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