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Mid-April saw the much-anticipated launch of Intel's latest performance chipset, the i875P or Canterwood. Using many of the performance traits found in the Granite Bay, but bumping up the all-important FSB from 133 to 200 (800 QDR), the extra bandwidth pushed the Canterwood to the top of the class, even though it was combined with a slower CPU than the incumbent 3.06. The 3.00GHz P4 / CW combination pushed back the performance envelope of home PCs by combining dual-channel PC3200 RAM to an improved Northbridge. Our benchmarks showed that it took over from where the Granite Bay left off. Pumping extra data through the MCH and CPU gave it enough of a boost to best the AMD XP3000 / nForce2 in each and every benchmark. AMD aren't standing still though, they've launched their own 200FSB Barton XP already. It's one thing to send out reference boards to certain 'sites, but it's another to ensure that your motherboard partners produce and market their own interpretations quickly and efficiently. Generic PCB colours seem to be Asus' preferred presentation. Another busy-looking motherboard. That's a little surprising with the degree of integration offered by the ICH5. A seemingly small point, but I do like the care and attention Asus have taken with respect to the retention bracket. It's screwed in properly, unlike the plastic pins used on most boards. There are two fan headers close by for cooling duties. A reasonably small passive heatsink covers the 200FSB Intel i875P MCH. It's also well held on with clips on all four sides. However, it's a little too close to the AGP slot. Running a Zalman-equipped Radeon 9700 Pro resulted in the upper Zalman heatsink making a slight contact with the NB heatsink. It shouldn't be a problem with other stock cards, but there's little need to have the MCH heatsink in such close proximity to the AGP slot.
Category: Computer Hardware, Software and Peripherals
Type: Glossaries and Dictionaries
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