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Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/266
The Socket-370 Celeron CPU has opened new avenues of building cost effective yet high performing Celeron based systems, what was originally limited to a few possibilities for keeping costs low has now turned into a race to build the cheapest motherboard without sacrificing quality. Motherboard manufacturers have reverted to using the remnants of their 440LX chipset supply to drive costs even lower, while others that either have no surplus LX stock or are looking to build "higher-end" solutions will opt for the low cost ZX solution instead of the 440BX base that most Slot-1 Pentium II motherboards find themselves boasting.
Decreasing the overall cost of a system requires that costs be cut in a number of areas, not just one. If you were to skimp on memory size alone, you'd end up with an excellent system that had very little RAM, or if you were to skimp on the quality of your video card you'd end up with a speedy system that can't play games. In an effort to provide users on a budget with an easier time in finding the best way to cut down on the cost of a system, motherboard manufacturers have started integrating many components into their motherboard designs such as video chipsets and sound controllers. While this step, in theory, is a full proof solution to the problem of keeping costs low and quality high, most motherboard manufacturers cut costs themselves in the process of integrating these components, therefore producing lower quality solutions which have received a bad reputation in recent times.
Luckily there is a motherboard manufacturer out there that has finally gotten the hint, and is willing to spend the extra development time in producing a high performance solution with the gamer on a budget in mind. IWill, known for their contributions to the Super7 market with the XA-100 and XA-100+ Aladdin V based solutions as well as their extensive line of Single and Dual Processor Slot-1 motherboards, has jumped on the Socket-370 motherboard bandwagon with their own low-cost solution with integrated sound, the LE370. However this is one of the first motherboards that seems to have a gamer in mind as IWill chose to outfit the board with none other than a gamer's sound solution. How well is the rest of the board? And will it find its way into your next low-cost Celeron based system? Let's find out...
New Anand Tech Report Card Rating 87/B
CPU Interface | Socket-370 |
Chipset | Intel 440LX |
L2 Cache | N/A (on-chip) |
Form Factor | ATX |
Bus Speeds | 66 / 68 / 75 / 83 |
Clock Multipliers | 1.5x - 8.0x |
Voltages Supported | 2.0v - Auto Detect |
Memory Slots | 3 168pin DIMM Slots |
Expansion Slots | 1 AGP
Slot 5 PCI Slots (4 Full Length) 2 ISA Slots (1 Shared / 2 Full Length) |
BIOS | Award BIOS |
The Good
Something is beginning to indicate that Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers need to start spreading their offices out a little more, as the design of the Taiwanese manufactured IWill LE370 is virtually identical to that of most ATX Socket-370 boards of this nature such as the ABIT BM6/ZM6. The layout is pretty much standard when it comes to Socket-370 motherboards, and allows for all components to be easily accessed and manipulated if necessary without worrying about damaging too much while installed in a case. | |
The motherboard's standard size complements its standard 5/2/1 expansion slot configuration (PCI/ISA/AGP) and 3 DIMM slots. The feature set of the board is courtesy of the Intel 440LX chipset, IWill's decision to pursue a LX based design rather than a newer BX or ZX solution was probably inspired by cost constraints of the motherboard and possibly excess supply of LX chipset parts remaining from older motherboards. This should keep the overall cost of the LE370 within a manageable level for a Socket-370 motherboard, and especially since the market is finally beginning to notice a drop in the cost of Socket-370 Celeron processors, a low-cost LE370 would be ideal for any gamer on a budget. |
For those of you that may have forgotten since the days of the 440LX's introduction back in August of 1997, the chipset is essentially the same as the Intel 440BX with one exception, being the lack of support for the 100MHz FSB. The highest ever achieved FSB setting on a 440LX based motherboard was the 92MHz FSB setting of the old ABIT LX6, however the inclusion of that particular setting was a rare fluke in the design process and the highest realistically achievable FSB setting on the LX chipset is the once popular 83MHz FSB frequency. Other than the lack of 100MHz FSB support, the LX chipset is identical to the BX chipset, supporting all of the same features including AGP 2X compliance. Since all Celeron processors planned for release in the near future will require only the 66MHz FSB for proper operation, there is no real need for the 100MHz FSB in a Socket-370 motherboard solution just yet.
As briefly mentioned and alluded to earlier, the LE370 does not feature your standard el-cheapo integrated sound controller, rather it features a fully functional 3D audio controller based on Aureal's Vortex chipset with A3D support. The Aureal Vortex is the same 3D audio controller that gained its popularity when the initial batch of A3D enhanced games were released, now the A3D API has grown to a point where its presence is made known on most of the popular 3D games out there, and it happens to be a technology that truly separates sound cards from 3D audio controllers. Unfortunately, in order to keep costs reasonable, IWill could not outfit the LE370 with a Vortex2 controller (the chip used on the Diamond MX300) for A3D 2.0 support, however the Vortex controller that is on-board does an excellent job of providing integrated 3D audio support at a low-cost. The LE370 is the first motherboard AnandTech has reviewed that has truly provided a useful audio solution rather than a cheap integration of a no-name audio controller.
