Introduction

I would like to thank Elitegroup for supplying us with the tested motherboard.

The ECS PF88 Extreme is a unique motherboard. It offers users the possibility to purchase CPU add-in cards, called SIMA cards which allow to run a completely different CPU architecture on that motherboard.

At the moment SIMA cards are available for Intel Pentium M Socket 479, AMD Socket 754 and AMD Socket 939. Together with the on-board Socket LGA 775 this means that you can run any mainstream CPU available today.

In order to make the board competitive in price, ECS chose to use the SIS 656 chipset on this board. A chipset from SIS is a lot cheaper to purchase than chipsets from Intel or NVIDIA.


The SIS chipset offers the whole range of features you would expect from a modern chipset like PCI-Express x16 for graphics, eight USB ports and four SATA ports in addition to two IDE ports. For networking, motherboard manufacturers have to use a PHY chip which handles Ethernet. ECS offers Gigabit speeds here.

Features

Specifications from ECS

CPU

• LGA775 socket for latest Intel Pentium 4 / Celeron D processor
• FSB 1066/800/533 MHz
• Support Hyper-Threading Technology

CHIPSET

• SiS® 656 & 965
• North Bridge: SiS® 656
• South Bridge: SiS® 965

MEMORY

• Dual-channel DDR2 memory architecture
• 4 x 240-pin DDR2 DIMM socket support up to 4 GB
• Support DDR2 667/533/400 DDR2 SDRAM

EXPANSION SLOT

• 2 x PCI Express x16 slots
• 1 x PCI Express x1 slot
• 1 Elite Bus slot
• 3 x PCI slots

STORAGE

• Supported by SiS 965
• -- 2 x Ultra DMA133/100/66 devices
• -- 4 x Serial ATA devices
• RAID0, RAID1& RAID 0+1 configuration
• Supported by SiI3132
• -- 2 x Serial ATAII 3.0Gb/s devices
• RAID0, RAID1& e-SATA configuration

AUDIO

• Realtek ALC850 8-channel audio CODEC
• Compliant with AC'97 2.3 specification

IEEE 1394a

• VIA® VT6307, support 2x IEEE1394a ports

LAN

• Marvell 88E1111 Giga LAN PHY

REAR PANEL I/O

• 1 x PS/2 keyboard & PS/2 mouse connectors
• 4 x USB ports
• 1 x RJ45 LAN connector
• 1 x 1394a connector
• 2 x Serial ports (COM1 & COM2)
• 1 x Parallel port (LPT)
• 1 x Audio port (Line-in,4x Line-out, Mic_in)

INTERNAL I/O CONNECTORS & HEADERS

• 1 x 24-pin ATX Power Supply connector
• 1 x 4-pin ATX 12V connector
• 1 x FDD connector supports two 360K~2.88MB FDDs
• 1 x IrDA for SIR header
• 1 x Speaker header
• 1 x 1394a header
• 2 x USB 2.0 headers support additional 4 USB Ports
• 6 x Serial ATA connectors
• 1 x Front panel switch/LED header
• 1 x Front panel audio header
• 1 x CD in header
• CPUFAN/NB_FAN/SYSFAN/PWR_FAN connectors

SYSTEM BIOS

• Award BIOS with 4Mb Flash ROM
• Supports Plug and Play 1.0A, APM 1.2, Multi Boot, DMI
• Supports ACPI revision 1.0 specification

FORM FACTOR

• ATX Size, 305mm*244mm