Iwill KA266-R DDR Motherboard

SUMMARY: DDR is coming and there are real performance improvements – Iwill is first out of the blocks with the KA266-R.

The board measures 12″ x 9.58″ – larger than the ASUS A7V; serial # 29. It also has a nice “power on” green diode at the bottom left.

PC Nut just got back from COMDEX with the Iwill KA266-R DDR motherboard in tow – no DDR RAM. I have DDR RAM (Crucial Engineering Sample). So we got together to run this board through its paces. Rather than wind-up with the benchmarks we ran this morning, let’s see what this board can do:

Iwill KA266-R Benchmarks

Setup/Benchmark	Result
700 MHz (7 x 100 FSB)
Quake Hi Quality	108.6/109.9
Quake Fastest	119.6/120.3
Quake “Special”	151.2/155.7
3DMark 2000 Default	6192
3DMark 2000 800/600/16	6744
SiSoft CPU	2196/976
SiSoft MultiMedia	2386/3274
SiSoft Memory	392/538
933 MHz (7 x 133 FSB)
Quake Hi Quality	131.8/137.7
Quake Fastest	161.0/161.8
Quake “Special”	203.6/209.5
3DMark 2000 Default	7038
3DMark 2000 800/600/16	8288
SiSoft CPU	2936/1303
SiSoft MultiMedia	3179/4368
SiSoft Memory	535/728
956 MHz (6.5 x 146 FSB)
Quake Hi Quality	134.6/140.4
Quake Fastest	167.3/168.0
Quake “Special”	211.5/217.9
3DMark 2000 Default	7116
3DMark 2000 800/600/16	8458
SiSoft CPU	2998/1331
SiSoft MultiMedia	3246/4461
SiSoft Memory	560/773

T-Bird Blue Core 750 MHz, 1.7 v, 128 MB Crucial DDR 7.5ns RAM, Leadtek GTS2, Global Win FOP38, “Special” = all options off, simple items on. There are no asynchronous RAM settings or V Core adjustments on this board.

Note SiSandra’s Memory scores – damn impressive! This is the one area we will see major gains over the next year or so. Good news for bandwidth intensive games like Quake.

Comparing these results to an Intel PIII 700E running 1050 MHz (HERE), it looks like Iwill’s DDR board at 956 MHz outperforms the PIII 700E on an Iwill VD133 Pro at 1050 MHz:

Benchmark	PIII 700E @ 1050 MHz	TBird 750 @ 956 MHz
Quake	158.2/147.2	167.3/168.0
3DMark 2000	8386	8458
SiSoft CPU	2388/1406	2998/1331
SiSoft Memory	415/466	560/773

NOTE: These are not “head to head” tests – comparisons are indicative only.

Rob over at PC Nut will be running more benches over the weekend. We didn’t try pushing the CPU beyond 956 MHz due to the lack of V Core settings – the CPU will do in excess of 1100 MHz at 1.85 volts. Looks like Rob will do the pencil thing on the L7 bridges to bump the voltage up.

One thing I found was that, at the speeds we ran, there were no hotspots on the board; the power transistors were barely warm to the touch – same for all other chips. Even the Northbridge heatsink was barely warm. I would still put an active cooler on it except that it is glued on – no mounting holes for something like a Lasagna chip cooler.

There is one item that is very important: The CPU fan header was not able to spin the Delta 38 cfm fan to full speed. This may be an anomaly with this board, but use caution with high wattage fans on these headers.

Overall, the board was very stable – we did not run exhaustive tests, but it handled everything we threw at it. We did find that it would not power off two times, although this is more likely a Windows problem. More benchmarks and endurance testing to come.

Iwill KA266-R: Key Features

FSBs: 100, 101, 102, 103, 105, 107, 110, 120, 126, 133, 136, 137, 140, 142, 146
Multiplier Settings: Dipswitch, 5x to 12.5x
FSB Settings: BIOS or Jumpers
DDR RAM Slots: 3 – up to 3 GB
VCore Adjustment: NO
Asynchronous RAM Settings: NO
CPU Temp Monitoring: Thermistor in Socket A
Fan Headers: 3
CPU Speeds Supported: 650 to 1200 MHz
Drives: On Board RAID
Accept SDRAM: NO, DDR Only