by the chipset together with Realtek ALC655 codec (six channels, 16-bit resolution, 90 dB signal-to-noise ratio).
- On-board video: No.
- On-board LAN: Yes, Gigabit Ethernet produced by the chipset together with Vitesse VSC8201RX chip.
- Buzzer: No.
- Power supply: ATX12V v2.x (24-pin).
- Slots: Two x16 PCI Express slots, two x1 PCI Express slots and two PCI slots.
- Memory: Four DDR-DIMM sockets (up to 4 GB up to DDR400/PC3200).
- Number of CDs that come with this motherboard: 1 CD.
- Programs included: Drivers and utilities.
- Extra features: Backup BIOS module.
- More Information: Albatron.com.tw.
- Average price in the US*: US$ 82,00.
* Researched on Shopping.com on the day we published this review.
[nextpage title=”How We Tested”]
During our benchmarking sessions, we used the configuration listed below. Between our benchmarking sessions the only variable was the motherboard being tested.
Hardware Configuration
- BIOS version: 1.12, October 25th, 2005.
- Motherboard revision: 1.1.
- Processor (performance benchmarking): Athlon 64 3800+ (2.4 GHz) with 512 KB L2 cache, NewCastle core.
- Processor (overclocking): Athlon 64 3500+ (2.2 GHz) with 512KB L2 cache, Venice core.
- Cooler: Gigabyte 3D Rocket Cooler Pro.
- Memory: Two Corsair PC4000 TWINX1024-4000PRO modules with 512 MB each, installed on DDR Dual Channel configuration (3-4-4-8 1T timings).
- Hard Drive: Samsung SpinPoint SP0411N (7,200 rpm, 40 GB, ATA-133).
- Video Card (main): NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB PCI Express.
- Video Card (secondary, SLI): NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB PCI Express.
- Video Card (AGP): NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT.
- Video resolution: 1024x768x32 75Hz.
- Power Supply: Seventeam ST420BKV-03F.
Software Configuration
- Windows XP Professional installed using NTFS
- Service Pack 2
- DirectX 9.0c
Driver Versions
- NVIDIA video driver version : 71.89 WHQL
- NVIDIA nForce driver version: 6.53 WHQL Stand Alone Kit
- NVIDIA video driver version: 81.98 WHQL (nForce4 X16)
- NVIDIA nForce driver version: 6.85 (nForce4 X16)
- ULi driver version: Integrated 2.10.
- ATI driver version: 1.0.
- High Definition Audio driver version: Realtek 1.21.
- Creative audio driver version: 5.12.01.506.
Used Software
- SYSmark2004 – Patch 2
- PCMark04 Business 1.3.0
- 3DMark2001 SE 3.3.0
- 3DMark03 Pro 3.6.0
- 3DMark05 Pro 1.2.0
- Doom 3
- Quake III Arena 1.32
We adopted a 3% error margin; thus, differences below 3% cannot be considered relevant. In other words, products with a performance difference below 3% should be considered as having similar performance.
[nextpage title=”Overall Performance”]
We measured the overall performance of this motherboard using SYSmark2004, which is a software that simulates the use of real-world applications. Thus, we consider this the best software to measure, in practical terms, the system performance.
The benchmarks are divided into two groups:
- Internet Content Creation: Simulates the authoring of a website containing text, images, videos and animations. The following programs are used: Adobe After Effects 5.5, Adobe Photoshop 7.01, Adobe Premiere 6.5, Discreet 3ds Max 5.1, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, Macromedia Flash MX, Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9, McAfee VirusScan 7.0 and Winzip 8.1.
- Office Productivity: Simulates the use of an office suite, i.e., simulates sending e-mails, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. The following programs are used: Adobe Acrobat 5.05, Microsoft Office XP SP2, Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1, NaturallySpeaking 6, McAfee VirusScan 7.0 and Winzip 8.1.
The software delivers specific results for each batch and also an overall performance result, all in a specific SYSmark2004 unit.
