FIRST LOOK: ULi M1697 for Athlon 64/x2
by Wesley Fink on December 13, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
ULi M1697 Chipset
The ULi M1697 chipset can support Socket 754, 939, or 940. 1000 HT (5X) is fully supported.
In addition to the configurable PCI Express graphics slots, the remaining 4 lanes are also configurable. Several settings can be selected - 2 x1/1 x2, 2 x2 or one x4 PCIe slot(s).
The rest of the M1697 feature set is what you would expect in a competitive chipset. This includes 8 USB 2.0 ports, two (4 devices) IDE Ultra DMA 66/100/133, and Super I/O supporting Parallel, Serial, PS2, and floppy ports. ULi supports all the current USB transfer standards such as HS (480Mb/s, FS (12Mb/s) and LS (1.5Mb/s). Those who have watched Digital Camera makers play games with USB 2.0 transfer rates will recognize the terms HS or High Speed and FS or Full Speed. What they may not be aware of is the 40-times speed increase of High-Speed USB 2.0 over the inappropriately named Full Speed USB 2.0 standard.
The one disappointment in the feature list is the supported Ethernet. The M1697 has the hooks to support a 10/100 Ethernet PHY, but Gigabit Ethernet will require a discrete Gigabit LAN controller, preferably on the PCIe bus. This one feature tends to pigeon-hole this otherwise excellent chipset as a value solution. That is really unfortunate, since you will see the ULi M1697 is otherwise completely competitive with the best chipsets available for AMD Athlon 64.
The ULi M1697 chipset can support Socket 754, 939, or 940. 1000 HT (5X) is fully supported.
In addition to the configurable PCI Express graphics slots, the remaining 4 lanes are also configurable. Several settings can be selected - 2 x1/1 x2, 2 x2 or one x4 PCIe slot(s).
The rest of the M1697 feature set is what you would expect in a competitive chipset. This includes 8 USB 2.0 ports, two (4 devices) IDE Ultra DMA 66/100/133, and Super I/O supporting Parallel, Serial, PS2, and floppy ports. ULi supports all the current USB transfer standards such as HS (480Mb/s, FS (12Mb/s) and LS (1.5Mb/s). Those who have watched Digital Camera makers play games with USB 2.0 transfer rates will recognize the terms HS or High Speed and FS or Full Speed. What they may not be aware of is the 40-times speed increase of High-Speed USB 2.0 over the inappropriately named Full Speed USB 2.0 standard.
The one disappointment in the feature list is the supported Ethernet. The M1697 has the hooks to support a 10/100 Ethernet PHY, but Gigabit Ethernet will require a discrete Gigabit LAN controller, preferably on the PCIe bus. This one feature tends to pigeon-hole this otherwise excellent chipset as a value solution. That is really unfortunate, since you will see the ULi M1697 is otherwise completely competitive with the best chipsets available for AMD Athlon 64.
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Diasper - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
Also, a suggestion to improve that section is to include RightMark Audio Analyzer benches. You don't even need to include all the pictures/benches of the results but at least include a summary of it eg scores out of 5 in the various tests and then comments afterwards.Areas to expand and improve in!
semiconductorslave - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
Just hope it is Abit this time that comes out with a MB based on this chipset and not Asrock. Nothing like a lousy implementation of a chipset to steal its thunder. The Asrock 939 Dual SATA2 was a dog. I don't know how Anandtech got a good one, but my board would never run 1T command rate, limited Vcore and memory voltage, lousy Bios couldn't post with any lower multipliers, etc. Now im getting continuous drive errors on a perfectly good WD raptor, I didn't dare try the raid. The only plus is that I was able to run my AGP card, then upgrade to my 7800GT. Now that I have, it has no purpose. I'm so happy that my DFI SLI-DR is in the mail!Cygni - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
Everybody gets a crappy board from time to time. My Epox S754 SLI board died after only 2 weeks of use. SATA died first, then ethernet, then all the PCI slots, the finally the video cut out. :(The Abit board is seriously exciting, though. Judging by the 1695 Ref board, which was far more of a final production board than this Ref board... and judging by the fac that the 1695 is essentially the same chipset in a North/South bridge arrangement, i would say that the 1697 has even more room to grow in several areas. This combined with Abit throwing all the goodies at it... could make a seriously interesting and exciting board. 1697 even supports full AGP 8x from what i hear.
Imagine an ABIT board with all the goodies, featuring 2 PCI-Ex 16x slots with an AGP8x slot inbetween, 1 PCI-Ex 4x, and 2 PCI... would be an amazing board.
Avalon - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
ULi just keeps getting better and better. I'll be looking forward to the production boards coming out soon based on this chipset.kazumoda - Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - link
that might never happen now that nvidia is buying uliOzz1113 - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
nice audio for sure, gotta fix that board layout. I'll keep my eyes peeled.notposting - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
They have pics of the 4 boards at OCWorkbench:http://www.ocworkbench.com/2005/uli/m1697launch/g1...">http://www.ocworkbench.com/2005/uli/m1697launch/g1...
Brian23 - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
Nice review. I'm curious though. Why do all the new motherboards have all these PCIe slots when there is nothing available to stick in them. Please write an article soon that rounds up all the cards out there that you can stick in a PCIe slot. (Of course leaving out video cards.)semiconductorslave - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
Peoply need to learn to think for themselves and find the answers they can first:But since I do not know your age, and was somewhat board I did the work for you. I went to newegg and typed PCIexpress in search box and then sorted by catagories and instantly came up with
5 add on cards
2 NIC cards
9 HDD Controllers / RAID Cards
1 Video Devices & TV Tuners
& of course 345 Video Cards
Searching Google I found some sound cards too, and the upcoming Ageia physics processor card has been rumored to be coming out on PCI express also.
The real benifit will be anything that is speed limited by the PCI bus.
Cheers, semiconductorslave
mindless1 - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
Sure, we could all individually do redundant research with most people seeing a large % of cards but not all. It was a very good idea and it's rather narrow a focus to check newegg, with the point being that we're not wanting to just "see some" but rather, be able to evaluate and compare ALL of them to make best choice of what's avilable, not just what's at newegg.So you need to learn to think for someone other than yourself and realize that you may be failing to grasp the big picture if you feel a really simple task is a blanket answer. In other words, WE know how to search a website but YOU don't have the ability to see how the information's presentation is relevant.