Introduction, Features and System Setup

Transcend ALR4 ALi MAGiK 1 Motherboard Review

This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.

When I heard Ryan was looking for a reviewer for a motherboard I was quite excited. This would be a chance for me to see how the DDR boards run and at the same time help me decide if an upgrade is due for my current system.

As many of you may know I’m a gamer and I have a unique point of view being a cookie and everything so lets take a look at what we have. I’ll be running the Transcend TS-ALR4 motherboard and 128megs of pc266 Transcend memory (part# TS16MLD64V6D5) through the paces. At first look the board resembles any other Socket-A ATX motherboard but with a couple differences. With a bit of a closer inspection you will see that this is a DDR motherboard. Another difference is that this board utilizes an ALiMAGiK M1647 Super Northbridge & M1535D+ Southbridge, which by the way also comes in a mobile configuration, it has integrated audio and also two sets of dipswitches and very few jumpers. The presence of dips really has my hopes up for the possibility of overclocking the setup in order to obtain maximum performance. Another one of the nice things is that a jumper (JP4) is used to reset the Bios in the event you try to push things past its limit. (Guess how I know this…) So lets look at a list of features the board offers.

Transcend ALR4 ALi MAGiK 1 Motherboard Review - Motherboards 20

Features

  • CPU Support
    • AMD CPU Duron 600~900+MHz(FSB 200 MHz)
    • AMD CPU Athlon 600~1200+MHz(FSB 200/266 MHz)
  • Chipset
  • System Bus
    • 100~150MHz(100/133 MHz guaranteed)
    • Adjustable by BIOS
  • System Memory
    • 3×184 pin DDR DIMMs up to 3GB
    • Support PC1600, PC2100 DDR memory
  • IDE
    • 2 x PCI Bus Master IDE Ports support up to 4 devices
    • Support PIO Mode 3/4
    • Support DMA mode 2
    • Support Ultra DMA 33/66/100
  • Onboard Audio Built-in AC97 CODEC audio control
  • Expansion
    • Slot 1 x AGP4x slot
    • 6 x PCI slots (PCI v2.2 compliant)
    • I/O Port 1 x FDD port (3 mode, 1.2/1.44/2.88MB FDD, LS120 )
    • 1 x PS/2 Mouse port
    • 1 x PS/2 Keyboard port
    • 1 x Parallel port (SPP/EPP/ECP)
    • 2 x RS232 port (16550 Fast UART compatible)
    • 4 x USB ports (2 by cable)
    • Game/MIDI connector
    • Audio Line-out/Line-in/MIC-in jack
    • PC99 color coding compliant
  • BIOS Function
    • ezBIOS Live update
    • ezBIOS Anti-Virus
    • ezBIOS BIOS protect
    • Award BIOS with Green, APM, Plug and Play, DMI functions
    • Enhanced ACPI Feature for PC98/Win98 Compliance
  • System Hardware Monitor
    • System voltage, temperature & fan status monitor
    • 3 x fan status monitors with F/W programmable fan speed
    • CPU overheat alarm
  • Other Features
    • Keyboard/Alarm/Modem ring on
    • Software power off control
    • PC99 compliant
    • Wake on LAN
    • Boot-up virus warning
    • Suspend to RAM (STR)
    • Power failure resume
    • CPU Core voltage adjustable
  • Form Factor
    • ATX Form Factor
    • 4 layer PCB
    • 8.4″ x 12″ (21.3cm x 30.5cm)

The configuration

I have decided to test this board using two different configurations. The first will run an AMD 800mhz Duron and then we will test using a 1.2ghz T-bird. Below are the exact setup configurations.

Transcend TS-ALR4 Motherboard w/onboard audio
Transcend 128meg PC266 CL2.5 DDR SDRAM
AMD 800mhz Duron
VisionTek GeForce3 AGP (Detonator 11.01 Beta)
IBM 30GB 75GXP
SMC 1211 nic
Win98se (DirectX 8.0a)

Transcend TS-ALR4 Motherboard w/onboard audio
Transcend 128meg PC266 CL2.5 DDR SDRAM
AMD 1.2ghz Thunderbird
VisionTek GeForce3 AGP (Detonator 11.01 Beta)
IBM 30GB 75GXP
SMC 1211 nic
Win98se (DirectX 8.0a)

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