Elitegroup Computer Systems UK Ltd (ECS) announces the availability of its 915P-A and 915P-A2 motherboards. Both models use the Intel 915P chipset and support the Prescott Pentium 4 with dual channel memory and PCI Express graphics, while Intel’s new ICH6 Southbridge supports four SATA ports and eight USB 2.0 ports to give the user a massive list of features, but that’s only the beginning of the story, rather than the end of it.



Some motherboard customers will be keen to make the transition to the next generation of processor, graphics and memory technologies as soon as possible, and ECS has recently announced its PF4 Extreme model, which allows them to do exactly that. Other end users will be looking for a measured upgrade path to keep expenditure under control. They want to spread the expense by buying the motherboard and processor now, with a new graphics card and memory following on over the coming months.



ECS has kept these customers in mind, and it has developed the 915P-A and 915P-A2 as unique transition products to help the buying public move over to LGA775 without breaking the bank. Both models share the same I/O panel with the usual legacy ports, four USB 2.0, LAN and six mini jacks for the Intel High Definition audio, and internally they carry four Serial ATA connectors and one IDE connector.



The 915P-A has two 184-pin DDR memory slots and two 240-pin slots, supporting up to 2GB of memory. Naturally only one memory type can be used at one time. In addition to the PCI Express x16 graphics slot, two PCI Express x1 slots and two PCI slots, ECS has provided an AGP 8x slot. The result is that 915P-A customers will be able to carry over their current AGP graphics card and DDR memory to their new PC build and can then buy a PCI Express graphics card and DDR2 memory when more products are available and prices have stabilised.

RRP £74.99 (ex vat)

915P-A2 has four 184-pin DDR memory slots with support for up to 4GB PC3200 memory, but no support for DDR2 memory. It carries one PCI Express x16 slot, two PCI Express x1 slots and three PCI slots, making 915P-A2 the ideal Prescott motherboard for PC upgraders who have made a substantial investment and are unconvinced about the merits of DDR2 at present.

RRP £69 (ex vat)


Availability
The 915P-A and 915P-A2 will be available in August 2004 from Protac Direct Sales priced at £74.99 (ex VAT) and £69 (ex VAT) respectively.