ECS Motherboards - Photon PF1 review

April 29, 2008

ECS Motherboards - Photon PF1 reviewECS also elected 865PE chipset, like Albatron. However, the photons PF1 motherboard is a relatively slow. We’re talking only two or three percent difference, but most of the designs of Intel are almost identical so it’s a surprise when a motherboard as it slips behind the field.

This is a fairly basic package, but also is incredibly cheap for a motherboard Intel chipset. It’s easy to see that the costs have been reduced as it is a basic design with very few extras, although it has the most important features that are inherent in the design of the chipset. This is the only motherboard that uses Intel ICH5 Southbridge, rather than ICH5R, so it supports two Serial ATA disks, but has no RAID. It’s’ only ‘has two IDE controllers, which is a surprise in this day and age.

Similarly integrated Gigabit LAN, but it is a chip that uses 3Com and not part of Intel. That means you have to connect to the PCI bus in the usual manner while the Intel chip is connected to the Northbridge using an interface called CSA (Communications Streaming Architecture). This means that the network can run faster without slowing the rest of the PC down, despite Gigabit is rather theoretical and now most of us would be grateful for some 10/100.

ECS has used a flashing light in Northbridge fan that would lead us to swim in a case with a window. Maybe someone, somewhere will appreciate, but we’re not so sure about its merits. There are two other USB ports on one arm, along with a mini Firewire port and a second arm carries optical and coaxial SPDIF.

The ECS board offers very good value for money and with so few elements the design is clean and orderly. If the price is the main factor in the ECS has a lot to go.

Written by Admin · Filed Under Hardware 

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