ULi M1695 PCIe/AGP Socket 939 for Athlon 64 Must read

Switch · 14 July 2005 10:57

This is what was posted at Anand’s

Our Take

There are several questions that really need answering in our first look at the new ULi M1695/M1567 chipset. First and foremost, how does it compare to the excellent performance of the NVIDIA nForce4 chipset? Our brief testing here confirms that the ULi competes very well against NVIDIA, and is a performance drop-in to the NVIDIA performance levels. This is very good news for those shopping for Athlon 64 Socket 939 boards. ULi is a solid choice and competition means better buys for you. It will likely still be a month to 6 weeks before you will see retail M1695/M1567 boards for sale, but make no mistake that the ULi is a very good choice, featuring excellent performance.

Second, there is the unique question of ULi AGP on this PCIe board. How does it perform? We are glad to say that ULi AGP is the first AGP on any PCIe board that doesn’t require compromises. Those of you who want to take your high-end AGP card to a new PCIe board will be ecstatic over the performance of your AGP video card on the ULi board. It will work extremely well, as will a future PCIe card or a PCI card or any other combination of these three. This is absolutely unique, and it makes the compromise solutions, which derive AGP from PCI with degraded performance, totally obsolete. You do not need to compromise AGP performance just to get a PCIe board with this ULi M1695/M1567 chipset.
Next, there is the question of where ULi may be positioned in the marketplace. This is a tough call because we have seen excellent chipsets, like those from SiS, that have been relegated to the bargain bin because no manufacturer will support them. ULi has a bit more promise that we might otherwise see with their new chipsets. First, there is the fact that ATI selected ULi as a development partner for their South Bridge chips on the new Crossfire platform. That alone carries tremendous weight in getting manufacturers to take the new ULi chipsets seriously.
There is also the fact that ULi has some very unique and flexible solutions among their new offerings. The ability to do x16 or 2 x8 with a BIOS switch and riser card will appeal to many. In fact, x16/2 x8, AGP and PCI could all be theoretically combined on the same board. With a soon-to-be-available South Bridge, ULi is also saying that they will support Dual x16 lanes for a Workstation/Server type solution at a mainstream price. That will certainly appeal to many looking at the video high end. There is also the ability to interface with AMD’s PCI-X workstation chips in an even more amazing array of options. This flexibility should make ULi attractive to many manufacturers and to a wide range of buyers.
The new ULi M1695/M1567 chipset is both unique in its full-blown AGP support on a PCIe board and fully competitive in performance with the best Athlon 64 solutions currently available. PCIe performance could use a bit more tuning, but it is already competitive. If ULi can bring PCIe performance to the levels that they currently enjoy with AGP on this same board, this could well be the fastest Athlon 64 chipset that you can buy. We could wish for SATA 2 support and integrated Gigabit LAN, but even those are coming with the M1575 South Bridge slated for September/October production.
ULi did a great job with their new PCIe/AGP chipset. If you are in the market for a new Socket 939 board, then boards based on the ULi M1695/M1567 should definitely be on your shopping list. If you by chance plan to use AGP on your new PCIe board, then ULi M1695/M1567 is the only board that you should have on your shopping list. This AGP on PCIe really works, there are no compromises, and you will not be disappointed.

Complete review : [

FIRST LOOK: ULi M1695 PCIe/AGP Socket 939 for Athlon 64](http://www.techenclave.com/out.php?url=www.techenclave.com/out.php?url=www.techenclave.com/out.php?url=www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2471&p=1

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This chipset seems promising. Hope MSI/ASUS/DFI makes excellent boards based on this chipset. It will be hell cheaper than nForce 4 chipsets…

_HeadShot · 14 July 2005 11:07

Wow! Man, excellent chipset, I must say!

undertaker · 14 July 2005 11:38

Good.Will consider it seriously when building my new el cheapo gaming rig in the states,provided the design is adopted by atleast a semi-decent mfg.
Decent PCI-E and AGP support on one board is a god send for gamers,allowing to take advantage of the best deal possible when it comes to video-cards whether AGP or PCI-E.And it will likely be around $80-90 max. or even lower.

Haste · 14 July 2005 11:54

Benchmarks to ULi 's alternative to SLi technology running two pcie gfx card in 8x mode, can be found here.
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2005/uli/m1695/dualpcie-1.htm

deejay · 14 July 2005 12:06

Unfortunately and as usual they are entering the field when other players are leaving it for better and more advanced technology.
most of the chipset makers are concentrating on ddr2 now.
neverthless if they get their chipset drivers working flawlessly then it will certainly be a good and cheap entry level alternative to established players.
it is a very good option for people who want to use their vintage (but costly) AGP cards.

lets see how the big m/b mfgr’s embrace this chipset.

Haste · 14 July 2005 12:21

There would be a variant of this ULi1695 Board, which would have a slot for a daughter board.The daughter board would have socket M2 (the future AMD CPU interface) and ddr2 slots.One such board was shown at Computex 2005 by Asrock

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2005/computex2005/day0/p1.htm

Switch · 14 July 2005 13:01

Deejay… I beleive you havent covered the Computex roundup by Anandtech… There is too much happening with ULi as of now and its never too late for a competetion… We now have five chipsets makers for AMD 64… Isnt that just great… SIS/nVIDIA/VIA/ATI and now ULi… Its just healthy…

deejay · 14 July 2005 14:28

yup, I hardly ever visit AT or THG nowadays.

and i have mentioned what you were implying too. competion will be good as it will lower the prices…Provided the big players in the m/b market actually ramp up their production using this chipset. and if they get their drivers and other support services in order they should fare well. it will certainly do good with “oem” system assemblers.(large Volume , small margins)

but for the enthusiast market they would need a lot of convincing …

***ULi M1695 PCIe/AGP Socket 939 for Athlon 64*** Must read

ULi M1695 PCIe/AGP Socket 939 for Athlon 64 Must read