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Date |
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Jul 24th, 2001 |
| Category |
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Motherboards |
| Manufacturer |
:
ECS |
| Author |
:
Jin-Wei Tioh |
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The M1647 North Bridge, the core of the ALiMAGiK 1 chipset, sits between the CPU socket and the AGP slot. It provides all the major features of the chipset, namely DDR, 100/133MHz FSB as well as AGP 1x/2x/4x support. ECS opted for their usual gold heatsink with the emblazoned ECS logo. The M1647 doesn't get too hot during operation, and while passive cooling should do the job, you can opt to install a more powerful active cooling solution, such as Thermaltake's Blue Orb. However, it might be quite a tight fit, as the North Bridge sits quite close to the AMR slot.
The AGP slot on the K7AMA is a universal slot, which means that it is not keyed specifically for AGP 2x or AGP 4x cards. The DIMM slot configuration is where the K7AMA is unique. Unlike other motherboards based on the ALiMAGiK 1 chipset, the K7AMA sports 2 DDR DIMM slots and 2 SDRAM DIMM slots. It supports
either 2GB of DDR-RAM or 2GB of SDRAM. This is one its key advantages, as this configuration will allow the end-user to make use of his / her existing SDRAM while waiting for the prices of DDR-RAM to fall. However, ECS has limited the number of memory settings, and the memory (both DDR and SDR) runs
synchronously with the FSB at 100MHZ and 133MHz.
The ALi M1535D+ South Bridge is part of the ALiMAGiK 1 chipset, which boasts support for the Ultra-ATA 100 protocol and 6(!) USB ports. Basically, the M1535D+ is on par with the VIA 686B South Bridge.
For expansion slots, ECS chose to go with the very OEM oriented 1/4/0/1 (AGP/PCI/ISA/AMR) configuration, something which has not been seen on any other ALiMAGiK 1 motherboards as of yet. As mentioned earlier, the PCI slots on the K7AMA cannot accomodate full-lenth cards due to the placement of the IDE headers.
It is obvious that ECS aims to design a stable motherboard. There are 13 2200uF, 10 1000uF, 9 1500uF and quite a few MOSFETS. Voltage regulators regulate voltage, discharging heat as a byproduct with the amount of heat energy released depending on the efficiency of the regulator. As mentioned in the AOpen AK73 Pro (A) reviews, MOSFETs (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect-Transistors), are also crucial factors in stability. MOSFETs amplify electrical signals, which at a minimum, requires power gain. For those of you who dozed off in Physics, power is related to current and voltage by the equation P=IV. This means that for a gain in power, you can either increase the voltage, the current, or both. However, a device with both current and voltage gain is a highly desirable circuit element, which is a MOSFET. Hence, you get an idea of why MOSFETs are important and can appreciate why ECS integrated them.
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