Albatron KX18D Pro II Motherboard

Albatron KX18D Pro II Motherboard

Manufacturer:	Albatron
Product:	KX18D Pro II
Availability:	Immediately
Author:
Date:	10-6-2003
Price:	$110

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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

Specifications

Albatron KX18D Pro II Specifications

Features		AMD Athlon™ / Athlon™XP / Athlon™XP Barton/ Duron™Processor Socket 462 with FSB 200/266/333/400+(by over clocking)MHz 3 DDR400/DDR333/266/200 Memory Sockets AGP 8X , 6 channel AC 97 Audio 2 ATA133 Channels, up to 4 ATA 133 IDE Devices nForce2 MCP-T 10/100 Ethernet LAN 2 Serial ATA150 Channels, Serial ATA RAID 0,1 (Software) 2 IEEE1394a Ports 6 USB 2.0/1.1 Ports (4 ports by optional cable) BIOS Mirror ™ Voice Genie™ Chipset with Hyper-Transport Technology Bundle SPDIF Card ( optional
Processor		AMD Athlon™/Athlon™XP/ Athlon™XP Barton/ Duron™Processor
FSB		200/266/333/400+(by overclocking)MHz
Chipset		North Bridge: NVIDIA nForce2 SPP (Ultra 400) South Bridge: NVIDIA nForce2 MCP-T LAN Chip : LAN PHY ICS1893AF IEEE1394 Chip : TI IEEE1394A TSB41AB2PAP PAP-64 Audio Codec: Realtek ALC650 Serial ATA Chip :Silicon Image Sil3112A I / O Chip : Winbond W83627HF
Memory		3 x DDR Sockets: DDR400/DDR333/266/DDR200 NON-ECC DDR SDRAM up to 3GB (Single Channel) up to 2GB (Dual Channel)
Expansion Slots		1 x AGP 3.0 8X/4X slot (1.5V & 0.8 V Only) 6 x PCI slots (PCI 2.2 compliant)
IDE Connectors		2 ATA133 channels, up to 4 ATA 133 IDE Devices
Onboard I/O Connectors		1 x Floppy Connector 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 header (4 ports USB cable optional) 2 x IEEE1394 header (2 ports IEEE1394 cable optional) 1 x CD_IN header 1 x COM Port header 1 x S/PDIF in/out header (S/PDIF in/out cable optional) 1 x CPU fan header with fan rotation detection function 1 x System fan headers with fan rotation detection function 1 x10 pin system panel header (Intel spec) 1 x 3 pin Power LED header 1 x 4 pin Speaker header 1 x Front audio header (Intel spec) 1 x Casedetection header 1 x Wake on LAN
I/O via Back Panel		PS/2 keyboard/mouse 2 x USB(2.0/1.1) RJ45 ,1 x Com(serial) 1 x Parallel 1x Game/Line-in/Line-out/MIC
Power		20-pin ATX power connector
BIOS Features		4 Mb Flash EEPROM Award BIOS with ACPI, DMI2.0, PnP, WfM2.0, Green Suspend to RAM (S3), Suspend to Disk (S4) Wake on keyboard / Mouse, Wake on LAN/RTC Timer
Hardware Monitoring		2 FAN sensors, CPU/System voltages and temperature monitoring
Special Features		Zero Jumper Design BIOS Mirror™ Protect BIOS by creating an original mirror image of itself Voice Genie ™ Voice Troubleshooting system ( four-Language ) Adjustable CPU and AGP frequency by 1 MHz increment, Adjustable Vcore, VAGP, VMemory for overclocking. Special design for CPU Over Temperature Protection.( OTP )
Certifications		FCC,CE, BSMI
Form Factor		ATX (244*305 mm)

Setup and Installation:

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Installing this motherboard went without any problems at all. The KX18D Pro II fit rather well into the mid sized tower. The only thing you probably would want to do in order to save your self a headache is install your CPU and heatsink/fan before you install the motherboard in your tower due to the 462 socket tabs that your heat sink clips on to running north and south like we mentioned earlier. After installing everything and following the motherboard guide to hooking up the front header panel connections, it was time to power up. During the startup sequence I was first greeted with the BIOS screen. I did not hear any error messages from the talking BIOS saying something like, "Your AGP card may have a problem". The talking BIOS is really a great idea. If you install anything wrong with your system, it will tell you at POST and will keep repeating the message until you power down and correct the problem.

BIOS Screen 1 - Main
BIOS Screen 2 - Advanced
BIOS Screen 3 - Peripherals
BIOS Screen 4 - Power
BIOS Screen 5 - HW Monitor
BIOS Screen 6 - Defaults
BIOS Screen 7 - Frequncy / Voltage Control
BIOS Screen 8 - Advanced Chipset Features

Albatron uses the Phoenix Award BIOS, and it is loaded with every option that you can think of. It allows you crank the chipset voltage up to 1.9V, DDR Voltage to 3.00, AGP to 1.8v and CPU voltage to a ridiculously high voltage of 2.650. If you're not into messing around with your BIOS, then there are very user friendly automatic settings. I ran the memory settings in semi-automatic turbo mode which allowed me to set my front side bus at 200MHz. I then set the multiplier at 11 for a final overclocked frequency of 2200MHz, which is the same as the XP 3200+. The CPU which was used during testing was and AMD Athlon 2500+ Barton core which overclocks with ease to a 3200+ without the need to increase the voltage to the processor.