Albatron KX 18D Pro II

Albatron KX 18D Pro II - nForce2 Ultra 400

Manufactured by: Albatron

Price: ~

Reviewed by:

Date : September 24th 2003

Closer look at the board-Cont'd

The KX 18D Pro II provides 6-channel audio capability. A separate audio header is provided so that users can make use of 6-channel audio. We used the Fiber optic digital provided in the audio header for our requirements. While the sound quality is not as good as a high-end stand alone sound card such as a creative audigy, the board still provides very good sound. It's also a lot easier to work with, since I have used similar optical digital outs provided in SOYO boards, and it's not always a matter of plug and play. What I like most is the provided audio software. It provides a very easy to use interface and you can configure your whole setup within a few minutes.

The KX 18D Pro II also has Dual Bios support in it. It's only a few selected manufactures that actually provides Dual Bios support, and it's definitely a welcome feature. For those who are not familiar with what Dual Bios means, well it basically provides a back-up of your existing BIOS in the event something goes wrong in the original BIOS. Eg: faulty flash, virus etc…

The KX 18D Pro II has a dip-switch in the board which allows you to overwrite the existing bios in the event something goes wrong.

Serial ATA is becoming more or less a standard for high-end boards today. The KX 18D Pro II supports up to two Serial ATA drives provided by a Silicon Image Sil3112 chip. At present this solution uses the PCI BUS for communication, which could result in performance bottlenecks. Albatron provides only one SATA data and power cable, so if you intend to use two drives, you'll have to buy extra cables.

Data cable attached to the board

You would have noticed that the KX 18D Pro II has a dip switch located near the onboard battery. This dip switch is not for the usual Multiplier adjustments; rather this switch offers a few other functionalities. The first feature is the Voice trouble shooting system, or better known as the Voice Genie. What this does is, when there's some problem with your PC, say your AGP card isn't properly secure, the board will vocally say what the problem is. We installed a faulty hard drive into the board just to see what would happen, and a Robot female voice came up and pointed out that the hard drive was faulty. This is truly a great feature to have since the board will pin point exactly where the problem exists, so you won't be spending hours trying to figure out where the problem is. The voice genie comes in 4 languages, namely English, Chinese, Japanese and German.

The next two functions offered by the DIP switch are the BIOS Mirror function and SATA function. The BIOS mirror function allows you to either mirror the existing BIOS or rescue a faulty BIOS. The SATA function allows you to either enable or disable it.

Well that basically covers all of the features offered by the KX 18D Pro II, so lets see how this board performs.

The board is not offered with any kind of additional software other than the bear requirements (drivers) and PC Cillin 2002.

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