Introduction
When you think of DDR333 support on the AMD Athlon, the first board that comes to mind has got to be the Iwill XP333-R. One of the first manufacturers to roll out DDR333 support for the AMD Athlon platform, the Iwill XP333-R is based on the souped-up version of the ALiMAGiK1 chipset. Now running at a higher memory frequency, it frees up more bandwidth for the performance hungry user from 2.1GB/s (DDR266) to 2.7GB/s (DDR333). But does it really maximize the performance of the DDR333 technology?
We saw how the new VIA KT333 soared in performance a few articles ago and we thought it would be swell to bring the ALi's version of their DDR333 chipset for a neck to neck performance comparison. Basically, the Iwill XP333-R is a full featured ATX board that comes with all the tweaks and options you'll come to expect of an Iwill board. Also boasting ATA133 native support via its south bridge and IDE RAID controller, the Iwill XP333-R is actually a board way ahead of its time since its launch.
The board comes nicely packaged in a translucent plastic shell that houses the motherboard, a printed manual, a CD-ROM containing utilities and drivers, two 80-conductor IDE cables, a floppy drive cable and an audio bracket (with cable) for extending on-board sound to 6-channels.
The motherboard specifications are as below :-
Iwill XP333-R Motherboard Specifications
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Processor
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- Socket A for AMD Athlon XP,
Athlon & Duron processors
- Supports 266/200MHz FSB
- AMD Athlon XP 1400+ to
1900+ and higher
- AMD Athlon CPU from 700MHz
to 1.4GHz and higher
- AMD Duron CPU from 600MHz
to 1.0GHz and higher
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Chipset
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- ALi MAGiK 1 chipset (C
version) - ALi M1647 (North Bridge)
- Supports 200 / 266MHz Front
Side Bus
- AGP 2x / 4x
- Supports PC1600/ 2100/ 2700
DDR SDRAM
- ALi M1535D+ (South Bridge)
- Dual Bus Master IDE Ultra
DMA 33/66/100/133
- Supports PCI 2.2
- ACPI
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Cache memory
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- CPU Built-in 64KB (Duron) or
256KB (Athlon/Athlon XP) L2 cache
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System memory
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- 3 x 184-pin 2.5V PC1600/2100/2700
DDR SDRAM DIMM
- Supports up to a maximum of
3GB of memory
- Supports 184-pin unbuffered
DIMMs
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PCI IDE
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- 2x PCI Bus Master UDMA/100
IDE ports (up to 4 devices)
- Support for PIO Mode 0-4,
UDMA/33, UDMA/66, UDMA/100, UDMA/133 IDE & ATAPI CD-ROM
- 2x ATA 133 RAID 0,1 with
HighPoint HPT372 IDE controller
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I/O Interface
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- 1x floppy port (360KB - 2.88MB)
- 2x serial ports
- 1x parallel port (SPP/EPP/ECP)
- 1x PS/2 Keyboard
- 1x PS/2 Mouse
- 4x USB ports (two connectors
as header onboard)
- 1 IrDA connector for SIR/FIR/CIR
interface
- 1x Midi/Game port
- Audio ports for on-board sound
(Line-Out, Line-In, Mic)
- 1x SMBus Header
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Expansion slots
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- 5x 32-bit PCI slots, PCI
2.2 compliant
- 1x AGP (2x/4x mode) slot
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Power Management
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- Power on by LAN, Modem,
PS2 keyboard/mouse and switch
- Power off by Windows shut down
& Soft-Power switch
- Supports ACPI (Advanced Configuration
and Power Interface)
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Form Factor
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- ATX Form Factor : 30.5 cm (L)
x 24.4 cm (W) x 4 layers
- Fits into regular ATX case
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BIOS
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- 2 Mbit (256KB) EEPROM with
flash protection
- Award flash BIOS with PC99,
PnP, ACPI 1.0, APM 1.2 and DMI 2.1 support
- Multi-boot on LS-120, ZIP, ATAPI
CD-ROM, LAN, IDE #1, #2, #3, #4
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