There are 4 parts to this
review, please use the pulldown below to browse sections or simply hit "Next"
at the bottom of each section to continue
Layout and Features
Overall, the layout of the board is very well thought out and simple. There
is ample room to mount any heat sink of your liking. I fitted a few heat sinks
and there did not appear there would be a problem mounting any of them.
The north bridge sits at a signature 45-degree angle to it and has a large,
heatsink mounted on it. Like its predecessor, the memory is in a 2+1 configuration
for a total of 3 memory slots, slots 1 and 2 for DDR channel 1 and slot 3 for
DDR channel 2. For best performance you must use identical memory stick in slots
1 and 3.
I did find one flaw. The location of the capacitors right of the pro AGP slot
may be in the way depending on make and model of your video card. I had to apply
a slight extra amount of force to seat the Asus TI4400 properly.
This rear connector panel does not reveal anything out of the unordinary except
that it is missing the second Ethernet controller support by the MCP-T chipset.
Leadtek opted to leave it off because they feel customer will most likely not
use the second LAN option. I was somewhat disappointed. An onboard second NIC
is an excellent solution for internet connection sharing without having to buy
any additional hardware.
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Configuration & Setup
Overall setup went relatively smooth. I did have a slight set back with the
initial boot, however, because the fan I initially used didn't produce a high
enough RPM. Just like many boards, this Leadtek board has several safety features,
which are enabled by default in the bios. If the temperature is too high or
the CPU fan monitor reports an insufficient RPM, the system will fail to boot.
Once I replaced the fan on the heat sink with a higher RPM fan, the system fired
up without any additional problems. Since all components on the main board have
been developed specifically by nVidia, you will find Windows XP does not automatically
install any drivers. At least not with service pack 1.
The bios of the K7NCR18D- Pro is feature enriched offering just about everything
an extreme PC guru could ever want in a board. To a novice, the bios may seem
at some what intimidating but after you get the feel for it, I am sure you will
fall in love. The front side bus and memory frequency can be adjusted asynchronously.
The manufacturer suggests setting it to synchronous for best performance. I
found, I could achieve better results running each setting independent from
the other. The only setting I failed to find was a multiplier adjustment.
| Test System Specs |
| CPU |
AMD Athlon XP 1700+ Processor |
| Motherboards |
Leadtek WinFast K7NCR18D- Pro |
| Memory |
Corsair Micro XMS3200 DDR DRAM 2 x 256MB |
| Hard Drive |
40 GIG Maxtor D740X (FL) |
| Video Card |
Asus TI4400 |
| Video Drivers |
30.82 |
| Operating System |
Windows XP w/ Service Pack 1 |
|
All of the following tests were run at default CPU settings and then reran
again at 1738 MHZ (CPU @ 158 MHz /Memory @ 394MHz) I was very happy with this
achievement. I have been unable to run this particular CPU higher on any Via
based test bed. No other adjustments were made to achieve these results.
|
