Intel i815 / i815E Motherboard Roundup - August 2000

DFI CS35-EC
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CPU Interface	Socket-370
Chipset	Intel i815E
Form Factor	microATX
Bus Speeds	66 / 100 / 133 / 140 / 144 / 147 / 150 / 157 / 160 / 165
Voltages Supported	Auto Detect
Memory Slots	3 168-pin DIMM Slots
Expansion Slots	1 AGP Slot 2 PCI Slots (2 Full Length) 1 CNR Slot 0 ISA Slots
Onboard Audio	Analog Devices AD1881 AC'97 CODEC
BIOS	Award Modular BIOS 6.00PG

Quite possibly the DFI CS35-EC's biggest claim to fame is it's ability to accept the oversized FC-PGA-C required for 1 GHz and above processors. This is accomplished by an abnormally large keep out area around the CPU socket where there are no tall capacitors installed.

The CS35-EC was one of the few boards to not include a heatsink on the i82815 GMCH, possibly the reason for the instability we encountered with the board. The board was not stable at all with CAS 2 memory timings, and not much better at CAS 3. If and only if DFI can deal with these problems, can we seriously consider recommending this board to anyone.

Interestingly, despite using the i82801BA ICH2 with integrated i82559 ethernet, DFI offers an optional RealTek PCI ethernet chip on board. We're not sure why they'd do this when they've already got a perfectly good Intel solution in the chipset, but our best guess is that the RealTek is only used on ICH1 designs. Unfortunately, the physical PCB space required for that chip means that a potential PCI slot is lost from the expansion slot configuration.

This DFI board was also the first time we've seen an AGP retention mechanism from anyone other than Gigabyte and Intel. Maybe the idea is starting to catch on with OEM's - don't be surprised if more and more manufacturers adopt this feature.