Review ECS P4M800Pro-M poor man's AGP/DDR/DDR2 solution to Intel Core 2 DUO

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ECS P4M800Pro-M - poor man's AGP/DDR/DDR2 solution to Intel Core 2 DUO/Extreme

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http://www.ocworkbench.com/2006/ecs/...-m-v2.0/g1.htm

It has been sometime since we review a entry level board. In this review, we take a look at ECS's P4M800Pro-M v2.0. It is a board that utilitises the older VIA P4 chipset that supports single memory channel. P4M800Pro-M as its name already indicates is based on the VIA integrated video chip P4M800Pro that comes with Integrated S3 UniChrome Pro 2D/3D Graphics. This chipset is a bit dated but ECS used it and paired it up with 8237R+ south bridge to rise its 'value'. Not only does it support the large range of LGA775 1066/800/533 FSB series of Intel processors. It can also support the new series of Intel Core 2 Duo and Extreme processors namely the Intel E6XXX series of processors.

ECS understands that most users are not ready to fork out large sums of money to buy the latest hardware. This board gives you the flexibility to use back your old DDR400 sticks instead of the more expensive DDR2 modules. As mentioned earlier, it comes with built in Integrated S3 UniChrome Pro 2D/3D Graphics which is probably good enough for a entry level PC. The graphics performance can be boosted with an AGP card. It is a pity that a PCIe slot is not implemented to make it future proof.
In the next few pages, we take a look at the options available on board and see how the board performs in DDR vs DDR2 mode.

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Review is online. this board is priced USD 46 .. the cheapest you can find to support Conroe.

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Good review, however I noticed an issue with RAM settings.

I am using the ECS P4M800PRO-M (V2.0) board with the 061004 BIOS. I have a Celeron D 2.8GHz and Kingston HyperX DDR400 512MB RAM, 2-3-2-7, 2.65v.

I noticed in the review that RAM is set to "200MHz" for DDR1. However, when I leave my RAM speed to "Auto" or select "400MHz", it posts with "DDR1: 400MHz".

Could this be why memory bandwidth numbers on page 2 seem low?

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200MHz is DDR400.

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I suspect most of the bandwidth are reserved for the onboard graphics controller. It is not released even if you use an external graphics card.

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I understand that DDR400 RAM runs at 200MHz, double-pumped. While most mainboards that I have come across display actual clock rate, I believe this particular BIOS handles megahertz ratings differently.

I ran the memory bandwidth benchmark in SiSoftware Sandra XI Lite. To avoid using bandwidth for internal graphics, I added a GeForce2 MX400.

By specifying 200MHz memory speed in the BIOS, I get:
RAM Bandwidth Int Buff'd iSSE2 1831MB/s

On the other hand with 400MHz or Auto, I get:
RAM Bandwidth Int Buff'd iSSE2 3351MB/s

I notice a similar effect with Memtest86+.

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Which version of the BIOS are you using? In my test, I used SPD which the board should recognise it as CAS 2, 2-5-5 1T cmd DDR400.

In fact, the same problem happened when we used DDR2 modules too. The memory bandwidth is very low. I wonder why.

Show me screen shots of your CPU_Z and Sandra memory bandwidth test.

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Another thing, are you using this board ECS P4M800Pro-M REV 2?
There seems to be many variations of the same model. Need to verify this.

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CPU-Z + Sandra Memory Bandwidth, 200MHz RAM
CPU-Z + Sandra Memory Bandwidth, 400MHz RAM
Photo of case innards

I am using the latest available BIOS, version 061004.

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btw, which version of sandra are you using?