Any chance of fitting the LV Dothan (Pentium 738) in this board?

As far as I know the MicroFCBGA is lower height compared to the normal Banias/Dothan packages.

I wonder if any mods will have to be made to P4 HS to fit.

Yes, the board does look impressive. IRQ control NOT so impressive, but everything else is top notch. I look forward to it's release. I think I'm going to move to a 2.5" in preparation.

Chris

Ack. Never mind.

Just found out that the mfcBGA package is for surface mount only. I thought it was a variant of the new LGA stuff.

Kind of a pity that Intel doesn't release the LV Dothans in PGA packages. I wonder why that is (no target market except SPCR readers? ). If I remember correctly, the Banias LV (not sure about ULV) was available in PGA packaging.

Well, back again to waiting for the first MiniITX board with SMT mounted Dothan LV from Nippon...

Stupid question, but what's the max power draw through a PCI slot? I'm just curious as this board has a lot of stuff on it... I doubt disabling it in BIOS would affect power draw and upgrading to a PCI slot solution will cause more power draw.

Chris

Just picked one of these bad boys up .. very nice indeed

Got it for 28,900JPY which appears to be the cheapest about .. (Have seen cheaper but no stock)

Should get it in my system this weekend

Tora

Tora: What happened to that PFU M-ATX motherboard you bought? How was it?

Have you seen any reviews of the AOpen motherboard in Japan? Are there any other new Pentuim M motherboards on it's way, have you seen any?

I'd be thankful if you helped me out, and I think I'm not the only one here who can't understand Japanese....

The PFU- M-ATX is good board it's pricey at 49,000jpy but I didn't buy it for me I made a AV HTPC for a friend which uses that board

I have also discovered that the Aopen board can't use a normal P4 heatsink without a copper plate ..

http://akiba.ascii24.com/akiba/news/200 ... 3-000.html


Tora

Pentium M 755 @ 2671 MHz with AOpen i855GMEm-LFS.

EDIT:

2800 MHz here.

Both found here. I think it's a news page that will be updated soon and these news disappear.



I'm wondering what the program in the lower right corner is. SpeedStep, Overclocking and fan control in one.

178 x 15 MHz, they have lowered multiplier just like people do with A64. I wonder if you could do the same with a cheaper 1.5 - 1.7 MHz. In the end it's all about getting a good CPU....

Tora, how's it going with your system?

It's AOpens own program that's included. Looks good! I downloaded it just to check if it was the same.
It didn't work on my AXP though... ...strange.

Any word from Aopen on a sample Mike? -Chris

The board has made some appearances in shop listings:

http://www.geizhals.at/deutschland/?fs= ... 0&y=11&in=

Rumoured availability is end of november

Review at GamePC:

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content ... e%5Ftest=1

The review states that the onboard Promise SATA chip supports NCQ

The limited number of boards shipped to Europe seems to have been sold in a single day. The board seems to be out of stock everywhere.

Nice quote from the gamepc article:

"With this in mind, we got to thinking if it would be possible to run the processor at full speed (no clock throttling) with completely passive cooling methods. Turns out that yes, the chip can be run passively, just not with the stock AOpen cooler. The AOpen aluminum alloy cooler simply doesn't have a lot of area to dissipate heat from. When running completely passively, the heat will eventually build up and the core will run at levels which we are too hot for us to feel comfortable with. Since the AOpen board does however support standard Socket-478 cooling systems, we went ahead and slapped on a Zalman CNPS7000-ALCU cooler and simply didn't plug in the fan. This cooler has much more actual heatsink area to absorb heat through, and since it uses a copper core, it can get the heat away from the CPU core faster than AOpen's cooler.

We ran our Pentium-M 2.0 GHz chip passively through a round of processor intensive benchmarks with absolutely no airflow (no fans blowing nearby, not even from the PSU), with just the Zalman CNPS7000-ALCU cooling the CPU. We watched temperatures rise to roughly 65 ° C / 150 ° F, but the temperatures were able to hover around this area and the system retained full stability. We didn't need to clock down the CPU, and the CPU performed just as fantastically passively cooled as it does with an active cooling system."

The gamepc passive test run was outside of an enclosure/case.

Dissipating 20W or more with a passive heatsink in a typical case is not going to work in practice.

However, you could adjust the processor to run in one of the lower p-states (1.5GHz or below), running on a lower voltage.

Another option is using a heatsink/case combination that has been specifically engineered for passive cooling.

I'd be quite intersted in tests/reviews of some typical enclosures combined with either the Aopen or the new DFI board, comparing various passive heatsinks performing in the various p-states (from 600 to 1500+) of the Dothan.

It seems like when the 533 bus and dual channel memory is launched in Feb, this will be able to take on the PIV 3.6 and FX-53/55 well at 27W.

usa buy here.

$267?!@#$?@#$

Nevermind the fact that Pentium M 755 (2GHz) cost more than $400 right now. :rolleyes:

-Ed

Surely an NCU-2000 heatsink would be ideal for this board?