We selected the following motherboards to compare to Albatron K8SLI:
- ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4 SLI)
- DFI LANParty UT nF4 SLI-D (nForce4 SLI)
- ECS KN1 Extreme (nForce4 Ultra)
- ECS KN1 SLI Extreme (nForce4 SLI)
- Foxconn WinFast NF4UK8AA-8EKRS (nForce4 Ultra)
- MSI K8N Diamond Plus (nForce4 SLI X16)
- Sapphire PI-A9RX480 (ATI Xpress 200P)
- ULi AP9567A (ULi M1695 chipset reference board)
- ULi AP970A (ULi M1697 chipset reference board)
You can see the results on the chart below.
| Motherboard | SYSmark 2004 – Score |
% |
| Sapphire PI-A9RX480 (ATI Xpress 200P) | 188 | 0 |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) | 188 | |
| ECS KN1 SLI Extreme (nForce4 SLI) | 188 | 0 |
| MSI K8N Diamond Plus (nForce4 SLI X16) | 187 | -0.53 |
| ULi AP970A (ULi M1697) | 187 | -0.53 |
| DFI LANParty UT nF4 SLI-D (nForce4 SLI) | 186 | -1.08 |
| Foxconn WinFast NF4UK8AA-8EKRS (nForce4 Ultra) | 185 | -1.62 |
| ULi AP9567A (ULi M1695) | 184 | -2.17 |
| ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4 SLI) | 183 | -2.73 |
| ECS KN1 Extreme (nForce4 Ultra) | 181 | -3.87 |
On this test Albatron K8SLI achieved a performance similar to the majority of motherboards we tested, being a little bit faster than ECS KN1 Extreme (nForce4 Ultra).
[nextpage title=”Processing Performance”]
We measured processing performance using PCMark04 program. You can see the results below.
| Motherboard | PCMark04 (Build 1.3.0) |
% |
| ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4 SLI) | 4683 | +0.80 |
| DFI LANParty UT nF4 SLI-D (nForce4 SLI) | 4677 | +0.67 |
| ECS KN1 SLI Extreme (nForce4 SLI) | 4670 | +0.52 |
| Foxconn WinFast NF4UK8AA-8EKRS (nForce4 Ultra) | 4669 | +0.50 |
| ECS KN1 Extreme (nForce4 Ultra) | 4653 | +0.15 |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) | 4656 | |
| MSI K8N Diamond Plus (nForce4 SLI X16) | 4638 | -0.17 |
| ULi AP970A (ULi M1697) | 4609 | -0.80 |
| Sapphire PI-A9RX480 (ATI Xpress 200P) | 4598 | -1.04 |
| ULi AP9567A (ULi M1695) | 4595 | -1.77 |
All motherboards achieved a similar performance on this test.
[nextpage title=”3D Performance: 3DMark2001 SE”]
One of the best ways to measure the performance of a PC is through 3D games, since they usually pull the maximum power from the motherboard, memory, CPU, video card and hard disk drive. We chose five programs for measuring the 3D performance of the motherboard being reviewed: 3DMark2001 SE, 3DMark03, 3DMark05, Doom 3 and Quake III Arena. The motherboards with SLI feature were tested twice, one with SLI enabled and another without SLI configuration.
3DMark2001 SE simulates DirectX 8.1 games. We used this program to see how the motherboard being reviewed acts running games from this generation. You can find the results below.
| Motherboard | 3DMark2001 SE (Build 3.3.0) |
% |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) | 20545 | +4.62 |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 19637 | |
| Foxconn WinFast NF4UK8AA-8EKRS (nForce4 Ultra) | 19580 | -0.29 |
| ECS KN1 SLI Extreme (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 19506 | -0.67 |
| ULi AP970A (ULi M1697) | 19328 | -1.60 |
| ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 19314 | -1.67 |
| ECS KN1 Extreme (nForce4 Ultra) | 19302 | -1.74 |
| DFI LANParty UT nF4 SLI-D (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 19284 | -1.83 |
| MSI K8N Diamond Plus (nForce4 SLI X16) Normal | 19265 | -1.93 |
| ULi AP9567A (ULi M1695) | 19115 | -2.73 |
| Sapphire PI-A9RX480 (ATI Xpress 200P) | 19054 | -3.06 |
| ULi AP9567A (ULi M1695) – AGP | 18988 | -3.42 |
On this test MSI K8N Diamond Plus achieved a performance similar to the majority of motherboards we tested, being a little bit faster than Sapphire PI-A9RX480 (ATI Xpress 200P) and ULi AP9567A (ULi M1695) – AGP.
We included K8SLI results with SLI for you to compare the performance difference you may expect when enabling SLI on this motherboard. As you can see, the performance increased just a little bit on 3DMark 2001 SE when we activated SLI. This result was expected, since older games aren’t optimized to use SLI.
