ecs is a name that always comes to mind when speaking in terms of oem motherboards

8/4/2019 ECS is a Name That Always Comes to Mind When Speaking in Terms of OEM Motherboards

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ECS is a name that always comes to mind when speaking in terms of OEM motherboards. About two years ago, ECS decided that it would be both beneficia l to them, as well asthe enthusiast market segment if they focused their efforts on the enthusiast crowd. About eight months ago, ECS introduced their Extreme series of motherboards, whichcatered to the needs of gamers, and extreme system users alike. These boards were surprisingly well accepted. Since then, these motherboards have received over 100 thirdparty awards. Today we have the opportunity to look at the ECS KN1 SLI Extreme motherboard. Being their flagship model, I have very high expectations for it, but not havingany experiences with ECS in the past, I have to admit that I was quite skeptical. Lets get on with this review and see if this board can back up all of the hype surrounding it.

Packaging and Specifications

Upon laying eyes on the packaging, I knew that ECS had made a full 180. Instead of the bland white box I sort of expected, I was greeted with a very pleasing, green and blackpackage. The frontof the box features the KN1 SLI Extreme logo, the ECS logo, and a few of the supported features of this motherboard. The reverse side listed all of the mainfeatures, and some design ideas relating to the the board.

Specifications(taken from the ECS web site)

CPU

-Socket 939 for Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX, Athlon 64 X2 and Opteron-High-performance Hyper Transport CPU interface.-Support transfer rate of 2000/1600/1200/800/400 mega-transfers per second.

CHIPSET

-NVIDIA nForce4 SLI

MEMORY

-Dual-channel DDR memory architecture-4 x184-pin DDR SDRAM DIMM socket support up to 4 GB-Support DDR400/333/266 DDR SDRAM

EXPANSION SLOT

-2 x PCI Express x16 slot ( SLI mode: x8, x8 )-1 x PCI Express x1 slot

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-3 x PCI slots

STORAGE

Supported by nForce4 SLI

-4 x Ultra DMA133/100/66 devices-4 x Serial ATA2 devices-RAID 0, RAID 1 & RAID 0+1 configuration

Supported by SiI3132

-2 x Serial ATA2 devices-RAID0, RAID1, PM and eSATA support

AUDIO

-Realtek ALC850 supports Intel 8 channel audio-Compliant with AC'97 2.3 specification

IEEE 1394a

-TI TSB43AB22A support 2 x IEEE1394a

DUAL LAN

-Realtek 8100C 10/100 Mbps Fast Ethernet controller -Marvell 88E1111 Giga LAN PHY

REAR PANEL I/O

-1 x PS/2 keyboard & PS/2 mouse connectors-4 x USB ports-2 x RJ45 LAN connectors-2 x Digital SPDIF (Optical & Coaxial) out-1 x Serial port (COM1)-1 x Audio port (Line-in,4x Line-out, Mic_in)

INTERNAL I/O CONNECTORS & HEADERS

-1 x 24-pin ATX Power Supply connector -1 x 4-pin ATX 12V connector -1 x Auxiliary 4-pin +12V connector -1 x FDD connector supports two 360K~2.88MB FDDs-2 x IDE connectors-6 x Serial ATA connectors-1 x IrDA for SIR header -2 x 1394a headers-3 x USB 2.0 headers support additional 6 USB ports-1 x Front panel switch/LED header -1 x Front panel audio header -1 x 26-pin LPT header -CD in header -CPUFAN/NB_FAN1/CASFAN1~2 connectors

SYSTEM BIOS

-Award BIOS with 4Mb Flash ROM-Supports Plug and Play 1.0A, APM 1.2, Multi Boot, DMI-Supports ACPI revision 1.0 specification

FORM FACTOR

-ATX Size 305mm*244mm

Features



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What's Included?

Closer Look

The KN1 SLI Extreme seems to have one of the most open concepts of any of the SLI motherboards that I have seen to date. Unlike offerings from the likes of Asus, MSI, DFI,etc., the KN1 has a very clean layout, with many capacitors, and other raised components strategically placed in order to provide maximum expandability. Built on a purple PCB,the color scheme may seem unorthodox to many people who are used to the usual colors of black, red, brown, and green, but then again ECS making gaming motherboardsmay seen unorthodox to many as well. The overall look of this motherboard is fresh and clean and the color scheme of purple, green, and yellow is a little different but it works.










I will work from top to bottom when doing this review so as to keep some sort of order. The open design of the motherboard is greatly emphasized in the CPU socket area. Withthe introduction of very high speed processors, heat has become a major problem with today's computers, and to tame the massive amounts of heat, many people are turningto the gargantuan heatsinks available on the marketplace. As ECS is aiming this board at enthusiasts, it was a strategic and well thought out move that will definitely pay off.The large surface area is not so apparent when the socket plate is attached, but don't be fooled once removed, this motherboard will be able to accommodate most any heatsinkout there.

