Introduction

nVidia's nForce platform is currently one of the fastest evolving platforms in the market. Since the original chipset which arrived in the latter parts of 2001, nVidia have come out with two more additions, the nForce 2 and nForce 3 chipsets. To capture the value ended market nVidia now integrates various features to the south bridge giving it a solid edge over its competition.

The biggest advantage the nForce2 chipset has over its competition is its rock solid performance, competitive pricing, good software and overall stability.

Today we look at one of the newest introductions by Albatron, the KX 18DS Pro II. This board is the successor to their former successful release the KX18D Pro II. In terms of performance I don't expect to see a considerable difference between these two boards, however what the KX 18DS Pro II builds on to its former counterpart is features and greater support for newer processors. A comparison of features are shown in the table below. The KX 18DS Pro II is equipped with nVidia's new MCPS -RAID South Bridge which by default offers a wider range of native features than the MCP-T of the KX 18D Pro II.

Feature comparison

As a company Albatron is well in the forefront of new developments in the industry and offering consumers the best choices along with its aggressive pricing strategy. Lets take a closer look at what the KX18DS Pro II has in offer.

Features & Specifications

Features

AMD Athlon™/ Athlon™XP / Athlon™XP Barton/ Duron™Processor
Socket 462 with FSB 200/266/333/400+(by overclocking) MHz
3 DDR400/DDR333/266/200 Memory Sockets (Dual DDR400)
AGP 8X , 6 channel AC 97 Audio
2 ATA133 Channels, up to 4 ATA 133 IDE Devices
nForce2 MCP RAID 10/100 Ethernet LAN/ Marvell Gbits LAN
2 Serial ATA150 Channels, Serial ATA RAID 0,1,0+1
2 IEEE1394 Ports
8 USB 2.0/1.1 Ports (4 ports by optional cable)
BIOS Mirror ™
Voice Genie ™

Processor

AMD Athlon™/ Athlon™XP / Athlon™XP Barton/ Duron™Processor

FSB

200/266/333/400 MHz

Chipset

North Bridge: nVIDIA nForce2 SPP (Ultra 400)
South Bridge: nVIDIA nForce2 MCPS
LAN Chip : LAN PHY Realtek RTL8201CL / Marvell MV8001
IEEE1394 Chip : VIA VT6307
Audio Codec: Realtek ALC650
Serial ATA Chip : nVIDIA nForce2 MCP RAID
I / O Chip : Winbond W83627HF

Memory

3 *DDR Sockets:
DDR400/DDR333/266/DDR200 NON-ECC DDR SDRAM up to 3GB ( Single Channel) , up to 2GB ( Dual Channel )

Expansion Slots

1 x AGP 3.0 8X/4X slot (1.5V & 0.8 V Only)
5 x PCI slots (PCI 2.2 compliant)

IDE Connectors

2 ATA133 channels, up to 4 ATA 133 IDE Devices

Onboard I/O Connectors

1 x Floppy Connector
2 x USB 2.0/1.1 header (4 ports USB cable optional)
2 x IEEE1394 header (2 ports IEEE1394 cable optional)
1 x CD_IN header
1 x COM Port header
1 x S/PDIF in/out header (S/PDIF in/out cable optional)
1 x CPU fan header with fan rotation detection function
1 x System fan headers with fan rotation detection function
1 x10 pin system panel header (Intel spec)
1 x 3 pin Power LED header
1 x 4 pin Speaker header
1 x Front audio header (Intel spec)
1 x Case Open detection header
2 x 5 pin Com port header
2 x 8 pin Game Port header

I/O via Back Panel

PS/2 keyboard/mouse, 4 x USB(2.0/1.1), 2 x RJ45 ,1 x Com(serial), 1 x Parallel, 1x Game/Line-in/Line-out/MIC

Power

20-pin ATX power connector

BIOS Feature

4 Mb Flash EEPROM
Award BIOS with ACPI, DMI2.0, PnP, WfM2.0, Green Suspend to RAM (S3), Suspend to Disk (S4) Wake on keyboard / Mouse, Wake on LAN/RTC Timer

Hardware Monitoring

2 FAN sensors, CPU/System voltages and temperature monitoring

Special Feature

Zero Jumper Design
BIOS Mirror [TM]Protect BIOS by creating an original mirror image of itself
Voice Genie [TM]Voice Troubleshooting system ( four-Language )
Adjustable CPU frequency by 1 MHz increment, Adjustable V_core, V_AGP, V_Memory for overclocking
Watch Dog Timer (auto-reset system when it can not handle overclock configurations)
Special design for CPU Over Temperature Protection.( OTP )

Certifications

FCC,CE, BSMI

Form Factor

ATX (244*305 mm)