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Soltek SL-75FRN-L Motherboard Review
Author: Dennis Garcia
Published: Monday, February 03, 2003
Conclusion
Conclusion
The Soltek SL-75FRN-L "Golden Flame" motherboard is really a mixed bag of positives and negatives. Though when you look at the SL-75FRN-L motherboard you see many things but none of them say "Enthusiast Stay Away", and the ample cooling on the Northbridge reaffirms that this board is designed with speed in mind.
Overall we can see only two minor things holding this board back. One would be the somewhat "buggy" v1.2 BIOS and the lack of heatsink mounting holes near the CPU socket.
We can overlook many of the multiplier related issues with the BIOS since they can be overcome by physically unlocking the processor. In a way this adds a whole "enthusiast" spin to the process and we believe the results speak for themselves.
We can overlook many of the multiplier related issues with the BIOS since they can be overcome by physically unlocking the processor. In a way this adds a whole "enthusiast" spin to the process and we believe the results speak for themselves.
One thing that we did notice is that both AGP and PCI clocks appear to be locked to their respective 66 and 33Mhz frequencies by default. This is somewhat hard to tell since there are no user adjustments for this in the BIOS though not having any bus related problems at 195Mhz FSB is a pretty good sign.
From a system I/O standpoint having these clocks locked means for a very stable and high performing system at any speed but in a way we have also lost the ability to get that extra "edge" gained from an increase in AGP clock speed.
From a system I/O standpoint having these clocks locked means for a very stable and high performing system at any speed but in a way we have also lost the ability to get that extra "edge" gained from an increase in AGP clock speed.
Personally I am still debating on if I really like the new "Golden Flame" PCB or not, the metallic gold just doesn't seem to stand out like Soltek made it appear in their product photos. This may sound silly but one of the reasons I don't like Asus products is due to their PCB color and the "Golden Flame" PCB is just way to similar. It wouldn't be so bad if maybe the slots were a nice red or purple.
All things considered Soltek has once again released a very solid motherboard that is one BIOS revision away from being even better.
Here is the ever popular list of Good things and Bad things.
Here is the ever popular list of Good things and Bad things.
The Good Things
Limited Edition motherboard
AGP 8x
Dual Channel DDR400 memory controller
Metallic Gold PCB
Full Version Software
No Modem Riser slot!
Active Northbridge cooling
Optional RAID version
A wide variety of overclocking controls
AGP 8x
Dual Channel DDR400 memory controller
Metallic Gold PCB
Full Version Software
No Modem Riser slot!
Active Northbridge cooling
Optional RAID version
A wide variety of overclocking controls
The Bad Things
Buggy BIOS
Cables for extra functionallity missing
Limit of 200Mhz FSB
Metallic Gold PCB
No heatsink mounting holes
Cables for extra functionallity missing
Limit of 200Mhz FSB
Metallic Gold PCB
No heatsink mounting holes
Ninjalane Rating
I would like to thank the guys at Misr Corps for helping to make this review possible. Check out their online store for all of your Soltek needs.
