It's a very easy job to criticize, since anyone can have an opinion, making it vocal is expressing criticism and doing that is one of the simplest things a reviewer can do. Although that helps you, the consumer, with your buying decision, it doesn't have nearly as dramatic of an affect on shaping the industry as a whole. So instead of addressing the problems with the current generation of motherboards, in this article, we're going to be taking a look at what goes into making a good motherboard. We'll preview six of the upcoming next generation motherboard platforms and discuss their strengths and weaknesses, and hopefully give you a better idea of what to look for in a next generation motherboard, a purchase that is right around the corner for many.

We've picked three motherboards based around the recently announced i820 chipset and three motherboards that support the incredibly popular Athlon processor to aid us in our quest for perfection with motherboards.

Before diving into the boards we need to make clear that not a single one of these boards is ready for introduction into the mass market. They are all pre-release samples and can't be judged in terms of performance and stability. What we can do is mention the fact that performance trends generally don't vary too much from motherboard to motherboard as long as they are using the same chipset. Stability depends more upon the motherboard in particular and it also doesn't vary too greatly from motherboard to motherboard, so long as the same manufacturer makes them.

Since we received these samples, two of them have been released to the public and they are available for sale (the FIC SD11 and Gigabyte GA-7IX which are, coincidentally, both Athlon motherboards). However, the purpose of this article isn't to compare the boards and provide a clear winner, but, rather, to set a standard that you, as a consumer, can expect to see from motherboard manufacturers when you do decide to pick up one of these motherboards for your next system.

This first part will concentrate on what we like to call "The Athlon Craze" and will address the three Athlon boards, the second part will follow shortly and will focus on the i820 based motherboards.  

The Athlon Craze

The release of the AMD Athlon came with a very disappointing lack of support from motherboard manufacturers, especially from those brand names that we're used to hearing from. At the processor's release not a single motherboard was available for sale, and a couple of weeks later three motherboards were thrust into the lime light, not because they were extraordinary products, but because they were the only Athlon motherboards available at the time.

"Available" is an interesting word to use for Athlon motherboards, simple because the term didn't mean that the boards themselves were ready for sale but they were available for order on vendor's pages. Only recently did vendors begin shipping FIC's SD11 to their customers, and we've had reports that the Gigabyte and MSI boards have been making their way into the hands of lucky Athlon owners from smaller vendors across the nation.

The first thing that must be mentioned now is that if you currently have an Athlon motherboard, consider yourself a beta tester, not only for the company that made your board, but for other companies considering producing Athlon motherboards. The first Athlon boards are truly a joke, they were obviously released to have "something" out at the launch of the Athlon processor and there is no denying that. Approach any of the Athlon motherboard manufacturers and ask them if their Athlon board is up to par with their usual standards and you can bet that you won't get a honest "yes" out of FIC, Gigabyte, or MSI.

There is some good that came of all this, because the boards that were released do work and they get the basic job done, they run the Athlon. But when you're spending $250 - $600 on a processor, and $160 - $200 on a motherboard, you expect your system to do a little more than just work fast. We'll be taking a close look at three Athlon motherboards, the FIC SD11, the Gigabyte GA-7IX, and the reference AMD Athlon motherboard dubbed the Fester. This will be done with the intent of figuring out what would go into producing a high quality Athlon motherboard and whether any of these three contenders even begin to fit that description. So, we will start off with what AMD supplied all reviewers with, their Fester motherboard.

We'll start out with descriptions of the three boards themselves and will then move into a section on things to demand and things to simply look for when you're making that Athlon motherboard purchase.

AMD's Fester

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If AMD had enough faith in the 3^rd party motherboard manufacturers, they would have approached one of them to outfit the Athlon review systems that went out to over 200 editors across the globe. Obviously, they had at least one reason to make the evaluation motherboards for those 200+ systems in-house and whatever that reason was, they did, and the result was the Fester.

The Fester is not, nor will it ever be, available for sale to the public. AMD has no desire to enter into the motherboard manufacturing business nor do they intend to manufacture chipsets for any longer than they have to. The only reason for mentioning the Fester here is that it provides a very good point to compare the rest of the 3^rd party motherboard manufacturers to, but let's talk about the design of the board and why AMD did what they did with the Fester.