Comparing the results among SLI-enabled motherboards (see table below), K8SLI achieved a performance similar to the majority of motherboards we tested, being faster than MSI K8N Diamond Plus (nForce4 SLI X16), which used a newer driver that isn’t optimized for 3DMark2001 SE.
| Motherboard | 3DMark2001 SE (Build 3.3.0) |
% |
| DFI LANParty UT nF4 SLI-D (nForce4 SLI) | 20853 | +1.50 |
| ECS KN1 SLI Extreme (nForce4 SLI) | 20573 | +0.14 |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) | 20545 | |
| ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4 SLI) | 20004 | -2.70 |
| MSI K8N Diamond Plus (nForce4 SLI X16) | 19668 | -4.46 |
[nextpage title=”3D Performance: 3DMark03″]
3DMark03 simulates DirectX 9 games, which are the games available today on the market. So we used this software to see how the motherboard being reviewed acts running DirectX 9.0 games. You can check the results below.
| Motherboard | 3Dmark03 (Build 3.6.0 |
% |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) | 13820 | +66.07 |
| DFI LANParty UT nF4 SLI-D (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 8364 | +0.50 |
| ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 8353 | +0.37 |
| Foxconn WinFast NF4UK8AA-8EKRS (nForce4 Ultra) | 8348 | +0.31 |
| ECS KN1 SLI Extreme (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 8334 | +0.14 |
| ECS KN1 Extreme (nForce4 Ultra) | 8327 | +0.06 |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 8322 | |
| MSI K8N Diamond Plus (nForce4 SLI X16) Normal | 8312 | -0.12 |
| ULi AP970A (ULi M1697) | 8283 | -0.47 |
| ULi AP9567A (ULi M1695) | 8239 | -1.01 |
| ULi AP9567A (ULi M1695) – AGP | 8167 | -1.90 |
All motherboards achieved a similar performance without using SLI configuration.
We included K8SLI results with SLI for you to compare the performance difference you may expect when enabling SLI on this motherboard. Enabling SLI we had a 69.33% performance increase on this test.
Comparing the results among SLI-enabled motherboards (see table below), Albatron K8SLI achieved a performance similar to other motherboards we tested.
| Motherboard | 3Dmark03 (Build 3.6.0 |
% |
| MSI K8N Diamond Plus (nForce4 SLI X16) | 14075 | +1.85 |
| DFI LANParty UT nF4 SLI-D (nForce4 SLI) | 13835 | +0.11 |
| ECS KN1 SLI Extreme (nForce4 SLI) | 13831 | +0.08 |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) | 13820 | |
| ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4 SLI) | 13801 | -0.14 |
[nextpage title=”3D Performance: 3DMark05″]
3DMark05 measures performance by simulating DirectX 9.0c games, i.e., using Shader 3.0 model. This programming model is used by games like Far Cry. This programming model is used by GeForce series 6 and 7 from NVIDIA and Radeon X1000 series from ATI. You can find the results below.
| Motherboard | 3Dmark05 (Build 1.2.0) |
% |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) | 6397 | +81.27 |
| Foxconn WinFast NF4UK8AA-8EKRS (nForce4 Ultra) | 3600 | +2.01 |
| ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 3597 | +1.93 |
| ECS KN1 Extreme (nForce4 Ultra) | 3595 | +1.87 |
| DFI LANParty UT nF4 SLI-D (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 3589 | +1.70 |
| ECS KN1 SLI Extreme (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 3535 | +0.17 |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 3529 | |
| MSI K8N Diamond Plus (nForce4 SLI X16) Normal | 3509 | -0.57 |
| Sapphire PI-A9RX480 (ATI Xpress 200P) | 3427 | -2.98 |
| ULi AP970A (ULi M1697) | 3317 | -6.39 |
| ULi AP9567A (ULi M1695) | 3276 | -7.72 |
| ULi AP9567A (ULi M1695) – AGP | 3111 | -9.90 |
On this test K8SLI achieved a performance similar to the majority of motherboards we tested, being faster than all motherboards based on ULi chipset.
We included K8SLI results with SLI for you to compare the performance difference you may expect when enabling SLI on this motherboard. Enabling SLI we had an 81.27% performance increase on this test.
