Friday, June 14, 2002

Introduction

Following shortly after the release of the i850E chipset -- which was designed to work in conjunction with the new 133MHz (533Mhz quad-pumped) FSB Pentium 4s -- Intel introduced the world to the i845E and i845G. Like the i850E, the newcomers were meant to work with the new 533Mhz FSB standard, but unlike the former, they were designed to work with DDR-SDRAM, not RDRAM. Of course, normally, the i845E and i845G are only supposed to run in conjunction with DDR266 RAM. Today, we've taken it upon ourselves to see whether or not they can be made to work with DDR333. To that end, we'll be playing with our newest arrival, the AOpen AX4G Pro, which is rated to support not only DDR333, but also bristles with features that include an integrated LAN controller, six USB 2.0 ports, and a 6-channels sound-card.

So, without further ado, let's take a closer look.

Audio

The AOpen AX4G Pro's audio circuitry is based around a Realtek ALC650 sound-chip. The ALC650 supports AC3, and 5.1 Surround Sound, and allows users to hook-in up to six audio channels, including a center base channel.

From a fidelity standpoint, the Realtek AL650 is quite good at what it does, and should satisfy most users.

Note that the SPDIF connectors that are required to set-up RCA and optical ports are present on the motherboard, but, unfortunately, the proper cables are not included.

Configuration

The AOpen AX4G Pro's design is truly Jumperless; not a single on-board jumper exists among its circuits that relate to the configuration of the CPU.

Naturally, as a result, all configuration issues are handled from within the BIOS -- most notably through the "Frequency/Voltage Control" menu.

One located in said menu, users will be presented with the option to set the FSB frequency to any of a variety of frequencies ranging from 100Mhz to 248Mhz in 1Mhz increments.

Unfortunately, the clock multiplier value cannot be changed.

The Vcore voltage, on the other hand, can be tweaked to operate at any of the voltages indicated by the table above.

Finally, as expected, a number of memory timing settings can also be tweaked from within the "Advanced Chipset Features" menu. This includes the option to manually set the operating frequency of the memory bus, or to set it to SPD (Serial Presence Detect) which allows the system to determine a proper setting automatically.

Next: Technical details

AOpen AX4G Pro