The AZZA 815TX Motherboard
Pro
Team Computer Corp. is the manufacturer of AZZA main-boards. Incorporated
in 1989, Pro Team Computer Corp. started by providing design and testing services
to other large main-board manufacturers and has in the process developed a
core competency in the research and development of main-boards. Being an outwardly
focused and customer-driven company, Pro Team Computer Corp. is now focusing
on its ability to create a differentiated main-board with enhanced features
that give greater value to customers.
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Features
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The
Unit
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- Intel 815 chipset
- supports Intel
Socket 370 Pentium III and Celeron processors
- supports 66/100/133
MHz System Bus
- PCI*4, AGP*1,
AMR*1, DIMM*3
- includes AIR
Bus technology supports Ultra-DMA 66
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The 815 chipset was announced in early July
2000 at Computex 2000. The 815 platforms came to the market to give the expensive,
Rambus enabled, 820 platforms a break. That’s how we the consumers see it
anyway, Intel had a very different point of view last month when they finally
released this RDRAM killer. Intel stated a few times that the 815 chip-set
would be a low cost solution, and to prove that, they included an integrated
low cost video solution and in a way limited its memory expansion to today’s
minimum specs. To all of that, as Tom''s hardware announced it last month,
it seems as if Intel is not planning to release a large amount of these boards.
Why you ask? Well, if we explore the situation a little bit deeper, the i815
could end up being the 820 terminator.
The Solano 815 platform offers everything a VIA133A,
i810E, BX chip-sets combined all together has to offer, and more. The Solano
815 chip-set is available under two different phases, first is the 815 and
the 815E. What differs both is their South Bridge. The most advanced version
with the E is using a newer I/O Controller Hub, also known as ICH, the newer
ICH stepping name is ICH2. The ICH2 offers several newer improvements over
ICH such as the use of four USB ports, CNR slots and support of the newer
ATA100 standard. The I/O controller hub2 can be found in newer Intel platforms
such as the i840 and i820 with the new E stepping. The ICH version in the
other hand offers similar features to today’s recent available platforms such
as the VIA133APRO chipset. The older ICH supports the standard features as
ATA/66, two USB ports. A reasonable money difference between both versions
could be noticed. It will be up to you, the user, to decide which will fit
your needs. Features such as ATA/100 might be useless, but four USB ports
on board could definitely come in handy these days.
Mainboards featuring the 815 chip-sets will be reasonably more expensive than
any other VIA133A boards. The price will be very close to the 820 boards.
We are looking at Azza’s first 815 solution, which is supposed to be an exception,
resulting in a lower price than its competition.
