Intel D875PBZ motherboard

Along with the launch of the i875P chipset Intel revealed its first very own motherboard built using this core logic and named it D875PBZ. This board continues Intel’s tradition of delivering highly stable platforms for their latest processors but rather than being green comes on a black PCB. Examining the specification one can conclude it is a board with a fair wealth of deliverables that form part of the full package. The list below is a rundown on the feature set:

The board layout appears free from obscuring components thanks to the tidy well planned board design. Both ATX main power and 12V processor core voltage connectors are placed at sections where cables will not need to be stretched or call for widespread routing. Both ATA-100 parallel ATA ports and the floppy connector are aligned with respect to the board’s right side near the top. Such placement means that should you use a high tower case there is a good chance cables will reach if for example your drives are installed at the top. Three fan headers are placed at the top, left centre and bottom of the board respectively. To keep noise levels down Intel chooses to use a large aluminium heat sink to cool the i875P chipset. A pleasing aspect of this motherboard is that long AGP cards cannot possibly hit the lower section of the DIMM slots, these themselves are arranged in two sets of two allowing for dual DIMM’s per channel. The problem has been overcome via placing all PCI/AGP connectors further down the board. Both SATA150 connectors reside to the lower section of the D875PBZ in-between the ICH5R Southbridge and BIOS chip. A total of five PCI slots are featured but this essentially is limited to four if making use of the latest Nvidia cards with their tall cooling mechanisms that also make use of this boards AGP Pro 8x slot. An internal USB 2.0 header at the lower section contributes to a further two USB2 ports should anyone need them. Below it we find the front panel headers used to connect case wires such as power LED, HDD LED, power switch, and so forth to the motherboard. Just to the right is a BIOS configuration jumper whereas further east still a SCSI HDD activity header should SCSI hard drives be used. What the board seems to lack is an infra red connector used by some for transmitting data to small mobile devices but as of late mainly overtaken by Bluetooth. For this one needs to equip themselves with a USB Bluetooth dongle.

The back plate is home to a wealth of ports, the version we received doesn’t feature onboard sound but the retail versions in stores do. The most notable and useful inclusion is the number of rear USB2 connectors, six to be precise. A RJ45 network port opens access to gigabit CSA LAN as we explained earlier, indeed good to have but bound to rarely find widespread usage given the current state in prices of gigabit switches and routers. The remaining are standard such as PS/2 keyboard, mouse, one serial and one parallel port.

In the retail channel package the following items are provided: D875PBZ motherboard, I/O shield, two SATA and IDE cables, floppy cable, Intel Express installer CD, board and back panel I/O layout stickers, and Quick Start guide. The bundled CD includes a selection of software; Norton Internet Security, Intel Active Monitor, RestoreIT Lite, Diskeeper Lite, RealONE Player, NTI CD-Maker, software drivers and product guide. The non-standard element is the warranty, whereas most other motherboard manufacturers offer a one year warranty Intel rewards the customer with 3 years. For those who seek an motherboard for overclocking their brand new Pentium 4C the D875PBZ is not for you (this we discuss next) but should you appreciate stability, build quality and a name that understands building platforms for its processors best then there is little chance of going wrong by purchasing this i875 board.