Summary: Technology Leader And Potential Trendsetter
When it comes to CPU conversion, the PF88 can turn into an Athlon 64 system with the help of the A9S sister board. This configuration behaves more or less as expected. But ECS must have liked its analysis of how well the A9S sister board holds up against other alternatives over time to have invested in this design. In addition, we proved through observation that for inexperienced users the conversion process is no faster than replacing the motherboard. As an unpleasant extra, we also observed that inserting the A9S sister board doesn’t disable the P4 Northbridge, which thus wastes energy and produces unnecessary heat.
But the PF88 does have its good points. Among the options available, this motherboard lets users run a P4 system with HyperThreading today if that makes more sense than using an Athlon 64.
The conversion to a dual-core Pentium D isn’t possible today. But that’s also probably less interesting than switching to a dual-core Athlon, which will soon be available with clock rates up to 2.2 GHz. Indeed, comparable Intel chips with top speeds of 3.2 GHz (and higher power consumption) may not be able to outperform a dual-core Athlon architecture anyway.
To complicate matters somewhat, the advantage shifts when memory comes into the picture : While DDR2-533 or DDR2-667 work with the P4 as soon as it’s installed, you must buy DDR400 memory to use the A9S sister board. Then too, there are only two DIMM sockets on the A9S, as compared to four on most modern motherboards.
However, the PF88 Extreme still remains a commendable motherboard with plenty of new features and a technically interesting conversion capability that allows you to add an Athlon 64 processor. Conversion is presumably an option that will be exercised only seldom, however, because its high cost offsets the advantages.
Despite all this, we see the PF88 primarily as an interesting, future-friendly technology play. What’s better than a two component system with standard connections (such as PCI Express) in which the processor type and memory can be changed out later on ? Its success could prove once and for all that North- and Southbridge chipsets should indeed be tied together, e.g. using PCI Express. We also think that certain vendors may seek to dispel this approach with all their might. Though the jury’s out on the final outcome, the resulting fracas should be interesting to watch !
