Intel D815EPFV Review :: Features

The D815EPFV Desktop Board from Intel is based on the new 815EP chipset and comes equipped with an abundance of onboard features that should be very appealing to many different types of users because of its flexibility. The four new 815E/P options are D815EFV Fayetteville (microATX) with and without graphics and D815EEA2 Easton 2 (Full size ATX) with and without graphics. The only difference between Easton 2 and Fayetteville is that Easton 2 has two more PCI slots (making it a full ATX).

Well balanced and designed, the D815EPFV is a Micro ATX form factor motherboard that has an adjustable 100/133MHz FSB that auto adjusts itself to the appropriate clock and FSB speed, which makes for an easy setup for the beginner who may be confused with jumpers being used to control those functions.

Supporting a wide range of CPUs based on the Socket 370 FC-PGA interface, the D815EPFV chipset can take advantage of both the Celeron and Pentium III processors from speeds of 533MHz through 1000MHz. With the wide range of CPU options available on this motherboard, selecting the right one for your needs should be a simple task. And you can start out with a low priced CPU and upgrade as your finances dictate, which is very important to most users.

Utilizing standard SDRAM of the PC100/PC133 variety means savings in the current market as memory prices are at an all-time low. They are almost giving away SDRAM at the moment, so that should keep the total cost down to an affordable level, which is another indirect bonus. This will be a serious factor taken into consideration for those who are on a tight budget and need solid reliable performance at an affordable cost.

The D815EPFV has three DIMM sockets supporting a total of 512MB, which is based on using three 128 Meg chips in your configuration, and is quite enough for most user applications. If you are running a 66MHz FSB Celeron processor your RAM will be running at 100MHz whether you are using PC100 or PC133 SDRAM, so don\'t freak if when running the Celeron CPU your RAM says it is not PC133 but PC100.

There are three PCI slots and one 4X universal AGP slot for your inline card expansion options, which should be enough for most system applications. The EP version of the 815 chipset is different in one aspect than its sister the 815E. The EP signifies the pro version of the chipset series, and it has omitted the onboard video than is built on to the standard 815E chipset in order to provide flexibility to customers, so you don't have to pay for graphics if you don't want them.

This should appeal to those who cringe at the thought of having onboard video on their motherboard, although I always have thought that having a video solution onboard makes for a very flexible solution and was never a down point for the motherboard in my eyes. Like most motherboards there are one each PS2 keyboard and mouse ports along with the standard parallel and COM ports.

The D815EPFV features two independent Ultra ATA100 controllers that are backwards compatible with ATA33/66 standard drives and can be used to control up to four devices at one time. Your system configuration can consist of two master and two slave devices, and always remember that the default speed of your IDE chain is dictated by the slowest drive on your chain.

What this means is if you hook up a slower than Ultra ATA100 drive as a slave drive off of your primary hard drive it will run at the slower drive\'s default speed, completely degrading your hard drive\'s potential speed. I see this happen all the time, even being done by paid professionals who do not have a clue what they are doing and are still taking your money.

For the audio portion of your multimedia experience the D815EPFV comes equipped with the SoundMAX 2.0 sound solution from Analog Devices, which can produce excellent sound. This is a very feature-rich 3D audio environment for the listener, and has very good Doppler shift effects creating a stimulating 3D gaming experience that tries to shape sounds so that they sound more natural and warm.

This is a much brighter and more robust sound solution than either the Yamaha or Creative onboard solutions being offered on most motherboards. The SoundMAX 2.0 utilizes the AC97 Codec and has support for Creative Labs\' EAX and Aureal\'s A3D standards. This should be a satisfactory sound solution for most users, as games, music and DVD movies all perform exceptionally well with a high level of sound quality that can also be used for Web conferencing and voice recognition with great efficiency.

The Intel series of motherboards come with many advanced features such as the Rapid BIOS Boot, which greatly reduces the average start of time of your system when using Windows Millennium as the operating system. The average boot time can be cut literally in half if using this chipset feature in combination with the ME OS over the standard chipset time using a Windows 98 configuration, which can be beneficial when installing hardware or software requiring multiple reboots.

There is also a hardware monitoring function which comes standardon the D815EPFV motherboards called Intel Active Monitor. Such tasks as keeping track of system and CPU temperatures as well as the processor and system fan RPM speeds are all available to view through a Windows based interface, enabling you to insure your system is running within normal parameters.

This is a very nice motherboard from Intel. There are four onboard USB adapters on the back panel and an onboard connector for two more, which makes for a very expandable solution for using external USB devices such as Joysticks, cameras, mice and keyboards you may wish to use with your system. With this many available USB options, you will most likely never need to buy an additional USB hub for your devices.

There is also onboard a 10/100 Ethernet card, making this a very flexible motherboard right out of the gate and keeping the total cost of your system down by about a $100.00 US. a substantial amount in these budget tightening times. You also have for features on the D815EPFV the (IAPC) Instantly Available PC feature, which allows a Wake On LAN option, which lets your computer go into sleep mode but allows other computers on your network to access and Wake up your system, so to speak, from its sleep mode.

All in all this is a good presentation from the Intel folks, as it has many features that allow multiple system configurations allowing for a large variety of uses and applications. Prices of CPUs will be falling again very soon, making the PIII an affordable entry level platform on which to base your computer needs. This should make for an interesting next quarter, as Intel shifts gears and moves forward in a more dominating presence in the low- and mid-level market, a market they once dominated without rival or peer. Let\'s move on to the next phase of this review: the setup and testing. Read on to see how this board installed and performed in our tests.

Package Content

Pre-production prototype of the D815EPFV and the driver CD. Customers purchasing this at retail would receive an I/O shield and all necessary cables, quick start guide and drivers CD featuring Intel Express Installer.