Just to the left of the CPU socket area is a green fan and fan shroud. This is used to cool mainly the mosfets but also the capacitors that are loca ted in between it and the CPUsocket. Though some of the other manufactures include variations of heat pipe cooling technologies to cool this area, ECS did not find it necessary to add this, and as stability isnot an issue, it was smart on their part enabling a lower MSRP of the board.





To the right of the CPU socket are the vertically mounted DDR RAM slots. There are two purple and two yellow slots which help in identifying which slots to utilize when usingdual channel ram. Each of the four slots are capable of handing one gig of ram, that's 1024mb, and if they are all filled up, a total of 4GB of ram. Now, what does this mean? Itmeans a very expandable motherboard memory wise, capable of handling almost anything that you can throw at it. A little further to the right are the power, IDE, and floppyconnections. In my opinion this is the best location for these connections as they allow the best solutions for wire hiding and management.

Included on this motherboard are two PCI Express 16x slots, one PCI Express 1x slot, and three PCI slots. Those of you who have a loaded bank of PCI expansion slots onyour old AGP rig may run into a few problems on this, and just about every single other SLI motherboard on the marketplace. The PCI Express and PCI slots are color coded,and as a side note, if you are using one video card, install it in the top slot.






In between the PCI Express 16x slots a little to the right is the southbridge which is cooled by a chrome color heatsink. Some of you who are new to the Nvidia socket 939chipsets may be asking yourself... “Where is the northbridge?” Well the answer is simple, there is none, it is not needed.

Ok, so we went from just a plain old ATX cable to power the whole motherboard to an ATX and 4pin connector, and now we need an ATX 2.0, 4pin, and molex connector.Ummm, this is getting a little out of hand isn't it? Well, in any case, the molex connector is located in a sort of awkward place which requires a molex cable to be run right acrossthe top of the motherboard. Oh well, I guess there isn't really much you can do about it.






There is a total of six SATA connectors on this motherboard, two SATA I two SATA II and two eSATA. Well, when I looked at it I was a little puzzled, so I snatched up my usersmanual and took a gander. It seems that this is what eSATA is:

“With eSATA approved, the signal quality and the Max cable length is 2x longer than conventional one. It also supports external HDD hot plug and keyed connector end for poor-proof. “

I would like to point out that many SLI motherboards out there have eight instead of six SATA connections, but I couldn't name one person that would use eight hard drives, well,on a gaming computer that is. In any case, that may be a downfall to some of you, though I could rarely see so. The CMOS battery is positioned in this same area, and is quitedifferent from anything else I have seen before. The CMOS battery is placed at a 90 degree angle from the board, enabling easy installation and removal of it





Underneath the expansion slots are a variety of connections. Located at the far left is what I will call the audio section. If you need to connect any sort of audio add on to theonboard audio, you will do it here. The jumper that switches rear panel to front panel audio is also located here. Located just to the right of the audio section are the USB, audio,and IDEE1394 firewire expansion ports. They are color matched so as to not mix them up.

Located to the far right bottom of the motherboard are the front panel, infared, speaker, and LPT1 connections. As you may guess from here, there is no LPT1 printer portincluded in the group of ports at the back of the motherboard, but who uses those anyway's? This section is pretty straight forward, but one thing I would like to point out is the

jumpers. They aren't those little ones that always seem to find their way to the bottomof your case, but they have extensions which enable you to gain a firm grip on them. The“Clear CMOS” jumper is located here as well.






Installation

ECS provided a very detailed installation guide which does compare in every way to that of higher end manufacturers such as MSI, Asus, DFI ect. Setup was completed in alittle over an hour keeping in mind that the operating system was installed in this time. One thing that I did notice was a fitting error. When the video card is installed the firstpurple ram slot was unable to be opened from the bottom. It is a little inconvenience but it wasn't that big of a problem.

Testing

Because the tests involving more then just a motherboard (i.e gaming benchmarks) do not give a good indication of a motherboards actual performance unless compared to avariety of other motherboards, I decided to keep testing programs limited to real world and motherboard/cpu only tests. The following system will be used to perform all tests

Athlon 64 3700+ECS KN1 SLI ExtremeXFX 6600 256mb1 GB Mushkin Redline PC3200120 GB Western Digital Carvier 7200RPM 8MB cache SATASony CD-RW/DVD-ROM

The following tests will be used and scores for both overclocked and stock CPU speeds will be shown. I will provide a small quote about the test above each result graph in order to give you, the reader, a better understanding of the benchmark test and what it was designed for

Sisoft Sandra 2005 CPU ArithmeticSiSoft Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is a 32 and 64-bit Windows system analyzer that includes benchmarking, testing and listing modules.