The other features of the motherboard are definitely not outshined by the inclusion of the Vortex audio controller, rather amplified by its presence. IWill has paid extreme attention to the construction and user friendliness of the installation and configuration of the LE370. Since the board is a Socket-370 only solution, there is no need for a complex jumper setup, rather IWill has taken the path of MSI and ABIT and made the LE370 completely jumperless via IWill's own modifications to the Award BIOS setup.
Speaking of the BIOS setup, it allows for the individual assignment of IRQs to each PCI slot ala the BIOS setup on the ABIT BX6 Revision 2.0, making the elimination of any IRQ conflicts extremely easy. This is a problem with most other motherboards that feature on-board sound, however IWill quickly rid the user of any potential problems with that minor addition to the BIOS setup.
The PCB itself features enlarged text identifying important components and jumpers that will be beneficial during the installation process, such as the IDE connectors and the power switch connector.
IWill's customary quick installation guide is the only form of written documentation you'll find with the LE370, however it is accompanied by a Drivers/Utility CD-ROM that contains a full fledged user's manual in addition to a number of other software utilities and goodies. Following in the footsteps of AOpen's integration of Norton AntiVirus into every motherboard software bundle, IWill chose to include a copy of McAffee Virus Scan which adds to the overall value of the LE370.
The stability of the LE370 was on par with that of the ABIT BM6/ZM6 as it completed AnandTech's rigorous stability tests flawlessly. The performance of the LE370 is healthy in comparison to other motherboards of its class, and isn't a discriminating feature of the motherboard at all.
The Bad
There are a couple of layout related problems worth mentioning about the LE370. The first is that the placement of the front I/O panels on the board prevents the installation of any full length PCI cards in the second PCI slot, luckily the second PCI slot shares an IRQ with the on-board audio and won't be a slot you'd be looking to occupy in any case.
Other than that, the board isn't a bad design at all, unfortunately the choice to use the 440LX chipset eliminates the possibility of overclocking the Celeron 300A to 450MHz.
USB Compatibility
Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 0
Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2
USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes
USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes
Recommended SDRAM
SDRAM Tested: 1 x 64MB Mushkin PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 64MB Memory-Man PC100 SDRAM
Manufacturer: The Memory Man
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.memory-man.com
Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.mushkin.com
The Test
In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you shouldn't base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.
How I Tested
Each benchmark was run a minimum of 2 times and a maximum of 5 times, if the motherboard failed to complete a single test within the 5 allocated test runs the OS/Software was re-installed on a freshly formatted Hard Drive and the BIOS settings were adjusted to prevent the test from failing again. All such encounters were noted at the exact time of their occurrence.
Business Winstone 98 & 3D Winbench 98 was run at each individually tested clock speed, if reliable scores were achieved with the first two test runs of the suite an average of the two was taken and recorded as the final score at that clock speed. If the test system displayed erratic behavior while the tests were running or the results were incredibly low/high the tests were re-run up to 5 times and an average of all the test runs was taken and recorded at the final score at that clock speed
All video tests were conducted using an AGP video accelerator
No foreign drivers were present in the test system other than those required for the system to function to the best of its ability
All foreign installation files were moved to a separate partition during the test as to prevent them from effecting the test results
All tests were conducted at 1024 x 768 x 16-bit color
Quake 2 tests were conducted at 800 x 600 x 16-bit color in Software Rendering Mode
Test Configuration |
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Processor(s): | Intel Celeron 366 |
RAM: | 1 - 64MB Memory Man PC100 SDRAM DIMM |
Hard Drive(s): | Western Digital Caviar AC35100 - UltraATA |
Video Card(s): | Matrox Millennium G200 (8MB SGRAM - AGP) |
Bus Master Drivers: | Microsoft Win98 DMA Drivers |
Video Drivers: | MGA Millennium G200 Release 1677-411 |
Operation System(s): | Windows 98 |
Motherboard Revision: | IWill LE370 Revision 1.1 |
Windows 98 Performance |
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Winstone | Quake 2 | ||
Business 99 | Quake 2 demo1.dm2 | crusher.dm2 | |
Intel Celeron 300 (66MHz x 4.5) | 16.9 | 13.1 | 9.0 |
Intel Celeron 338 (75MHz x 4.5) | 18.1 | 15.0 | 10.2 |
Intel Celeron 375 (83MHz x 4.5) | 19.5 | 16.3 | 11.2 |
As a low-cost gamer's motherboard, the LE370 makes an excellent solution. However you're going to want to stay away from the LE370 if you don't care for integrated sound, or are looking to overclock a Celeron 300A to 450MHz. With the Celeron 433 being the first Socket-370 only Celeron, it seems like the market has no choice but to explore the possibilities provided for by Socket-370 motherboards, with the IWill LE370 being just as a good of a solution as any.
AnandTech Motherboard Rating |
|
Business | |
Performance | 84% |
Price | 89% |
Ease of Use | 90% |
Overclocked Stability | 88% |
General Stability | 88% |
Quality | 89% |
Documentation | 83% |
Reliability | 83% |
Overall Rating | 87% |
Click Here to Learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology