Motherboard Review Schedule

[Gary Key]

Here we go... the first two are basically complete and going through edits now and hoping we can include HD-DVD images on the 690G, the others are in the final phases of document generation.

01-14 - AMD Gala - Almost there, had a million problems from HT 3.0 not clocking up well (hint, its not pretty right now) to losing 8800GT and 3870 video cards right and left (hint, do not clock the memory too high). ***Figured out NFID settings, new BIOS releases, finally got Phenom to do something
*** Boards and CPUs are finally working together, I killed two CPUs and a couple of boards with high Vdimm settings, AMD recommends not to run memory voltages higher than 2.2V.*** BIOS' are up to speed, full Phenom numbers across all mATX/ATX boards/chipsets


01-02 - X38 Roundup, have the BoneTrail arriving early next week. MSI and Foxconn boards also arrived and testing is complete. **DFI** DDR2 board coming now, arrives on the 27th, X48 pushed out to late January, initial results show no real changes except for top end overclocking. *** abit board melted a PLL chip, its out!!!, testing finished under Vista64 and new benches, plus 8GB testing, writing now*** **** Bonetrail died, the Foxconn board now has a new BIOS that works with Penryn correctly, abit board died under heavy overclocking, digital PWM is not good with high clocks on the Quad Cores. ***Raja and Kris will start X38/X48 reviews on 01/02/08, one or two per week....****


**Start on 12/5 with the MSI Neo2FR - Budget P35 Boards to include four boards. Out of these, we have winners with the Gigabyte DS3L, MSI Neo2FR, and abit IP35E, all three boards should suit 90%+ of the users... ** Appears IP35E is being replaced by the IP35V, not good... **** Update, abit is keeping the IP35-E in production, we will give Editor's awards to the Gigabyte DS3L and abit IP35-E here shortly.

Updates - Sorry about the lack of information, been taking care of my daughter who was recently diagnosed with cancer and is undergoing treatments at this time. *** 11/20 ** Unfortunately, she had to undergo surgery again today and I will be away tomorrow and Thursday. *** 11/25*** We are back, good news, surgeries removed all tumors, up to radiation treatments to knock out the rest. Back to a full schedule of activities now. ***11/28*** Radiation treatments started today, everything looks good as no new growths were detected, Could not be a happier Father right now and my mind is clear to write.***12/6*** still no new cancer cells, but a lot of lost hair... **** 12/18, things turned a lot worse last week, but appears to be headed back in the right direction. *** I am back at work as of today. 01/03/08***

 

[SerpentRoyal]

What happened to the rest of the P35 boards? Show down between the big boys and sub $100 P35s? Not sure if many are crazy about X38 with X48 just around the corner and quality DDR3 still in the stratosphere.

 

[ShoNuff]

Gary do you have any plans to put the Asus Striker II Formula under the microscope? If not the Striker II what about the new 780i board from Nvidia?

I really interested in your results as I hope Nvidia has worked out the memory bandwidth issues with Quad core overclocking in the new chipset.

 

[jonmcc33]

Thanks for the Abit IP35 review! Looking forward to it! People really need to know about this gem of a motherboard.

 

[buddhatb]

What ever happened to the P35 round-up review you guys were working on?

 

[LR6]

I have been looking for the P35 round-up, it seems to keep getting delayed. But the same thing is happening to the plans to finance my new PC. It well be interesting to see what comes first.

 

[FireTech]

Thanks for the update Gary, looking forward to the 5th....

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: FireTech
looking forward to the 5th....

... of which month?

 

[imported_Kreed]

What's happened to the NV7050 roundup? Has it been dropped from the schedule?

 

[JKing76]

So, about the 690G roundup...

 

[nidhoggr]

11/7 - AMD 690G Roundup*** ???

 

[trinislacker]

the 7th isn't up yet but look at this

11/6 - ASUS Maximus Formula - OC Centric/BIOS setup Guide

i would assume this would come before the 690G roundup

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: trinislacker
the 7th isn't up yet but look at this

It is now.