Comparing the results among SLI-enabled motherboards (see table below), K8SLI achieved a performance similar to other motherboards we tested.
| Motherboard | 3Dmark05 (Build 1.2.0) |
% |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) | 6397 | |
| ECS KN1 SLI Extreme (nForce4 SLI) | 6354 | -0.68 |
| ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4 SLI) | 6346 | -0.80 |
| MSI K8N Diamond Plus (nForce4 SLI X16) | 6339 | -0.91 |
| DFI LANParty UT nF4 SLI-D (nForce4 SLI) | 6262 | -2.16 |
[nextpage title=”3D Performance: Doom 3″]
Doom 3 is one of the heaviest games available today. We run this game at 1024x768x32 resolution at high quality. We run demo1 four times and wrote the obtained number of frames per second. The first result we discarded at once, since it is far inferior than the other results. This happens because at the first time we run the demo the game must load all textures to video memory, fact that doesn’t happen from the second time we run the demo on. From the three results left, we consider as our official result the middle result, i.e., we discard the highest and the lowest values. Curiously almost all times the values obtained at the second round on were the same.
A very important detail that we must mention is that Doom 3 has an internal FPS lock: it is only capable of generating 60 frames per second, even if your PC is able to produce more frames per second than that. This is done in order to make the game to have the same “playability” sensation independently from the video card installed on the PC. This lock, however, is disabled in the game benchmarking mode.
For further details on how to measure 3D performance with Doom 3, read our tutorial on this subject.
| Motherboard | FPS | % |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) | 101.9 | +22.77 |
| Foxconn WinFast NF4UK8AA-8EKRS (nForce4 Ultra) | 83.7 | +0.84 |
| DFI LANParty UT nF4 SLI-D (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 83.6 | +0.72 |
| ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 83.5 | +0.60 |
| ECS KN1 SLI Extreme (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 83.4 | +0.48 |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 83 | |
| MSI K8N Diamond Plus (nForce4 SLI X16) Normal | 82.1 | -1.10 |
| Sapphire PI-A9RX480 (ATI Xpress 200P) | 81.4 | -1.97 |
| ECS KN1 Extreme (nForce4 Ultra) | 81.3 | -2.09 |
| ULi AP970A (ULi M1697) | 79.5 | -4.40 |
| ULi AP9567A (Uli M1695) | 78.3 | -6.00 |
| ULi AP9567A (Uli M1695) – AGP | 77.6 | -6.96 |
On this test K8SLI achieved a performance similar to the majority of motherboards we tested, being faster than all motherboards based on ULi chipset.
We included K8SLI results with SLI for you to compare the performance difference you may expect when enabling SLI on this motherboard. Enabling SLI we had a 21.80% performance increase on this test.
Comparing the results among SLI-enabled motherboards (see table below), K8SLI achieved a performance similar to other motherboards we tested.
| Motherboard | FPS | % |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) | 101.9 | |
| ECS KN1 SLI Extreme (nForce4 SLI) | 101.3 | -0.59 |
| DFI LANParty UT nF4 SLI-D (nForce4 SLI) | 100.6 | -1.29 |
| ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4 SLI) | 100.1 | -1.80 |
| MSI K8N Diamond Plus (nForce4 SLI X16) | 100 | -1.90 |
[nextpage title=”3D Performance: Quake III”]
Even though this is an old game its importance comes from the fact its engine is used by several other games, like Jedi Knight II and Medal of Honor, and also because this game is very sensitive to any changes on the hardware configuration. So we used this game to check how the reviewed motherboard acted running old but popular games.
We used the demo four available on version 1.32 of Quake III to make our benchmarking with this game. We ran this demo three times at 1024x768x32 resolution and all image quality settings on their default configuration and we picked the middle value for our comparisons, i.e., we discarded the highest and the lowest values.
Check the results below.
| Motherboard | FPS | % |
| MSI K8N Diamond Plus (nForce4 SLI X16) Normal | 357.5 | +8.27 |
| DFI LANParty UT nF4 SLI-D (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 345.6 | +4.66 |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 330.2 | |
| ULi AP970A (ULi M1697) | 329.2 | -0.30 |
| Foxconn WinFast NF4UK8AA-8EKRS (nForce4 Ultra) | 328.5 | -0.52 |
| ECS KN1 SLI Extreme (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 327.2 | -0.92 |
| ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 326.2 | -1.23 |
| Sapphire PI-A9RX480 (ATI Xpress 200P) | 325.2 | -1.54 |
| ULi AP9567A (ULi M1695) | 324.4 | -1.79 |
| ULi AP9567A (ULi M1695) – AGP | 321.2 | -2.80 |
| ECS KN1 Extreme (nForce4 Ultra) | 315.5 | -4.66 |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) | 281.3 | -17.38 |
On Quake III under normal mode K8SLI was beaten by DFI LANParty UT nF4 SLI-D (nForce4 SLI) and by MSI K8N Diamond Plus (nForce4 SLI X16), this one using a newer video driver and because of this achieved a better performance than other motherboards. K8SLI achieved a performance similar to the other motherboards we reviewed, being a little bit faster than KN1 Extreme (nForce4 Ultra).
