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

Author: Dennis Garcia

Published: Wednesday, June 18, 2003

Conclusion

Some of you may know that this isn't the first Dual Channel DDR motherboard that Soltek created for the Pentium 4, Soltek had a Granite Bay board on display at Comdex though when Intel announced the 800Mhz processors and new chipset the Granite Bay plans were canceled and the board was never released. Looking back this was really a very good decision and the replacement is quite a sight to see.

Like most Soltek motherboards the SL-86SPE-L "Violet Eyes" Motherboard does not come with a wide array of extra features. This makes the board very appealing to people that like to mix and match performance parts and build their system any way they like. Typically performance on boards like this is well above normal though there are always exceptions. In the case of the 86SPE-L the performance can be classified as "on par" with other Springdale solutions though I was rather disappointed in the weak overclocking performance attained from the motherboard. Having seen the press releases claiming that a Pentium 4 2.4C would run at 1200Mhz FSB on the SL-86SPE I was quite excited to see what this board could actually do. Unfortunately with the random vcore voltage drops our overclocking stability was compromised resulting in only 400Mhz of overclock.

Granted 230Mhz FSB on a 3.0C processor isn't anything to complain about so I will reserve final judgment until the next BIOS release in hopes that this issue is addressed.

Editors Thoughts:

There is one thing that bothers me about this new "Violet Eyes" motherboard. It just doesn't "feel" like a real Soltek product. There is the absence of the CPU backer plate. Up until now every Soltek P4 board that I have reviewed came with one and having it come up missing is rather disturbing. The next issue is how the box art and inlay cards have all of a sudden become very barren, if not blank. I'm being a little harsh since this is just one of the many Soltek boards reviewed here at Ninjalane, and companies are allowed to change. Though consider this, you don't go out and buy a Big Mac in a foreign country just because you like the customer service.

Now, the List. happy smile

The Good Things

Dual Channel DDR 400
Violet PCB
Onboard SerialATA
800Mhz Pentium 4 Processor Support
Active Northbridge cooling
Nice set of overclocking controls

The Bad Things

No CPU reinforcement back plate
Voltage instability at high vcore voltage (BIOS Bug?)
No RAID
AGP slot blocks memory clips

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.