 

[imported_Kreed]

Do the words "Professional Integrity" mean anything to Anandtech? How often have we seen schedules come out only to be disappointed the day the review is meant to be up? I've lost count.

 

[JKing76]

I think its obvious that Anandtech's reviews can no longer be trusted. If the motherboards have problems, you release your review and indicate such. The only reason to constantly delay reviews is to cover for the manufacturers.

 

[Raja1]

You can blame part of the delay in the recent schedule on me. As part of the Maximus review, it was decided to revisit the DFI board for a cross comparison of FSB's using the Anandtech test suite. Both Gary and myself worked tirelessly through this week to get the article up edited and ready for post, this put Gary's schedule back a bit as a result (I owe him big time for the stress). With emphasis being put into BIOS guides as part of the performance board reviews, it takes a little longer to explore each of the settings to establish the guidelines of their use. Sorry for the delays folks...

The Asus Maximus review is up now, from what I can see around the web it's probably the most comprehensive test of the board to date. It does take a little longer to do this. You will also notice we stuck with the 0505 BIOS, and did not move over to the newer files that were posted up, so there was no delays waiting for fixes while we tested and prepared the article. Over the coming months I'd expect things will speed up a little as the team as far as I can tell has been extended....

regards and sorry..

Raja Gill

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: Raja1
You can blame part of the delay in the recent schedule on me. As part of the Maximus review, it was decided to revisit the DFI board for a cross comparison of FSB's using the Anandtech test suite. Both Gary and myself worked tirelessly through this week to get the article up edited and ready for post, this put Gary's schedule back a bit as a result (I owe him big time for the stress). With emphasis being put into BIOS guides as part of the performance board reviews, it takes a little longer to explore each of the settings to establish the guidelines of their use. Sorry for the delays folks...

The Asus Maximus review is up now, from what I can see around the web it's probably the most comprehensive test of the board to date. It does take a little longer to do this. You will also notice we stuck with the 0505 BIOS, and did not move over to the newer files that were posted up, so there was no delays waiting for fixes while we tested and prepared the article. Over the coming months I'd expect things will speed up a little as the team as far as I can tell has been extended....

regards and sorry..

Raja Gill

X38 is a ho hum chip. Leaks about its performance came out last month. Why elevate this review to top priority when you have nothing new to add? P35 remains the chipset of choice among overclockers.

 

[Raja1]

the Maximus board has actually been selling quite well, maybe not quite as well as P35 boards. At least one full review needed to be up...

regards
Raja

 

[BernardP]

I am looking forward the the NV 7150 review. I know a couple of people who are looking to get a low-cost box for general use without gaming. I can help them configure a basic system, but it's always nice to know which mobo is the most stable and trouble-free.

I have read the mATX 7150 reviews on Newegg, and it seems most of the mobos are having teething troubles.

 

[JAH]

I am looking forward to the 7150 roundup as well. Wondering what is the biggest hindrance to their respective platform: the lack of DVI/HDMI support on the G33 or the lack of dual-channel memory support on the 7150?

 

[JKing76]

So here it is, more than a week past the REVISED schedule, and still no 690G roundup in sight. Instead, we've gotten an article about X48, an acknowledgedly pointless review titled "Much Ado About Nothing". Awesome priorities.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: JKing76
So here it is, more than a week past the REVISED schedule, and still no 690G roundup in sight. Instead, we've gotten an article about X48, an acknowledgedly pointless review titled "Much Ado About Nothing". Awesome priorities.

The schedule slipped again last time to make room for a dog-and-pony review of X38. We didn't learn anything new from that article. Performance is still on par with P35.

 

[Redstorm]

Alais we dont see any nForce 780A boards , that were due out on the 12th of November.

 

[Raja1]

the dates have been updated in the first post..

 

[Skott]

I enjoy reading Gary's reviews but for some time now I dont believe anything he says about schedules and dates of when reviews will be posted. The only advice I can suggest to readers here is not to believe his dates and schedules either. He's been wrong too many times for a long while now. Complaining doesnt seem to make a difference either. isgust;