Everest Ultimate Edition 2006EVEREST Ultimate Edition is system diagnostics and benchmarking solution for enthusiasts PC users, based on the award-winning EVEREST Technology. During systemoptimizations and tweaking it provides essential system and overclock information, advanced hardware monitoring and diagnostics capabilities to check the effects of the appliedsettings

Cinebench 2003The tool is set to deliver accurate benchmarks by testing not only a computer 's raw processing speed but also all other areas that affect system performance such as OpenGL,multithreading, multiprocessors and Intel's new HT Technology. CINEBENCH includes render tasks that test the performance of up to 16 multiprocessors on the same computer as well as software-only shading tests and OpenGL shading tests on huge numbers of animated polygons that will push any computer to its limits.





Sisoft Sandra Memory BandwidthSiSoft Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is a 32 and 64-bit Windows system analyzer that includes benchmarking, testing and listing modules.For testing memory we use Sandra's Memory Bandwidth benchmark.

Conclusion

ECS had a lot of weight riding on the release of this motherboard. It was going to make or break their future as a high end motherboard manufacturer. As you probably know,first impressions mean everything and I think the KN1 SLI Extreme succeeded in everything it set out to do. If you are looking for a solid performing motherboard, or have themoney for a higher end one but aren’t worried about every single last FPS, you could probably do yourself a favor and spend the money you save buying this motherboard on agame, or something similar. The KN1 SLI Extreme is in a class of its own, congratulations ECS.

I would like to thank ECS Elitegroup for making this review possible.

Optical Diagnostics with DiodeLasers

Toni Laurila, Heidi Cattaneo, and Rolf HernbergIntroduction - Objectives - Methods - Expected Results




http://www.tut.fi/optics/personnel/tonil.html

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http://www.tut.fi/optics/aoresearch/dlspektro/index.html#resu%23resu


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Introduction

In recent years strong advances have taken place in room temperature visible and near-IR

semiconductor lasers. These lasers have been applied as light sources for telecommunication, high-speed computer networks and optical data storage, for example.

A very promising application area is the use of diode lasers as light sources for

spectroscopic applications. The small size and high operability of diode lasers is paving

way for a new generation of compact, portable and relatively inexpensive sensors for temperature, velocity, pressure, mass flux and chemical species detection to be applied in

industrial processes, combustion, atmospheric sciences and medicine.

The wavelength of all diode lasers can be slightly tuned by temperature and current

control. The tuning range depends on the laser materials and structure. However, due tothe linewidth, limited tuneability, and multimode operation of diode lasers additional

optical techniques are required for their application as accurate spectroscopic light

sources. Several techniques have been developed in order to extend the tuning range, andto operate in a single mode with narrow linewidth. Distributed feedback (DFB) lasers are

widely used for detailed study of selected spectral lines. However, the operating

wavelength range of DFB-lasers is quite small. Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers(VCSEL) combine narrow linewidth, wide tuning range, and round beam shape. As yet,

VCSELs are available only for limited wavelengths. External-cavity diode lasers (ECDL)

can provide much wider tuning range than VCSELs and DFB-lasers, but they are alsotechnically more complicated and significantly more expensive. The wide wavelength

coverage makes ECDLs very useful for research purposes.



As the shortest diode laser wavelength today is around 370-410 nm (blue-UV spectral

region) non-linear frequency conversion is still in many cases the only way by which a

spectroscopically interesting wavelength range can be reached using diode laser technology. This is particularly true for spectroscopy in the ultraviolet (UV). However,

frequency conversion is quite complicated and it takes place at great expense of the

available brightness. Therefore, novel techniques and materials for frequency conversionare subject to intense research.

The mid-IR has been accessed using difference frequency generation, which leads also to

complicated schemes. However, direct access to "fingerprint bands" in the mid-IR and IR

is now becoming reality through quantum cascade lasers (QCL), invented in 1994 at BellLabs, which are being vigorously developed.

Tunable diode laser spectroscopy (TDLS) offers potential for compact and reliable gas

sensors. This is one of the most rapidly growing applications of diode laser based

diagnostics. It is tempting to add low-cost as a further attribute to diode laser based

sensors, and certainly this is true compared with traditional laser sources. There is a largemarket for really cheap gas sensors but it is far from clear that any TDLS configuration

can offer competitive economy in small production volumes. Some commercialinstruments have appeared where inexpensive diode laser sources are used. One example

is an oxygen sensor based on the electric dipole forbidden transition at 760 nm, which is

an application made without frequency conversion using commercially available diodelaser sources.

