DailyTech - Epox Unveils NVIDIA MCP61S Based AM2 Mainboard

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Hardware Epox Unveils NVIDIA MCP61S Based AM2 Mainboard
Anh Tuan Huynh (Blog) - June 3, 2006 3:39 PM

15 comment(s) - last by Stele.. on Jun 6 at 4:06 AM

Clean single-chip design

Single-chip, GeForce 6100 GPU with AM2 support

DailyTech previously reported NVIDIA was releasing a new integrated graphics chipset with the name MCP61S. The new core logic is a single-chip solution is set to replace the current GeForce 6100 and nForce 410/430 combination. Epox has revealed specifications on its MCP61S based board. The mATX Epox MCP61S-M features an integrated GeForce 6100-series graphics processor with support for the recently released AMD socket AM2.

As it’s designed for AM2 there are four 240-pin DDR2 DIMM slots with support for DDR2-533/667/800 modules in dual channel configurations. One PCI Express x16, one PCI Express x1, and two PCI slots are available for expansion cards. Audio is provided by a Realtek ALC883 high definition audio codec. Strangely the MCP61S-M only supports six-channel audio while the ALC883 supports up to eight channels.

I/O options are severely limited with the Epox MCP61S-M. There’s only one parallel ATA133 port and two SATA II ports with support for RAID 0, and 1. Nonetheless for a small mATX system the I/O ports should be plenty sufficient. Lastly the MCP61S-M is limited to a 10/100 Mbit Realtek RTL8201CL PHY.

Epox has yet to comment on product availability and pricing, though the NVIDIA roadmap shows the MCP61S making an appearance around August and pricing should be similar to current GeForce 6100 boards if not cheaper.

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Looks good to me except...

By phaxmohdem on 6/3/2006 5:14:21 PM , Rating: 2

I like it. Good clean, simple board with decent specs. The only thing I noticed is that 2 of the SATA connections are not there. Granted in budget PC's, this is probably not a huge issue, but If this board had all 4 SATA connectors it could reach out to a slightly wider audience I think.

RE: Looks good to me except...

By RMSistight on 6/3/06, Rating: 0

RE: Looks good to me except...

By Stele on 6/3/2006 7:26:51 PM , Rating: 3

Unfortunately my friend, just because you hate them doesn't mean they should get rid of them.

Many people like them, if not need them. Most optical drives still use the IDE interface, for example, and the few SATA ones are neither easy to find nor terribly cheap worldwide. Optical drives usually lag HDDs by about a year in terms of interface adoption (ATA-33/66/ATA-100 being previous examples of the trend) so chipset manufacturers made the wise compromise of at least leaving one channel available for them.

I do wonder about the power connectors though... many might take issue with the need to route the power cables all the way to the back, potentially over the CPU HSF. However, I suspect Epox figured that since this board's meant for micro-ATX casings, which include the super-compact ones with the optical drive siting just at the edge of the motherboard, the socket would pose less potential problems at the back. Could have put it on the right edge though, so that one could clip the bundle of wires under the PSU or something.

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RE: Looks good to me except...

By Mortal on 6/3/2006 8:28:34 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
I do wonder about the power connectors though

As do I.

It's not as if it's a new thing that Epox has started to do, they've done it for a long time now, but it is an annoyance I have with their boards. Their board layout has never been that good.

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RE: Looks good to me except...

By Lord Evermore on 6/4/2006 1:01:17 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Optical drives usually lag HDDs by about a year in terms of interface adoption (ATA-33/66/ATA-100 being previous examples of the trend)

Optical drives I've seen still use ATA-33 (UDMA mode 2) mostly (the drives in the new HP machines in my office use the odd mode 3, 44MBps rate). SATA hard drives have been available since late 2003. They're lagging a bit more than a year. There's essentially no reason to change to SATA for performance reasons for optical drives, that didn't also apply as a reason for them to change to ATA100.

Maybe if Dell and the rest of them just decided that they wanted nothing but SATA drives from now on, that would spur the drive makers. The number of people building their own machines who might want optical drives with SATA obviously hasn't been much of an incentive.

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RE: Looks good to me except...

By ceefka on 6/4/2006 10:44:34 AM , Rating: 2

The IDE connector is quite necessary indeed, but I wonder about the floppy drive. With today's USB support, cardreader prices, SD-card prices etc. what could justify holding on to the FDD connector?

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RE: Looks good to me except...

By DigitalFreak on 6/4/2006 11:10:37 AM , Rating: 2

That, and PS/2 ports. Do like Dell does on their optiplex line, and offer them on an optional PCI bracket for those that need them.

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RE: Looks good to me except...

By Stele on 6/6/2006 4:06:32 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
what could justify holding on to the FDD connector?

Erm... storage controller drivers when installing Windows?
:p

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Looking forward to these boards

By johnsonx on 6/3/2006 10:16:19 PM , Rating: 2

Myself, I very much look forward to these boards. My standard build in the recent year has been a socket 754 GeForce 6100 board with a Sempron64. Now that Semprons have gone dual channel with AM2, I'm looking to upgrade my standard platform accordingly. Mobos based on this single chip should be less costly, and graphics performance should increase because of the high-bandwidth dual channel RAM.

Yes, integrated graphics performance does matter; GeForce 6100 is good for far more than 2d. One of my customers uses them very happily for MasterCAM Mill, which needs OpenGL but isn't all that demanding. Before the GeForce 6100 became available I had them sample a system with the VIA K8M800 integrated graphics, and it didn't work well at all. Up till then they'd been using NForce 2 IGP systems which also worked well.

Regarding the main power connector, yeah I agree. That is an awkward position.

RE: Looking forward to these boards

By InternetGeek on 6/4/2006 10:10:58 AM , Rating: 2

This can be a very good mobo for work PCs.

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RE: Looking forward to these boards

By gplracer on 6/4/2006 3:22:00 PM , Rating: 2

It would be nice if the power connector was on the side of the board next to the ide channel connector.

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Nice

By firewolfsm on 6/3/2006 3:49:34 PM , Rating: 2

Sounds like a nice clean motherboard and look how small that cooler is, this chipset must not take much power.

Trying to create a market that doesn't exist

By cornfedone on 6/3/06, Rating: -1

RE: Trying to create a market that doesn't exist

By Anh Huynh on 6/3/2006 8:59:02 PM , Rating: 2

Just because its mATX doesn't mean its for HTPCs. Integrated graphics chipsets make great platforms for business PC's that have no need for 3D performance.

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