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Soltek SL-865-GR 'Black Thunder' Motherboard Review
Author: Dennis Garcia
Published: Monday, November 24, 2003
Board Layout and Features
One of the key features that separates the i865PE chipset from the i875P is a little thing called PAT (Performance Acceleration Technology), this technology performs data transactions directly with the CPU and system memory thus reducing MCH (Memory Controller Hub) timings and improving system performance. Shortly after the release of the i865PE (Springdale) it was discovered that the same technology could be enabled very easily and thus closed much of the gap between Springdale and Canterwood. Soltek calls this feature MBA (Memory Boost Accelerator) and is enabled onboard with a single jumper. Black one at the bottom
Another technology feature included with the Soltek SL-865-GR is M.O.M. or (Mainboard Operation Monitor) this functionality is contained in the I/O chip shown here with a fancy hologram sticker. The I/O chip will monitor system functions and report when a problem arises. Basically MOM is BIOS hardware monitoring with special software supplied by Soltek to display the data, works good too.
Onboard RAID functions are made possible by this Promise SerialATA RAID controller. It only comes with 2 Serial channels for RAID with the other 2 Serial channels being part of the Southbridge.
The SL-865-GR uses a standard 3-phase power supply with capacitors being split up around the heatsink-mounting cage.
The SL-865-GR uses a standard 3-phase power supply with capacitors being split up around the heatsink-mounting cage.
This board comes equipped with a gigabit LAN controller provided by Realtek, The Realtek LAN controller is a fairly popular and interfaces quite nicely with the GigaLAN connection in the ICH5 Southbridge.