In the development of spectroscopic instruments for measurement of species

concentrations detailed information about spectral features of the species under study is

crucial. Although spectral features have been studied over decades there are still

significant gaps in the knowledge. In particular, the line profiles and high temperatureabsorption cross sections are often unknown, uncertain or not experimentally verified.

TDLS is a powerful tool for detailed experimental study of the fundamental spectroscopic

parameters.

Objectives

The main objectives of the project are:

• To study and to develop properties of diode lasers as tunable spectroscopic light

sources with emphasis on scientific, industrial, environmental and medicalapplications.

• To study and to develop diode laser based techniques and instrumentation for

optical gas diagnostics.



• To get new spectroscopic data about line profiles of toxic heavy metals in the

ultraviolet.

• To get new spectroscopic data about the high temperature absorption cross

sections of selected process gases in visible and near infra-red regions with

tunable diode lasers.

Methods

Tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy at visible and near-infrared regions

Molecular absorption spectroscopy is a commonly used method for species concentration

measurement. Tunable single mode diode lasers (such as DFB, ECDL and VCSEL) are

excellent light sources for absorption spectroscopy. In the present project diode laser based techniques and instrumentation for optical gas diagnostics will be studied and

developed.

Important part of the work is the search and characterisation of applicable spectral bands

and resonance lines of molecules. The concentration determination is based on theknowledge of absorption cross sections. The total absorption coefficient over a line is

often well known, but only very limited experimental information about absorption cross

sections at elevated temperatures is available.

A laminar premixed gas flame with accurate mass flow control provides a well-characterised test-bench facility for diode laser diagnostics. In the present project one

major objective is to characterise the high temperature absorption cross sections and line

profiles of spectral lines that have been found useful for gas sensing by TDLS. The studywill be started with common process gases, O2, and H2O. The results of these

measurements will be compared with numerical results of spectra modelling software and

databases (see the article from Cattaneo et al. in Spectrochimica Acta A 2004, List of Publications).

Diode laser application for ultraviolet spectroscopy

The UV has so far received limited interest in the optical

diagnostics with diode lasers. However, the near-UV offersnew spectroscopic possibilities based on atomic resonance

lines or electronic transitions of molecules. Non-linear frequency conversion of high-power visible diode lasers will be studied in order to make diode lasers applicable as tunable

UV-light sources.

Atomic absorption spectroscopy is used for toxic metal

sensing. Although these lines have been studied over decadesthere is still significant uncertainty in the knowledge of total

http://www.tut.fi/optics/publications







absorption cross sections (Einstein coefficient). Furthermore, accurate measurements

with narrow band light sources also give essential information about the profiles of

measured spectral lines, and thus, information about parameters like pressure broadeningand pressure shift. In the present project TDLS will be applied for detailed study of the

atom lines of Cu at 325 nm.

The heavy metal emission research will be a natural continuation of the over five years

experience of the Applied Optics Group in heavy metal spectroscopy. The group has

developed an instrument prototype for on-line heavy metal monitoring. In this heavy

metal analyser the light sources are hollow cathode spectral lamps. In comparison tothese, UV diode laser sources would remarkably improve the detection sensitivity and the

instrument could be made more compact. The sensing of copper vapour is important

because of its catalytic effect on the formation of dioxines in combustion processes.There is also great interest of measuring copper in pyrometallurgical processes.

An external-cavity diode laser (ECDL) based on a diffractive transmission grating at 650

nm has been built (see the article from Laurila et al. in Applied Optics 2002, List of Publications). By frequency doubling the 650 nm light the atomic absorption lines of

copper at 325 nm have been accessed and a significant improvement in the on-line

detection limit of copper has been demonstrated (see the article from Laurila and

Hernberg in Applied Physics Letters 2003, List of Publications).

Expected results

The project is expected to give new and unpublished scientific information on heavy

metal (Cu) spectroscopic parameters and on high temperature absorption cross-sections

of common process gases (H2O and O2). New scientific information for spectroscopicapplications of diode lasers is expected to be obtained, both in the ultraviolet and near-

infrared regions. It is expected that the project will lead to new results in the form of

novel and improved spectroscopic techniques and optical sensor applications.

The development of diode laser based optical diagnostics is very rapid at present, as newdiode laser sources and new related optical and spectroscopic techniques appear very

frequently. The areas of technology most likely to be affected by the results are new

compact and highly electronically controllable sensor technologies for applications inindustry, environmental measurement and research. Medical applications, like highly

accurate gas sensors, form another potential application field. An important consequence

of the high controllability of TDLS technology is that such TDLS sensors may have asubstantial impact on the automation of industrial processes and facilitate the

development of closed loop processes, which is highly important in reducing the

environmental impact of industrial processes.

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ecs is a name that always comes to mind when speaking in terms of oem motherboards

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