On MSI K8N Diamond Plus we had to use a newer driver because nForce4 SLI X16 chipset only works with newer video drivers. The ideal scenario would be benchmarking all the motherboards with the same newer video driver, but several of the motherboards included on our tests weren’t available anymore.
Under SLI mode, excluding MSI K8N Diamond Plus that was using a newer video driver, Albatron K8SLI was beaten only by DFI LANParty UT nF4 SLI-D (nForce4 SLI).
But keep in mind that on Quake III SLI decreases the system performance instead of increasing it (see previous table).
| Motherboard | FPS | % |
| MSI K8N Diamond Plus (nForce4 SLI X16) | 335.2 | +19.16 |
| DFI LANParty UT nF4 SLI-D (nForce4 SLI) | 294.3 | +4.62 |
| Albatron K8SLI (nForce4 SLI) Normal | 281.3 | |
| ECS KN1 SLI Extreme (nForce4 SLI) | 279.8 | -0.54 |
| ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4 SLI) | 276.8 | -1.63 |
[nextpage title=”Overclocking”]
For our overclocking tests we used an Athlon 64 3500+ (2.2 GHz) with 512 KB L2 memory cache based on Venice core, which has a better overclocking capability than our Athlon 64 3800+ used on our benchmarking.
Albatron K8SLI BIOS V.1.12 overclocking options:
- External frequency: can be adjusted from 200 to 450 MHz in 1 MHz steps.
- PCI Express frequency: can be adjusted from 100 to 145 MHz in 1 MHz steps.
- Clock multiplier: Can be set from 4x to 11x in 1x steps.
- HTT bus multiplier: Can be set from 1x to 5x in 1x steps.
- CPU voltage: +5%, +10%, +15%.
- Memory voltage: Can be set from 2.70 V to 3.00 V at 0.10 V steps.
- Chipset voltage: Can be set from 1.5 V to 1.8 V at 0.10 V steps.
Figure 8: Basic overclocking options on K8SLI.
Figure 9: Basic memory timings settings
On Figures 10 and 11 you can check the overclocking we could achieve with this motherboard
Figure 10: HTT configured at 365 MHz, an excellent result.
Figure 11: Our 2.2 GHz CPU running at 2.853 MHz (285 MHz x 10).
With K8SLI we could put our CPU running stable at 2.853 MHz (285 MHz x 10), an increase of almost 30% on its internal clock rate, an excellent result.
To achieve this overclocking we had to change the HyperTransport bus multiplier to 3x, the memory voltage to 2.80 V, the CPU voltage to 1.5 V and keeping the memory clock always below 250 MHz.
Besides its reduced size, K8SLI wasn’t intimidated, achieving better results than motherboard that costs up to twice its price.
[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]
As you can notice by reading our results there is almost no performance difference between socket 939 motherboards. This occurs because Athlon 64 has an embedded memory controller, so the chipset doesn’t play any drastic role on performance on this platform. The decision on what socket 939 motherboard one should buy must be based on extra features, price and overclocking.
Even though it has few extra features, Albatron K8SLI is a great motherboard, bringing excellent performance and overclocking capacity.
Albatron was corageous to launch a “vanilla” motherboard supporting SLI. The majority of SLI-based motherboards available on the market have tons of features and fancy design, many costing the double the price of K8SLI. And here is the biggest advantage of Albatron K8SLI against its competitors: it is the cheapest SLI motherboard available on the market.
With the money you will save, you can buy a faster CPU, more memory or even a better video card, keeping the same performance of more expensive motherboards.
In order to cost less, Albatron cut the “fat” by cutting the extra features, of course. You won’t find a fancy design, lights, colored cables, countless accessories, FireWire ports, extra LAN port or eight-channel audio.
But honestly: who uses or cares about all those extra features? Do you really care that your motherboard came in a fancy box with holographic effect?
If you want to save money and at the same time buy a motherboard with great performance and outstanding overclocking capacity with SLI support, Albatron K8SLI is the way to go. Its cost/benefit ratio is unbeatable.