ECS PF22 Extreme Review - PAGE 1

At times it is difficult for us gamers and computer enthusiasts to remember that not only is Intel a player in the processor market, but that they are a major player in the chipset market as well. Humble is a word that comes to mind when I think of Intel’s chipset releases -- especially the relatively recent i945/i955 series.

These Pentium 4 chipsets were the first Intel chipsets to add official support for the dual-core Pentium D processors, 1066 MHz front-side buses, and DDR2-667. Bundled with Intel's ICH7R south-bridge, the platform as a whole packed quite an impressive feature punch to go along with its snappy performance.

The feature list of Intel's ICH7R includes:

• Up to six PCI-Express x1 slots
• Up to six PCI slots
• Up to two ATA100 devices (only one IDE channel)
• Up to four Serial ATA ports
• SATA II, supporting 300 Mbps, AHCI, NCQ, and RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 (Intel Matrix Storage Technology)
• Up to eight USB 2.0 devices
• High Definition or AC'97 audio (7.1) and MC'97 modem
• Optional Intel PRO/1000 Ethernet and Active Management Technology

With that said, today we are pleased to have the opportunity to review Elitegroup's newest addition to their Intel line-up: The Elitegroup PF22 Extreme. Sporting Intel's latest (as well as a little surprise that we will touch on in a moment), this board belongs to Elitegroup's new enthusiast-oriented line-up. Recently, Elitegroup (or ECS) underwent a change of strategy, and they have been focusing more on the cost-oriented enthusiast market as opposed to the general budget "good-enough" crowd. This change is visible from the packaging, to the board layouts, to the BIOS options available.

Along with the usual things you can expect from a i955X motherboard, Elitegroup's PF22 Extreme also supports ATI's dual-graphics "CrossFire" technology. Similar to NVIDIA's SLI, CrossFire allows users with a PCI-Express Radeon "master" card to boost 3D graphics performance by adding a second compatible ATI graphics card. The low-down on CrossFire is that both cards do their share of work to their fullest capabilities, with the secondary card sending its rendered image to the master card, where the entire image is assembled on the compositing chip before being sent to the display device.

Let's see how Elitegroup's latest creation stacks up against the competition. Will we see the same level of stability and performance that we have witnessed from Elitegroup's other products? Will the PF22 impress us with its tweakability? All of that, and more, remains to be seen. Read on!