Maybe an ultra-quiet gaming rig might be achievable at long last:

AOpen i855GMEm-LFS ~£140

Nexus NX-3500 ~£40

Intel P4 Mobile 755 2.0GHz ~£231

512MB OCZ DDR333 CL2-2-2-5 ~£70 or
2x512MB Corsair TwinX1024-2700LL DDR333 CL2-2-2-5 ~£212

Scythe NCU-2000 ~£53

Sapphire 128MB 9800 Pro Ultimate or
any other 9800 Pro + Zalman ZM80D-HP ~£38

Samsung Spinpoint PATA + Silentmaxx HD Enclosure

The NCU-2000 should have no trouble cooling the 21W TDP, as it could cope quite easily with an 89W 130nm A64-3000 running CPUburn @ 53C. There would be no case fan; the only fan would be in the PSU, which I know to be quiet combination from my office rig (8TRS300M/Cel2.4/NCU-1000).

Question: Would DDR400 memory work with this mobo, set to run as DDR333?

[EDIT] Answer: It would seem so. From the Game PC review:

Yes, absolutely.

If you were going with a Pentium M, you might be better with a fanless PSU and a quiet HSF.

Well, I'll have some AOpen system info for you all in a couple of days... I bit the bullet and bought the $267 board. I am building a quiet gaming machine to sit beside my Mac G5 (I'm tired of being killed by teens armed with high-powered A64s ). I love OS X, but playing modern games on it is like being in a nightclub with a strobe on! It will share my 20" Apple Cinema Display via an ADC/DVI KVM switch.

I'm putting it in a PSU-modded Antec Aria case, with no additional case fans. I'm using a BFG 6800 OC card with NV5 (hooked to MB power), and the stock HSF. Using Speedstep (Intel's CnQ...), I think the fan will be OFF under normal operation. The CPU only uses 3-4W at its throttled 600Mhz.

I'm using a 1.8 Ghz Dothan CPU. It seems it should overclock on this board to the 2.2-2.4Ghz range (via raised FSB). At 2.4 GHZ, it draws ~22W, versus ~100W for similar performance A64s and P4s! Since I'm exhausting the heat from the 6800, and the cpu is so cool, I think my system temps should be fine. And...at 2.22-2.4 GHZ, it specs out in games at the same level as a 3500+ A64 or 3.4G P4EE! (see http://www.x86-secret.com/articles/cm/dfi855/dfi855-9.htm and http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=dothangaming&page=5 ).

Anyway, this may be a pretty interesting rig -- almost SFF, very quiet, low power, and extremely fast!

I'll report back with some data (I have a killawatt meter too) and photos once everything is up and running...

Rich

Did they actually have it in stock for delivery? (I assume you bought it from the AOpen online store?)

Yes. It was shipped from http://store.myaopen.com on Monday. Gets here this afternoon!!

shelt, I expect you to keep us informed about your machine....

I've read that this mobo (or at least it's BIOS) can't raise Vcore. Is it true?

I read in one thread (that I can't find right now), that it could be raised, but only a small amount. However, it seems that people have been successfully overclocking their Dothans anywere between 1.2x and 1.5x with stock Vcore, so I'm hopefull of a decent boost. They seem to be releasing new BIOS code every few days, so that's a good sign too.

Gee, it seems strange discussing overclocking at SPCR, but it seems like we may have found the best of both worlds!

Yeah, I agree. I still haven't found a reason for overclocking my 2500+, but it's always good to have the option. On the other hand, if this forum was about getting the most silent PC possible we would all be running VIA mini-itx boards.

My old 1.3GHz Banias seems to undervolt quite easily.

As long as it's within it's range.

AOpen 855 mobo comes with a nice Windows utility for overclocking.

Please post pics of your new toy when you get it, Shelt.

Oh, yeah. Apparently a copper shim is required for using P4 heatsinks that use the standard retention bracket.

But you should be able to use any heatsink that uses the mounting holes. Just tighten it down carefully.

-Ed

Just a quick teaser... I received all of my parts today, and everything went together great (using onbard VGA until all set up, then I'll add 6800).

The Aria case worked great, and contrary to published reviews, the AOpen utility, with speedstep functionality, is included on the driver CD. Fan speeds vs temp, and CPU speeds vs load, are all adjustable. Very Cool!! With the case open in my 27C basement, and the AOpen OEM CPU fan set to OFF, it is idleing in WinXP at ~36C after 5 minutes of slow rising. Didn't have time to find equilibrium. Speedstep has the CPU running at 600 Mhz in this mode. With the 80MM fan at 800 RPM, the CPU drops to 28C (ambient!).

The Aria PSU fan is VERY quiet to my ear (at 1100 RPM), and the stock HS+F is extremely small and quiet too. Not sure why you'd need an aftermarket HS unless you are shooting for total passive.

I got an 80GB SATA Samsung (SP0812C 8MB cache) from Newegg -- it has the Nidec motor (yipee!!!!). With the case open and no load, the HDD is by far the loudest thing in the box, and it is very quiet.

I will finish up installation, including the 6800 OC and NV5 tomorrow. Then (after ghosting the HDD...) I'll try to run some performance tests, wattage tests, and fan speed under load tests. Then I'll try my hand at some FSB overclocking. I got decent DDR400 Corsair XMS Ram (2-3-3-6 T1) so it should handle a bit of speed.

Pics.

We demand pics! :p

-Ed