Application:

 AMD Athlon64 motherboard

Provided by:

 Albatron

Available at:

 No Specific Vendor

Review by:

 Michael

Edited by:

 Paul

Review date:

 August 2nd, 2004
   
 

  

     We'll start at the bottom of this picture move towards the top. The two IDE connectors and the 20-pin ATX power connector are in a very familiar location. Though it would be nice to see the floppy connector her as well, its simply not to be. The three DDR RAM slots are nestled tightly in a mix of capacitors, and if you look closely at the very bottom RAM slot you can see where Albatron originally planned/engineered a fourth DIMM slot.

     Getting a little closer to the AGP slot we can see how closely arranged the North Bridge is to both the AGP slot and Socket heatsink retention mechanism. This caused no troubles during system construction using a video card with a very large stock cooling system, the MSI FX5900-VTD. The 3-pin fan header located just above the north bridge cooler is labeled AUX/FAN.

     Albatron has given the area around the CPU socket some breathing room. Although one capacitor on the top right corner does appear to be in close proximity of the heatsink retention mechanism, there were no problems installing the stock Athlon64 heatsink or the Swiftech MCX6400-V. The CPU Heatsink fan power header is shown in the bottom right of the picture.

     The rear multifunction I/O panel makes the now-standard sway away from what was once considered ATX standard. Of course, a custom I/O shield is provided by Alabtron for installation into the enclosure. A trend we are beginning to see more of is the absence of the second 9-pin COM port. Though there is nothing else installed in its place, it is still missing nonetheless. The Gigabit LAN RJ-45 port is poised on top of the panels only two USB ports. All those colored 1/8 inch headphone jack connectors are for the audio systems 8-channel hook-ups.