Looking at the board, it is clear that this board was not made for sale, because the expansion slot configuration is outdated and was equally so when AMD first produced the motherboard. With the general trend going towards no ISA slots on-board, the presence of three on the Fester is proof enough that AMD wasn't looking to stick this board head to head with the rest of those due for release.

The board itself brings one other motherboard manufacturer to mind, Intel. The design of the Fester is very clean with a great emphasis placed on quality as opposed to final price. By looking at the selection of components built on to the Fester it is clear that they're holding stability as the top quality to consider here. The nichicon manufactured capacitors are the same ones used on Intel motherboards, and if you've had any experience with an Intel manufactured motherboard you'll know that they are arguably the most stable in the business. While this isn't a direct result of their capacitor choice, the high quality nichicon parts do contribute to the fact.

Unlike the motherboards we're used to (with the exclusion of Intel boards), the Fester refrains from using a handful (10 - 15) of smaller, cheaper, capacitors. Instead, they use two 1000uF oversized nichicon caps placed on alternate sides of the Slot-A and a group of 470uF capacitors scattered around the motherboard. There are four toroidal inductors placed on the side of the Slot-A farthest away from the memory banks which are surrounded by eight switching voltage regulators.

The key behind the Fester's success as a stable motherboard is its ability to provide enough current to the Athlon CPU. This will truly be the deciding factor as to how successful an Athlon motherboard will be, whether or not it is able to deliver enough current to keep the Athlon running. In an ideal situation, this wouldn't be that difficult of a task to accomplish. However, with the number of different power supplies and configurations out there today, keeping a current clean enough and sufficient enough to meet the Athlon's demands is not that simple of a task without increasing the cost of the motherboard by too large of a factor.

Obviously, the Fester design isn't optimized for price which makes perfect sense because it wasn't intended to be sold to the public, but how feasible is it for a motherboard manufacturer to step in and reproduce the Fester design as closely as possible while keeping the manufacturing costs of the motherboard considerably lower?

MSI tried this strategy and ended up having to recall a portion of their 6167 (Athlon) motherboards due to stability issues associated with their "modified" design. One of the reasons MSI isn't present here in this roundup is because they are very dependent on Intel for support, and they are not promoting the 6167 publically until they feel comfortable enough to.  Although they were one of the first to release an Athlon motherboard, they will probably wait until the rest of the industry starts supporting the platform before going ahead with pushing their boards any further in the market. 

One thing is very clear, with Athlon motherboards, the cost of production will definitely place manufacturers in an interesting situation. Should they opt for a lower price over a less stable motherboard or a more stable board with a higher price? What you'll notice is that the manufacturers that are notorious for producing motherboards that aren't exactly of the best in quality but may carry an attractive price will stick to their roots while manufacturers that keep stability as priority #1 will continue to stay true to their philosophies as well. Do your research and know what to expect before a manufacturer drops their press release on your doorstep and you're forced to make an on-the-spot decision.

The Fester of course uses the AMD 750 chipset which is quickly being phased out by AMD since, as we mentioned before, they don't want to put themselves in the position where they have to manufacture chipsets and compete with VIA/ALi for that territory. The beauty of the AMD 750 chipset is that it's South Bridge, the AMD 756, closely resembles the VIA 686A, so in theory, phasing out the AMD 750 wouldn't be too difficult if you have pin compatible parts available from other chipset manufacturers.

The AMD 751 North Bridge and the 756 South Bridge are manufactured on a 0.35 micron process, and with the North Bridge dissipating so much heat, a shrink down to 0.25-micron could help tremendously. This move is up to the chipset manufacturers to make and can't really be placed on the shoulders of the motherboard manufacturers, but with Intel taking the first steps by producing their i810, i810E, and i820 parts on the 0.25-micron process it makes sense for AMD to follow.

The three DIMM slot configuration on the Fester is one you will see recreated on virtually every Athlon motherboard produced from now until the end of the year. Until the Athlon truly makes its introduction into the server market, we probably won't see more than four DIMM slots on a Slot-A motherboard simply because of DRAM integrity issues, as well as cost. The Fester, like the other two boards tested, had problems with 256MB or registered DIMMs, regardless of size, which limits the maximum memory to 384MB for now.

A prominent feature on the Fester is the careful attention to hardware monitoring, provided for by the Winbond 90808 since the AMD 751 South Bridge features no integrated hardware monitoring functions. While the Fester placed a thermistor near the memory slots, one on the back side of the Slot-A, and a third very long thermistor directly beneath where your CPU's heatsink would be, AMD definitely set the standard, not for the placement but for the inclusion of basic hardware monitoring support on Athlon motherboards.

