ASUS Blitz Extreme and Formula (Intel P35)
Author:
Date: 25.09.2007
|
|
Layout and Features
We have already disclosed the traits of these boards (regarding the water block and the additional Crosslinx chip), so we are drawing your attention to the general similarity of Formula and Extreme makes.
In fact, the only difference is about the type of the DIMM slots, for various memory standards. In all the remaining aspects, the boards are almost identical to one another and therefore they are of similar traits, especially in terms of system assembly. Actually, no problems will come up for the assembly operator: the latches of DIMM slots are not blocked by a PCI Express video card. The power connectors are positioned in a smart way over the board's edges: 24-pin - on the bottom edge, with a 8-pin on the right-hand. We note that the boards have retained a backward compatibility to the "old" PSUs, e.g. with 20+4 cables. At the same time, the unused pins of the additional connector are closed with a plastic lid:
Near the CPU socket, there is a 4-pin CPU_FAN connector for a matching cooler.
Besides it, there are seven (!) more 3-pin connectors: PWR_FAN - near the rear panel, CHA_FAN1, CHA_FAN4 - near the north bridge, CHA_FAN2, OPT_FAN2 - near the south bridge, CHA_FAN1 - near DIMM slots, and OPT_FAN1 - in the left-hand corner of the board.
On the north bridge of the Extreme board, there is a water block connected to the radiator on the power supply module using a heat pipe. Also, using the heat pipe the heat from the south bridge is transferred to the north bridge. The south bridge is a "terminal station" for heat from the additional Crosslinx chip, which is also transferred with a heat pipe.
Note that on both radiators on the power supply module you can install turbine fans which come as bundled items. To install the fan on a narrower radiator, a plastic adapter is used.
Of course, we did not miss a chance to use the water block as per its intended purpose. To that end, we put out a Poseidon water-powered cooling system from the warehouse, which was purchased far back in 2002 and at that time it provided a really good level of cooling the processors. Surprisingly, the system started up without any issues (even despite the five-year-old water :).
As a result, at FSB = 500 MHz and Vdd = 1.6 V the temperature of the north bridge did not exceed 50 C. As regards the temperature of the south bridge and the Crosslinx chip, they stayed within admissible limits (you could safely put your finger on the radiator without any fear of burning).
Under the north bridge of the Extreme version motherboard, there are four slots for DDR3 (DDR3-800/1066/1333) memory partitioned into two groups of two slots in each. The first two slots refer to the first controller channel, with the other two to the second controller.
On the Formula version motherboard, the configuration of memory slots is the same, except that DDR2 is used. The maximum memory capacity is 8 GB. Once voltage is applied to the board, the Power and Reset buttons turn illuminated (their illumination is still on when the system is in the stand-by mode).
On each of the boards, there are two PCI Express x16 slots (both with latches) which are meant for video cards.
Using the additional Crosslinx chip, the engineers at ASUS managed to bypass the inner limitation of Intel P35 chipset, because of which only 2 or 4 PCI Express bus lanes are allocated to the second PCI Express x16 slot. Now on the Blitz series motherboards, if two video cards are installed, there occurs a symmetrical distribution of of the bus lanes: 8 per each slot. Apart from the listed slots, each of the boards uses two "regular" PCI slots, two PCI Express x1, as well as one slot for the SupremeFX II sound card.
Both the motherboards use the ICH9R south bridge with a radiator. Therefore, the boards support 6 SerialATA II ports and allow merging disks into RAID arrays of levels 0,1,5, and 10.
To get support for the ParallelATA, we had to install additional chips onto the boards. In particular, the JMB368 chip is needed for the Formula version,
and on the Extreme version - JMB363 which also supports a couple of SerialATA II devices. Both the matching ports are brought over to the rear panel of the board. In the end, the user can plug eight hard disks (6 SATA + 2 PATA) in to the Formula version board, and 10 (8 SATA + 2 PATA) - to the Extreme version board.
Then, the boards use 12 USB2.0 ports: six ports on the rear panel, with 6 more plugged in with plates (the board comes bundled with 1 plate for 2 ports).
Besides, the motherboards support the IEEE1394 ("Firewire"). For that, there is an additional onboard VT6308P controller made by VIA.
Therefore, the boards offer support for 2 Firewire ports: one mounted on the rear panel, with the other one connected with a plate (available in the package bundle). Near this chip, there is one of two Gigabit LAN controllers - Marvell 88E8001. The second controller, 88E8056, also made by Marvell, is installed near the rear panel.
Then - on the Formula and Extreme boards the audio subsystem Intel High Definition Audio is implemented as a separate board:
with AD1988B used as the codec.
The board's rear panel has a somehow nonstandard configuration:
As we can see, engineers at ASUS have completely given up support for the LPT port and COM ports. Nor there is a PS/2 connector to plug in a mouse. On the other hand, USB 2.0 ports are in abundance; there are two SerialATA II (on the Extreme version only), and a Firewire, as well as an optical and coaxial SP-DIF output. Besides, the special trait of the rear panel is in the button for clearing the CMOS settings, as well as a special connector to plug in the LCD Poster diagnostic device:
But you can clear the CMOS with the button only if the CLRTC_SW jumper is set to the right position (the jumper itself is positioned near the south bridge).
Now move on to examining additional features. First, it is the diagnostic LCD Poster screen which displays the current status of system boot-up, and upon successful completion of boot-up it displays the current time. As compared to the previous boards of the Republic of Gamers series, this device is more convenient than the LCD screen on the rear panel. The LCD Poster has a long enough cable, which allows bringing it closer to the user.
The second trait of these boards is about the Power, Reset, and Clear CMOS buttons.
The third trait is very interesting - on the board, there are five groups of LEDs: CPU LED, Memory LED, NB LED, SB LED, and FSB Frequency LED. The first four include three LEDs: red, yellow, and green. Depending on the voltage applied to each of the components, one of the LEDs lights up. For example: if Vcore is within 1.1V to 1.5V, the green one lights up (i.e., the voltage is normal), is it is within 1.5125V to 1.69375V - yellow LED is on (the voltage is excessive), and finally, if within 1.7V to 1.9V, the red LED is on, thus signaling to the potentially dangerous voltage. The FSB Frequency LED group is made up of five blue LEDs which indicate an approximate FSB range on overclocking.
Now on to the BIOS settings.
Next
 |
Content: |
 |
|
|
Top Stories: |
|
 |
|
MoBo:
|
|
|
|
VGA Card:
|
|
|
|
CPU & Memory:
|
|
|
