Albatron

The board which fascinated me most at Albatron was the PX975X. It has a lot of unique features that make the board very interesting for overclockers. It will also be a limited edition only. Look at all those features - 7-phase power, 10 SATA ports!.


Two ATX powersupplies can be connected to this board. There is a special circuit which makes sure that if one PSU is defective it can not break the board or the other PSU.


I'm told that the small metal MOSFETs are much better for power conversion and also do not get as hot as traditional ones.


This black BGA chip is the motherboard's clockgenerator. This is the first time that I see a clockgenerator product from Timelab. Their "Timing Processor Units (TPU) generate six independent clock signals, replacing numerous PLL-based chips, crystals and oscillators in a wide range of electronic products. Each clock frequency is generated by its own synthesizer circuit, allowing the performance, battery drain and heat production of each subsystem to be individually optimized—no more compromises forced by the limited set of clock frequencies of PLL-based designs." In all other clock generators found today on motherboards there is a single clock source which is multiplied and divided to get to the final clock. This seems to be a much more flexible solution.


Intel will release new chipsets soon which support the Conroe CPUs. Albatron has several boards using these chipsets. The first is the PXP965

• Intel LGA775, Intel P965
• 4x DDR2 DIMM
• 2x PCI-E x16, 1x PCI-E x1, 2x PCI
• 6x SATA, 2x UDMA
• 1x Broadcom GigE
• 10x USB 2.0

With integrated VGA the PXQ965 could become a good choice for office systems.

• Intel LGA775, Intel Q965
• 4x DDR2 DIMM
• 2x PCI-E x16, 1x PCI-E x1, 2x PCI
• 6x SATA, 2x UDMA
• 1x Broadcom GigE
• 10x USB 2.0

Another integrated VGA solution is the PXG965.

• Intel LGA775, Intel Q965
• 4x DDR2 DIMM
• 2x PCI-E x16, 1x PCI-E x1, 2x PCI
• 6x SATA, 2x UDMA
• 1x Broadcom GigE
• 10x USB 2.0

Pentium M everywhere - Albatron has engineered the PM945GT with support for the Core Solo/Duo processors.
With integrated VGA the PXQ965 could become a good choice for office systems.

• Intel Core Solo/Duo, i945GT
• 2x DDR2 SODIMM
• Integrated VGA with TV out
• 1x Intel GigE

Using the aged Socket754 the KI51PV offers to be a complete small form factor solution on a Mini-ITX form factor.

• AMD Socket754, NVIDIA GeForce 6150
• 1x DDR DIMM
• NVIDIA Integrated VGA, DVI, Analog, HDTV out.
• 1x PCI
• 4x SATA, 2x UDMA
• 1x Marvell GigE, 1x Marvell 10/100 Ethernet

Equipped with AMD's new socket AM2 the KM51PV-AM2 is offering integrated VGA with HDTV out but on a bigger footprint.

• AMD Socket AM2, NVIDIA GeForce 6150
• 4x DDR-II DIMM
• NVIDIA Integrated VGA, DVI, Analog, HDTV out.
• 1x PCI-E x16, 1x PCI-E x1, 2x PCI
• 4x SATA, 2x UDMA
• 1x Marvell 10/100 Ethernet

Similar to the previous board but not using integrated VGA is the K8NF4X-AM2

• AMD Socket AM2, NVIDIA nForce4
• 4x DDR-II DIMM
• 1x PCI-E x16, 2x PCI-E x1, 2x PCI
• 4x SATA, 2x UDMA
• 1x Broadcom 10/100 Ethernet

This small case is an application of the KI51PV motherboard in an Albatron made case. Right now Albatron is talking to system integrators for marketing this as a complete solution.


Also on display were NVIDIA video cards following the reference design, including the latest 7600 and 7900 models. However, Albatron is focusing more on motherboards at the moment than on bringing out customized video cards.