*** Official Albatron PX865PE Pro/II (865PE) Thread ***

[First]

In an effort to make finding information about the Albatron PX865PE Pro/II motherboards easier for all forum members, please post and discuss your issues, problems, experiences, rants, raves and FAQs here.

 

[mcveigh]

anyone found a source for the proII version?

 

[SleepyGreggy]

This looks like the board i'll be getting, just want to know about past/current negative experiences with Albatron.

 

[SleepyGreggy]

Evan or others if you could help it would be great.

How would i set this combo of drives up on this motherboard (plugs/ribbons, channels, master/slave?, etc..)

Liteon DVD
Liteon Burner
2 120gb WDSE in RAID

Thanks in advance.

 

[mcveigh]

hook the 2 wd HD's up to the raid controller.
1 optical drive on each ide channel

 

[SleepyGreggy]

Raid Controller = Onboard Raid? (Promise Controller??), they are PATA drives not SATA, do i need converters?

 

[Politik]

$190 for the Pro II? Kind of silly. It'll be interesting to see where all the mobo prices settle in a week or so when there are more boards

 

[Sternfan]

I mostly stick with Asus because I trust them, I have never been burned by them and they always release an updated bios when it is needed. Can this company be trusted with our hard earned cash?
Are most of there products good quallity or are they on the same scale as Abit?

 

[Zarick]

I was thinking of going with albatron cause Ive always been burned by asus in the past. I think this might be the way to go since start ups like this really try to put their best foot forward.

 

[Naruto]

Albatron has done well since it began just a year ago. Its boards are good overclockers (not for the most extreme however) and have two versions usually, the budget basic one and slightly more expensive frillz one. Albatron boards are also priced at the level of cheap brands. They are stable and fast boards (up to par with high brands like Epox/Gigabyte/Asus/Abit/MSI) at a fraction of the price. I worked with one albatron board in the past and it was fast and stable, good number of OC options too. I also heard tons of praise on the Albatron px845pe board too.

 

[mcveigh]

Originally posted by: SleepyGreggy
Raid Controller = Onboard Raid? (Promise Controller??), they are PATA drives not SATA, do i need converters?

look at the picture of it. the raid is PATA, the ICH5 southbridge supports SATA raid0 natively but albatron put another raid chip on it.

 

[Sternfan]

I think there are 2 raid controllers, the promise chip that is strapped to the pci bus and the ich5R chipset supports raid 0,1 and its on its on 266 mhz bus not the pci bus 133 mhz

 

[Chris A]

Are there any other boards out there with this same quality of onboard sound?

I have been told that the VIA Envy24 sound chip is as good if not better then the Audigy 2. It makes that price tag of the board seem a little better...

 

[Politik]

Link to the Pro II

 

[Grimp]

Originally posted by: Chris A
Are there any other boards out there with this same quality of onboard sound?

I have been told that the VIA Envy24 sound chip is as good if not better then the Audigy 2. It makes that price tag of the board seem a little better...

I think it's only better in terms of sound quality since the Envy24PT doesn't do EAX and all that stuff in hardware.

 

[Politik]

Originally posted by: Grimp

Originally posted by: Chris A
Are there any other boards out there with this same quality of onboard sound?

I have been told that the VIA Envy24 sound chip is as good if not better then the Audigy 2. It makes that price tag of the board seem a little better...

I think it's only better in terms of sound quality since the Envy24PT doesn't do EAX and all that stuff in hardware.

Not to mention that I'm pretty sure the Envy24 is just a DSP (sound processor), and so while it may have a bunch of mixing channels or 24 bit sound etc, it needs to be hooked up to good DACs and amps etc to get actual "Fidelity" which is what most people mean when they say quality

 

[Chris A]

A good read on the sound card.

 

[Auric]

It does not make sense to spend so much on non-replaceable on-board sound. The Envy HT version used in cards has high CPU usage compared to Audigy also. I have not seen any dependable reviews of this PT but I assume it is similar.

 

[Chris A]

Here is my understanding. The board costs a little more then the average board and comes with a very good sound chip.

You buy a slightly less expensive board and buy a Sound Blaster Audigy 2.

CREATIVE LABS Sound Blaster Audigy 2
PCI - 24-bit - 44.1 KHz - PC - Dolby Digital

Product Rating: ?
Found at: 34 stores
Lowest Price: $107.00


I am not sure about the CPU usage on the chip but I am here to learn.
Thanks for your input Auric I will be searching for CPU usage info...

 

[2hotP3s]

I had an ASUS P4PE and it was garbage, I replaced it with the Albatron PX845PE Pro II Silver and have nothing but praise to say about it. Albatron will be the next mobo for my case. If you want more info about the ASUS mobos, I suggest going to www.asusboards.com forums for info about a particular mobo.

 

[Naruto]

FYI, I saw the Albatron PX865PE Pro in stock at my local Frys, retail $129.

 

[LostbeCause]

Frye's has the 865PE Pro at $129. I saw it Saturday.

 

[Auric]

Originally posted by: Chris A
Here is my understanding. The board costs a little more then the average board and comes with a very good sound chip.

You buy a slightly less expensive board and buy a Sound Blaster Audigy 2.

That's what I figger too. The Envy seems a nice option for SFF or non-gamers, kinda like the SoundStorm. The VAR/OEM Audigy 2 is actually only about $70 and of course a hunk of that can be recouped when upgrading, unlike any moolah sunk into onboard sound.

 

[2hotP3s]

The Pro II uses Intel's CSA bus for the gigabit ethernet and the Pro uses an external 3Com chip over the PCI bus. Many 865PE mobos dont use the CSA bus.

 

[kaizersose]

What are the differences between the pro and pro II besides the ethernet chip? Anything major?