ECS X48T-A mainboard review Intel X48

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ECS X48T-A mainboard Intel X48Typically an X48 chipset based mainboard will start at roughly 250 USD. The two chips the mainboard manufacturer has to purchase from Intel total up towards 90 USD alone....

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RIP_Greave · 07-08-2008, 02:17 | posts: 166 | Location: Around here | User is Offline

I have the intel bonetrail 2 (x48)chipset, its hard to belive that it is so limited on the overclocking side! i over clocked my E8400 with stock cooler from 3Ghz to 3.6GHz with out a problem and im sure if i try i will be able to puch it past the 4GHz mark!

Smellybumlove · 07-08-2008, 02:36 | posts: 596 | Location: taichung/london | User is Offline

nice to know my P35 still holds up so well!.

Skiddywinks · 07-08-2008, 08:18 | posts: 3,991 | Location: North Wales | User is Offline

Bit disappointed really. After clocking the massive all copper heatsinks I was look "oooh".

But after the Don pointed out the horrifically underhanded glue job, it all went down hill.

RejZoR

It's ECS, what did you guys expected? They have nice budget stuff to be running with stock settings. For overclocking anyone would have looked elsewhere really...

Hilbert Hagedoorn · 07-08-2008, 08:31 | posts: 11,706 | Location: Guru3D Trenches | User is Offline

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skiddywinks

Bit disappointed really. After clocking the massive all copper heatsinks I was look "oooh".

But after the Don pointed out the horrifically underhanded glue job, it all went down hill.

Yeah such a shame really. The high-end market is new to ECS, see originally they where an OEM manufacturer and my bet is .. they just aren't familiar with our "western" needs and demands just yet. face it, we all set the bar really high these days (and we should as we pay for it). I mean design wise .. the thing just looks incredible. It was merely a year ago that their mainboards where colored purple.

None the less, this is their first attempt in this segment and I do have high hopes for some good stuff for the future. Reviews like we have shown today will definitely get them thinking.

Skiddywinks · 07-08-2008, 09:01 | posts: 3,991 | Location: North Wales | User is Offline

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hilbert Hagedoorn

Yeah such a shame really. The high-end market is new to ECS, see originally they where an OEM manufacturer and my bet is .. they just aren't familiar with our "western" needs and demands just yet. face it, we all set the bar really high these days (and we should as we pay for it). I mean design wise .. the thing just looks incredible. It was merely a year ago that their mainboards where colored purple.

None the less, this is their first attempt in this segment and I do have high hopes for some good stuff for the future. Reviews like we have shown today will definitely get them thinking.

Very true, but they just seem like some pretty rookie mistakes. Diagnostic LEDs, Power/Reset/Reset CMOS buttons etc are pretty common, and even doing just an hours research would see how popular they are.

And the fact that the heatpipe is glued is just astonishing.

Granted, they are small things, but that is all the more reason to expect them to be there.

Still, I digress. It does look pretty good (although I don't think I like it as much as you do. Looks a bit brutish and simple to me), and they are hardly going to leave the market any time soon, so hopefully we will see some real killer stuff in not too long. Hey, it can only get better, right?

Ven0m · 07-08-2008, 14:35 | posts: 82 | Location: Warsaw, Poland | User is Offline

Sorry guys, but these heatsinks do *not* look like copper.
I made a few copper water blocks and I can tell you - extruding this material is a really nasty job. It just sticks to the tools.
Most of the copper heatsinks have fins soldered to the base or extruded with electro-extruder (I don't know the name in English, this is raw translation from Polish), perhaps other methods are used, but not a mill. Mill is used only for short-fin water blocks. Looking at photos, for me it looks like these heatsinks were milled from a solid block.
My bet is that it's just painted or anodized aluminum. It's a very common practice to use aluminum as it's cheaper and easy to extrude. Applying copper looks improves sales. Many manufacturers do so, sometimes even claiming that it's copper.

It can be checked in 2 ways:
- Density - Aluminum has 2.7g/cm^3, while copper almost 9g/cm^3
- True color - After scratching painted aluminum heatsink, you can see aluminum

Can you confirm or deny my guess?

Skiddywinks · 07-08-2008, 16:28 | posts: 3,991 | Location: North Wales | User is Offline

Sorry, but I can't see Herbert (

) scratching his new motherboard's heatsinks to find out.

And unless he has the ability to calculate the density of it, we are out of luck.

Ven0m · 07-09-2008, 00:34 | posts: 82 | Location: Warsaw, Poland | User is Offline

For passive solutions, aluminum isn't really worse than copper - there's no need for rapid heat transfer. Still, I really dislike painting aluminum practices.

Density difference is very big. Copper weights more than 3x more than aluminum. If this motherboard really has copper heatsinks, it would be significantly more heavy than one with aluminum heatsinks. Other copper heatsink motherboards may weight more or less the same as alu ones, as copper heatsinks are built in other way.

Copper:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/gigabyte-gax48dq6-review/

Aluminum:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/ecs-g3...31ich7-review/
http://www.guru3d.com/article/intel-...platform-test/

Don't get me wrong - in my opinion, using aluminum in this particular case is a good choice. I just dislike companies that tend to cheat their customers.