Hardware / Motherboards

EPoX EP-8U1697-GLI Motherboard

A couple of months ago, I took a look at the EPoX EP-9U1697-GLI Motherboard. This was EPoX's first board to use ULi's (now owned by nVidia) M1697 chipset. While the 9U1697 was produced for socket 939 CPUs, the 8U1697 that we have today is its socket 754 counterpart. Keep reading to see how this board compares.

A couple of months ago, I took a look at the EPoX EP-9U1697-GLI Motherboard. This was EPoX's first board to use ULi's (now owned by nVidia) M1697 chipset. While the 9U1697 was produced for socket 939 CPUs, the 8U1697 that we have today is its socket 754 counterpart. Keep reading to see how this board compares.

The ULi chipset showed great promise as a low price alternative to the more expensive chipset on the market. Even when they were bought out by Nvidia, there was still hope that this chipset, one of the very few non-Nvidia chipsets to support SLI, would be available as a strong alternative. Even if Nvidia chose to keep this chipset alive, it seems that with the latest revisions of Nvidia's display drivers, SLI has been locked down and is hence unusable, which takes away one of the huge selling points of this chipset. In the meantime, even without SLI, this motherboard is nothing to cough at.

The first thing I did before even opening the box was take a quick trip to EPoX's website for the specs. Here they are:
Specifications

Socket Type: - Socket 754
Chipset: - ULi M1697
Processor: - AMD Athlon-64, Sempron
Max FSB: - 1.6 GTs HT FSB
Memory: - 2 x DDR SDRAM PC2100/2700/3200, 2GB max.
AGP/VGA Slot: - Dual PCI-E x16 for GLI Support
PCI Slot: - 3x PCI, 2x PCI-E x1
IDE: - 2 x E/IDE Ultra DMA/133, 4 drives max.
SATA: - 4 (SATA II, RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5)
USB: - 8 (4 Rear, 4 Pin Header) USB 2.0
Network: - Integrated 10/100 LAN
Audio: - Realtek ALC65X selectable 2 or 6-CH audio CODEC
SPDIF: - Yes
BIOS: - Award/Phoenix BIOS v6.0
Power BIOS: - Yes
LED Debug: - P80P LED Debug Display
Size: - ATX (305mm x 220mm)
Accessories: - IDE/Floppy Cables, SATA Data/Power Cables, I/O Shield, CD Driver, Manual

Overall, these specs are remarkably similar to those of the 9U1697. Now that we know what features this board packs, let's open the box.

Open the box
I must admit that the whole time I was doing the review on this motherboard, I had a feeling of déjà vu. When I first opened the box and pulled out the board, I was immediately struck by the similarities to the last one I reviewed. At first glance, it seems they still have the two oddities which kind of irked me about the last board. First, the number of jumpers that need to be switched to configure your PCIe settings can be a bit daunting. It's nice, though, that these should not need to be changed arbitrarily.

The second thing this board shares with its 989 brother is the location of the 24pin power socket. When mounted in most cases, the direct line between the ATX power cable coming from the PSU and the power socket on the board is blocked by the CPU itself. This means that in most cases, you need to route the power cables around the CPU and whatever CPU fan or cooler you have. This can be inconvenient, to say the least.

Let's take a quick tour around the board, shall we?

The motherboard would be nothing without the socket 754 connector. It's positioned in its regular spot on the board, and is bordered by a three phase power circuit. The mounting frame is quite sturdy, and even has a brace on the back of the motherboard to give extra support for large CPU fans and coolers. As with the 9U1697, note the odd position of the ATX and 12V power sockets. These put the CPU directly in the way of the power cables.

On this board, the two (yes, only two) SDRAM slots run along the edge of the board, above the CPU instead of to the right of it as in most configurations. These two slots can contain a maximum of 2GB of RAM, and sadly do not support dual channel operation.

Along the back of the board, the two IDE connectors are positioned together and close to the top of the board. This is a decent position, as it makes it easier to connect to the IDE components which are traditionally located at this end of the motherboard. Past the two yellow IDE connectors are the four orange SATA connectors. These SATA ports support up to 300MB/s bandwidth, and a variety of RAID configurations.

Continuing in the same direction, we have the pushbuttons for RESET and POWER. These buttons are extremely useful if you have the computer on a workbench, and need to test power on/off and reset conditions without having to reach around to the front of the case to do so. Next to these buttons is the CP80P LED, which is a trouble shooting device designed to help diagnose problems while booting up.

