Technical Impressions
The 815TX auto detects the CPU type and automatically
chooses the proper CPU voltage. You may play with the voltage manually by
using the JP11 jumper. When set to SHORT the CPU voltage will be 0.05V higher
than normal, you can’t chose any other voltage than these two options. The
voltage regulator on the 815TX is capable of 1.3V ~ 3.5V to support different
Central Processing Units, but again no manual choices can be done.
The front side bus adjustments can be done via the DIP-switches, or via BIOS.
In order to control them via the BIOS, you will have to set your standard
FSB (66-100-133). For example: In order to choose the 140MHz FSB, you will
have to adjust the dip switches to call the 133MHz bus, and just then the
BIOS will display the 133MHz+ choices.
The expansion of the 815TX mainboard can be considered
minimal as it only features four PCI slots. Let me point out that for a 815
solution 4 PCI slots is close to not being acceptable. The 815 chipset allows
a maximum of six PCI slots, and I can’t understand why AZZA didn’t bother
going further, unless they targeted their 815TX for a low end OEM market.
The board also features an AMR slot. I personally would prefer an extra PCI
slot instead, but an AMR could always come in handy one day.
Three well-positioned DIMM slots are located near the upper IDE connectors.
Each can house up to 512MB each, resulting in up to 1.5GB in memory. The positioning
of the HDD/FDD connector ports is very comfortable, as they are out of the
way of all other components on the motherboard. The ATX power supply connector
is conveniently located next to the right portion of the FDD port. The layout
itself is very well suited.
The 815TX board features a built in 3D Audio
Chip provided from the AC-97 codec. This particular audio set is very similar
to the sound-blaster 16 card, and should satisfy most users. However, if you
are playing a lot of games or use a multi-channel sound system, you would
be better with a normal high end audio card such as the SBLIVE or MX400. The
implanted audio solution features two different audio connectors on the PCB.
These connectors allow you to receive stereo audio input from sound sources
such as a CD-ROM drive and TV Tuners. All that external outputs-inputs are
of course also present.
The BIOS used on the 815TX board are not the AWARD BIOS that are used in most
of today’s boards; instead, AZZA used the PHOENIX BIOS Software. Phoenix is
also a part of the AWARD BIOS company; it’s just that Phoenix is generally
targeted more for the low-end motherboards. I couldn’t confirm it now, but
if you look at the CPU-FPU benchmarks of the 815TX, the results in some scenes
are weak. Could the PHOENIX BIOS cause the problem? Could a BIOS update resolve
the problem? I couldn’t comment on this one at the moment, but Il keep you
up to date in the days to come when Il get the chance to talk to AZZA’s personnel.
Maybe this is less important, but it is definitely
worth mentioning: the placement of the CMOS reset jumper. It’s situated at
the very bottom of the board and is very easy to access when compared to other
motherboards, which in some cases, require removing the cards in order to
access it.
