ECS C19-A Motherboard

ECS has shipped its first SLI XE Intel motherboard based on

the C-19 XE chipset from nVidia, which supports SLI x16 graphics cards. This

gives the mid-range enthusiasts and professionals, who have any of the Intel 775

LGA processors (including the latest dual core), a chance to use the dual SLI

graphics card. The Intel SLI XE chipset is the latest from the nVidia stable for

the Intel SLI boards in the mid-range boards.

Price: Rs 6,000 (2 yrs warranty)

Key Specs: LGA 775, X16 SLI, 1 Gb Dual LAN, 8 Channel HDaudio

Contact: CyberStar Infocom, Delhi.Tel: 51629979.Email id: deepak@cyberstarindia.com

RQS# E62 or SMS 130462 to 9811800601

With 1066 FSB and  DDR-2 667 RAM, this motherboard has

a lot of features and expandability options. These include four  DIMM slots

that can support up to 16 GB memory in dual channel, four SATA ports and AC'97

8 channel HD Audio. It has two PCI-E x16 slots that support nVidia SLI cards at

x8/x8 configuration, two PCI-E x1 slots, and three PCI slots. The rear panel

consists of one Gigabit LAN, coaxial and optical S/PDIF, four USB ports, and a

six-port audio jack. The test rig consisted a Pentium-D 840 3.2 GHz, 1 GB RAM,

120 GB SATA hard disk, nVidia 7800 GT, with Win XP SP1. It gave good scores of

36.7 Business WinMarks and an overall 210 for Business Winstone'02 and

Sysmark '04. Internet content creation and office productivity Sysmark scores

were 255 and 173 respectively. 3DMark'05 and PCMark'04 gave impressive

scores of 7439 and 6028 respectively. We stressed the board using real-time

gaming benchmarks of DOOM3 and FEAR and it came with a pretty good frame rates

of 75.7 and 50 at a resolution of 1024x768 (ultra quality for DOOM3). These are

impressive compared to the earlier reviews of the boards in the same league.

Bottom Line: With the scores we obtained in the benchmarks

and the features the board comes with, this is a good buy for the Intel

enthusiasts who wanted an SLI board without burning their pockets.

Abe Kurian