Right next to the SATA connectors is the silver heatsink that covers the ULi chipset. The 9U1697 sported a heatsink and a fan on its 1697, but it seems the 8U1697 opted for the heatsink only. I just hope it keeps the chipset cool enough for stable operation.

Here's the back panel itself. Here you see keyboard, mouse, parallel, serial, USB, Lan, sound, spdif; basically the same stuff you see on most motherboards nowadays.

Inside the box, we have the normal array of goodies:

• The Motherboard (of course)


• Drivers and Software CD


• Motherboard Manual


• Floppy and IDE Cables


• I/O backplate


• SATA power and data cables (one each)


• The best thing about the contents of this box in comparison to the contents of the 9U1697 when we got it, is that it includes an actual manual for the board. This takes the guesswork out of a few of the pin-outs for the leads.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, or the motherboard is out of the box, the next thing to do is get it ready for installation. In this case, I have acquired an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ for this board.

Installation was pretty easy. All we had to do was insert the CPU into the socket 754 zif socket, and then add the CPU fan. We are using the stock cooling in this configuration.

Installation of the board into the computer was pretty straightforward. Fasten the board into place, plug in a few wires, and voila. After adding a hard drive, CD ROM, and a video card, the machine is actually ready to boot.

As with other motherboards in their line, EPoX has bundled some useful utilities with the 8U1697. Ghost Bios allows you to back up and then restore the bios for your machine. If you have a catastrophic error and lose your bios, you can easily restore a saved bios, or get the newest one from the Internet.

Thunderprobe is a hardware diagnostic program, designed to give you insight into the heath of your computer hardware. Available in the snazzy interface are variables such as bus speed, CPU core voltage, CPU temp, fan speeds, and much more. You can even set alerts and have the software notify you if your computer steps outside of your predefined parameters. Here's a shot of what it looks like:

Once I had the machine up and running, I decided to see what I could do to make it perform. EPoX has a history of making overclocking-friendly motherboards, and this one is no exception.

Here's my test configuration:

• EPoX 8U1697 Motherboard


• AMD 64 3000+ Venice


• 2GB Patriot PC4000 memory


• Sapphire X800 PCIe

My CPU, at stock, runs at 2000 Mhz. By utilizing the overclocking abilities of the 8U1697, I was able to slowly increase the FSB from 200 up to 250 Mhz, with only a small step up in the core CPU when at about 240 Mhz. In essence, I was able to push this CPU to 2.52 Ghz with stock cooling. That's an awesome overclock for stock cooling. With more effective cooling in place, I'm sure I could have gotten it even faster (maybe 2.8 Ghz). Yeah, the Venice is quite overclockable, but the outstanding features of the 8U1697 made it possible to overclock very effectively.

For my testing, I used the following benchmarks:

• 3dmark05


• 3dmark03


• Half Life 2


• Doom 3

3DMark 2005(Overall score)
Stock - 3290
Overclocked - 3449

3DMark 2003 (Overall score)
Stock - 6721
Overclocked - 6918

Half Life 2 (1024x768 4xAA 8xAF) fps
Stock - 61.2
Overclocked - 86.1

Doom 3 (1024x768 4xAA 8xAF) fps
Stock - 32.7
Overclocked - 37.6

Just like its socket 939 brother, this board really shines when using it for overclocking. We got a respectable increase in overall performance when overclocking the system using the powerful bios.

Overall this board performed well when I put it to the test. It is very similar to its socket 939 brother, something which I've pointed out numerous times during this review. After a bit of looking, I was able to find it for about $74 online at the time of this writing, which makes it a good value for its price.

Here are the pluses and minuses for the board, as I see them.

Pluses:

• Nicely built board


• Performed well, especially when overclocked


• Excellent overclocking potential


• Well priced


• Nice utilities (Ghost Bios, Thunderprobe)

• SLI Capability killed by new Nvidia drivers


• Only two SDRAM slots, not Dual Channel


• Power Connector in potentially hard to reach location


• Socket 754 nearing end of its lifetime

If you already own a socket 754 processor, this board may help you squeeze some more speed out of it, but it's not a reason to go out and buy a CPU with not much of a future. The board does have its niche, and it performs very well at what it is designed for.

Based on this, I'm giving this board a rating of 7 out of 10. It's a bit lower than the score I gave its 939 brother, but that board was a bit more capable.

I'd like to thank the people at EPoX for sending us this motherboard for review. If you'd like more information about this board, or any of EPoX's other products, visit their website at http://www.epox.com.