Since many motherboard manufacturers will follow the Fester design almost religiously until they can perfect one of their own, expect to see this hardware monitoring configuration (or one like it) used in most motherboards. This is still more that can be said about some Super7 boards that are just beginning to boast hardware monitoring support. This time around AMD is setting a clear example for motherboard manufacturers on how to properly support this killer chip.

When price isn't a concern, the Fester is the board we all wish we could go out and buy, but realistically, if the Fester were to ever be sold it would end up being the most expensive Athlon motherboard ($200 minimum) on the planet simply because of AMD's attention to quality versus keeping costs low. When you think about it from a profit margin perspective, there is very little money to be made by selling motherboards. So it's better to make less per board and have a popular board because of quality than make more per board and sell less because of a lack of quality.

Gigabyte's GA-7IX

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The 7IX was the first non-AMD manufactured Athlon motherboard to enter our labs and, while we expected nothing but the best from Gigabyte (considering their previous track record), the 7IX was a tad disappointing. Keep in mind that the 7IX board we received was revision 0.4, well beyond the shipping revision and obviously a beta motherboard, so we can't criticize Gigabyte based on stability or performance problems associated with the board.

The design of the 7IX very closely resembles the Fester, which can be considered to be the "reference" Athlon motherboard design, simply because it is a tested design that works. The three DIMM slots are organized in the same manner on the 7IX as they are on the Fester, with the first DIMM slot separated from the last two by a gap about half a centimeter wide.

The ATX power supply connector is placed across from the third DIMM slot (the one closest to the AMD 751 North Bridge) just like on the Fester and the North Bridge is covered by a standard BX heatsink. The one major difference between the 7IX and the Fester is the lack of any heatsinks on the voltage regulators that run adjacent to the Slot-A connector. This does make dissipating the heat off of the voltage regulators a bit more difficult but, we could not attribute any instability issues to this factor.

The same four toroidal inductors are used on the 7IX but while the Fester featured the nichicon capacitors on the motherboard, the 7IX boasted the cheaper Choyo caps. Once again, no noticeable points of instability were attributed to this discrepancy in the two designs, but it is obvious that the 7IX is more optimized for price than the Fester.

The 7IX is definitely more expansion friendly than the Fester, seeing as it makes use of the 5/2/1 expansion slot configuration (PCI/ISA/AGP). There are a total of three fan connectors on the motherboard, monitored by the Winbond 851AB chip which also drives the two thermistors on the board, one placed beneath the Athlon's heatsink next to the Slot-A connector and the other placed next to the floppy drive connector.

A unique feature of the 7IX, and definitely one that you'll see on future motherboards, is the inclusion of an 8-pin front panel USB connector for USB ports to be placed at the front of your case. The 7IX also provides for a chassis intrusion detection jumper for use with cases that support this function.

A problem we had with the 7IX and one we've continuously seen reported about Gigabyte motherboards is the ability to deliver enough current to the AGP slot for certain graphics cards (i.e. TNT2 Ultra). We noticed similar problems with the 7IX during our testing, which may or may not have been corrected since the production of our board, that basically limited the stability of TNT2 cards that drew 6A of current (i.e. TNT2 Ultra boards clocked at frequencies greater than 150/183).

The 7IX features no adjustable FSB settings however, the motherboard had two settings silk screened onto the PCB although neither of them were able to be taken advantage of. The 90MHz and 100MHz FSB settings were displayed on the PCB but the two jumpers that correspond to those settings , JP7 & JP8, are both hammered down.

The Award BIOS setup on the 7IX provides for very few configuration options in comparison to the slew of memory and processor configuration options we're used to seeing, especially on boards such as the ABIT BX6 Revision 2 and the latest ABIT BE6-II, considered to be two of the top tweaker motherboards. The phrase that comes to mind when looking at the BIOS setup of the 7IX is "it works and that's it" which is the closest you can get to completely explaining it's BIOS setup in five words.

FIC's SD11

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The SD11 was the highly anticipated Athlon motherboard simply because of one line placed on its specifications at FIC's site: Auto-detect or Selection Clock Ratio from BIOS / Auto-detect or Selection FSB frequencies from BIOS. What most people took this as meaning that the SD11 would be the ideal overclocker's board but, it turns out that the "feature" wasn't implemented in the BIOS at the time of production.

