Introduction

At the heart of ATI's new core logic solutions is the Radeon Xpress 200 chipset family. Launched last November for the Athlon 64 platform, the chipset comes in both discreet graphics and an IGP solution with a DirectX 9 capable graphics core. ATI followed this up with the Intel edition of the chipset and we will soon see Radeon Xpress 200 based Crossfire edition boards for both AMD and Intel aimed at the enthusiast market. The AMD and Intel versions of the Radeon Xpress 200 are basically identical except for the inclusion of a memory controller in the Intel edition. It is perhaps interesting to note that the ATI Radeon Xpress 200 for Intel Processors has a hybrid memory controller that supports DDR as well as DDR2 memory types. You can find more about the ATI Radeon Xpress 200 family in our in-depth article here.

So how does the Radeon Xpress 200 actually fair as a competitive chipset solution? We've taken a look at ECS' mainstream solution for AMD, the RX480-A and found its performance commendable. This time round, we had a go not only with the Intel version of the Radeon Xpress 200, but also one with the IGP Northbridge (RS400). This motherboard came in the form of the ECS RS400-A, a cross-breed of a board that supported DDR and DDR2 memory types and a choice of integrated or discreet graphics, which in itself supported both AGP and PCI Express graphic cards. That just about sums up one of the most flexible motherboard configurations available for the Pentium 4. Well, not exactly, you still have a review to read.

The ECS RS400-A motherboard.

The RS400-A came with the following package bundle:-

1 x SATA data cable

1 x SATA power converter cable (dual plugs)

1 x 80-conductor Ultra ATA data cable

1 x floppy drive data cable

I/O shield

Driver CD

User's manual

ECS RS400-A Technical Specifications

CPU Support	Supports 90nm LGA775 processor package Supports Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processors Supports Intel Pentium 4 / Celeron processors Intel Hyper-Threading Technology ready
Chipset	Northbridge: ATI Radeon XPRESS 200 (RS400) 533 / 800MHz front side bus PCI Express x16 graphics A-Link Express PCIe x2 interconnect to SB400 Southbridge Southbridge: ATI SB400 Supports up to four PCI Express x1 lanes Supports up to seven PCI  v2.3 slots Supports up to eight USB 2.0 ports Supports four SATA ports (with RAID 0 and 1 capabilities) A-Link Express PCIe x2 interconnect to RS400 Northbridge
Memory	Supports DDR2-677/533/400 dual channel memory architecture Supports two unbuffered DIMMs of 1.8 Volt DDR2 SDRAM Supports DDR-400/333/266 dual channel memory architecture Supports two unbuffered DIMMs of 2.5 Volt DDR SDRAM
Storage	ATI SB400 Southbridge 4 x Ultra ATA 33/66/100/133 (data transfer rate up to 133MB/sec.) 4 x SATA (Serial ATA 1.5Gbps interface) Supports SATA RAID 0, RAID 1
Audio	Realtek ALC655 6-channel AC'97 audio CODEC
Networking	Realtek RTL8100C PCI 10/100 LAN
I/O Interface	1 x Floppy connector 2 x Ultra ATA IDE connectors 4 x SATA connectors 8 x USB 2.0 ports (4 x rear, 4 x header) 1 x RJ45 LAN port 2-Channel Audio I/O ports with MIC and Line-IN 1 x VGA port 1 x CD-IN 1 x  TV-Out 1 x 9-pin serial port 1 x parallel port (header) 1 x mini-DIN-6 PS/2 mouse port 1 x mini-DIN-6 PS/2 keyboard port
Expansion Slots	1 x PCIe x16 slots, PCI Express Bus specification v1.0a compliant 2 x PCIe x1 slots, PCI Express Bus specification v1.0a compliant 2 x 32-bit PCI slots, PCI 2.3 compliant 1 x AGP Express slot
PCB	ATX Form Factor, 12"x 9.6"(30.5cm x 24.4cm)

Rear Panel of the ECS RS400-A is sparsely populated with four USB 2.0 ports, onboard LAN and basic analog audio connectivity. Since this is an IGP motherboard, a VGA out is also available.