Soltek SL-86SPE-L (Springdale) Motherboard Review

The Springdale Northbridge, this is where all of the action happens. This chip controls how the processor and memory communicate and plays traffic cop to the Southbridge. As you can see Soltek has included an active cooling scheme for the 86SPE though when compared to other active cooling solutions this one appears to be rather small. This cooler uses a thermal interface pad to aid in heat transfer.

As to not disappoint the TIM was removed, then later replaced with some Artic Silver compound.

Here we have the Southbridge section of the SL-86SPE-L, on the left you will see the two SerialATA connectors that come with the Intel ICH5. The rest of the area is pretty sparse with items, fan header, floppy connector, and Complex pin-header to name a few.

Except for the lack of a reinforcement plate under the CPU socket the heatsink cage are typical and very violet. The power supply looks to be of a 3-phase design with additional capacitors across the top of the CPU socket. The Pentium 4 12v power connector is located towards the middle of the board under the power supply. Based on the design it would seem that the power deliverly side of things is very solid.