The SD11 features an AMI BIOS setup with a decent number of configuration options but, nothing too special However, with the latest BIOS upgrade the 120MHz and 133MHz FSB options become available in the setup utility.

The SD11's first "feature," as it has been proclaimed by many, is the larger size of the motherboard. The reasoning behind this isn't to offer more space to make installation easier but, instead, it is because the SD11 is more of a publicly released engineering sample than anything else. The SD11 was obviously never intended to be FIC's flagship Athlon platform so don't be too surprised if you see a very quick demise of the SD11 in the near future.

Looking at the ATX I/O ports (below) on the SD11 there is definitely something amiss. The absence of one 9-pin serial port and the misplacement of the USB ports not only make it impossible to find an ATX I/O shield for the board but also contribute to the "not fit for resale" theory.

The board design is derived from the reference Fester model but, one clear difference is that there are only four switching voltage regulators behind the Slot-A as opposed to the eight found on both the Gigabyte 7IX and the MSI 6167. Although we originally speculated that this was isolated to our test board we have confirmed that SD11 boards that are available for sale are shipping with only four regulators versus the eight on the rest of the boards.

It wasn't a surprise that there was a huge difference in the stability and power supply compatibility of the SD11 (especially with higher clocked Athlon processors) than the other boards we've looked at. We're currently awaiting an updated sample of the SD11 before pursuing any more stability tests regarding the motherboard.

The same four toroidal inductors are placed across from the four voltage regulators which, unlike the Gigabyte, are outfitted with heatsinks. A standard BX heatsink covers up the AMD 751 North Bridge which is supplemented by the VIA 686A Super South Bridge. The 686A Super South Bridge should be familiar to us all because of its presence in the latest of MVP3 motherboards.

Originally introduced with the VIA MVP4, the 686A Super South Bridge provides for AMR support, on-board hardware monitoring, and Ultra ATA 66 (as does the AMD 756 South Bridge). The inclusion of the 686A does not compromise nor enhance stability or performance in any way, but this decision is a very important one which we will discuss a little later, so keep it in the back of your head as you read on.

The board does not seem to work well with Athlon processors faster than 650MHz and, although, this should be easy to fix with a minor BIOS upgrade, we have yet to see one (other than the latest upgrade that adds the two new FSB settings). Considering the release of the Athlon 700 is just around the corner (and we mean just around the corner), a BIOS update/fix would be nice.

The SD11 also only features two fan connectors, both of which are located around the Slot-A connector, which is good if you are running a dual fan setup on your processor but, it isn't ideal for more than two fans for obvious reasons.

Athlon Motherboards: What to Expect

The AMD 750 chipset is already obsolete and , if we don't believe that, then we might as well spend hundreds of dollars on the Gigabyte, FIC, and MSI boards only to be told that we were nothing more than guinea pigs for the rest of the market.

The transition towards VIA's solution is imminent, the first signs of this will be the fact that more and more motherboard manufacturers will be looking towards the VIA 686A Super South Bridge instead of AMD's 756. Not that there's anything wrong with the 756, but AMD has made it a point, time and time again, to state that they will not continue in the chipset industry because they have much bigger fish to fry.

VIA's North Bridge and South Bridge will eventually be packaged together in the form of the KX133 chipset. The KX133 will bring AGP 4X support (which currently does very little) and 133MHz FSB support down to the Athlon. What does this mean? Well, AGP 4X, as we've already discovered, does very little for performance (current benchmarks show an overall improvement of 0.9%) but there are those that insist that as polygon rates and texture sizes increase, AGP 4X will become more and more of a necessity. Right now, it seems like AGP 4X is about as "necessary" as the transition from PCI to AGP was back in 1997. The thing to keep your eye on is the 133MHz FSB for the Athlon, using the EV6 bus protocol this will increase the system bus bandwidth to 2.1GB/s from the current 1.6GB/s and give a healthy boost to memory bandwidth as well.

DDR SDRAM support is an assumption that we've come to make when dealing with VIA chipsets, but unfortunately the technology is nothing but vaporware from the standpoint of the end user. Most likely, Virtual Channel SDRAM will be introduced to the Athlon platform. We are currently investigating the performance benefits VC SDRAM versus Intel's decision to move to RDRAM and the current PC100 & PC133 SDRAM platforms. Needless to say, the Athlon motherboards that hit the streets in the coming months will support your standard PC100/PC133 memory but will allow for a few performance oriented options to be taken.

Ultra ATA 66 is already supported by the AMD 756 South Bridge and the VIA 686A, and while there is not a doubt in the world that this little feature will be supported, the more important question seems to be, what else will the south bridge support? As we mentioned in our brief description of the FIC SD11, the 686A was originally used with the MVP3 chipset and features support for integrated hardware monitoring, and integrated Audio/Telephony codecs and thus an AMR slot.

The potential of AMR slots has yet to be taken advantage of, although it makes sense in theory.I It will be very rare that you see AMR slots as we know them taken advantage of. The theory behind AMR is that your CPU will be powerful enough to drive most of the peripherals you are unnecessarily spending loads of money on, so instead of buying a fully functional modem or sound card, why not rely on your CPU for the processing and pay less for a simple interface card. The future of AMR is obviously directed at cost efficient systems, but if you don't feel like spending $100 on a 3D audio card, then the addition may be of some use to you. Although we can't help but notice that most motherboards that do feature AMR support go ahead and use on-board hardware audio anyway.

The trend towards zero ISA slots is obviously upon us, and you should demand no less than 5 PCI slots. Ideally, an Athlon board with a 6 PCI + 1 AGP configuration would be perfect for future expansion.

Core voltage manipulation and FSB selection options are definitely demands that all tweakers should make, it can be done and it is being done by a few smaller motherboard manufacturers, so there is no reason for the big boys not to do the same. We're all waiting for ABIT to step in and produce the world's most overclockable Athlon motherboard like they did with the BX6 during the release of the BX chipset. One thing is for sure, if ABIT doesn't make the cut with the world's most overclockable Athlon motherboard, chances are, we won't be seeing their name in the lime light for much longer.

Stability, stability, stability. This should be your primary concern when pursuing any motherboard, especially an Athlon motherboard. The current crop of boards that are available for sale are examples of what are not extremely stable motherboards. Problems with not being able to supply enough current to the AGP slot to drive TNT2 Ultra cards will disappoint just about anyone that spends close to $200 on a motherboard that can't even run their TNT2 Ultra at its rated speed.

Power supply compatibility issues will be a big factor with the first batch of Athlon motherboards, which is why the boards that are available now are basically engineering samples released to the public to find out what works and what doesn't. AMD has put together a list of recommended power supplies that you can find here. If you're going to be buying a new Athlon CPU + motherboard, be sure to get your power supply from the same vendor if possible, and make sure that the power supply is on AMD's approved list, otherwise you may be faced with some instability problems.

As the Athlon is thrust into the high end workstation/server market, expect to see much more compatibility testing performed with higher density SDRAM modules. With only three DIMM slots present on all currently announced/available Athlon motherboards, a 384MB memory limit isn't enough for some high end users.

For overclockers, you can expect to see the return of the race for the most overclockable motherboard. There are a few smaller motherboard manufacturers that will be coming out with "overclockable" Athlon motherboards that simply support more FSB settings but, the true trick will lie in the ability to control the clock multiplier of the Athlon CPU. This is definitely possible, and it is only a matter of time before we see a motherboard that either ships with support for such a modification or ships with the modification module itself.

Stability will be key to the success of Athlon motherboards, being able to deliver the proper amount of current to the processor and making sure that the signal's integrity remains strong are very important factors. This will be accomplished by using high quality components and a superior QA testing methodology, so what motherboards are there to look out for?

By the end of this year, you will have seen at least some information on a few very hot (supposedly) Athlon boards, including the elusive ASUS board as well as boards from Tyan and AOpen. The latter two should be very interesting, as we've only seen a handful of AOpen boards that were truly inferior in quality, and judging from what Tyan was saying about their upcoming Athlon motherboard, it should be a winner as well.

Both of those companies have consistently produced very solid motherboards, but also worth noting is that they both have traditionally produced inferior products (when compared to their usual standards) when dealing with non-Intel chipsets. AOpen has gotten much better about the quality of their VIA based motherboards as we've can see by their latest Apollo Pro 133 based offering, and we are beginning to see the same from Tyan. It seems like most motherboard manufacturers are coming to the conclusions that going Intel isn't always the best option.

Be sure to keep your eyes open for Part II of this series, focusing on the i820 and motherboards based on the chipset.