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Iwill XP333-R Mainboard

I think we started this review several months ago and it has certainly been a journey. Have a look at our experience with ALi, Iwill, and DDR333.

Introduction

Iwill is certainly not new to the motherboard market. The company has been in the business of manufacturing retail mainboards for over 12 years. In that time, they have produced many top tier boards and garnered much praise from hardware enthusiasts around the world. They are a company that is usually one of the first to market with motherboards based on the latest chipsets and technology. Although this trait has often worked in their favor, it can (and has) worked against them when incompatibilities or problems arise in these new chipsets. This time around, Iwill has released a motherboard simply based on a newer version of existing technology: the ALi MAGiK 1 M1647 rev. C1 northbridge coupled with the M1535D southbridge.

Background

The current state of the PC hardware industry is one of high expectations often coupled with unrealistic product cycles. With companies like AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA promising new products at least every six months, the stress placed on the motherboard industry to accommodate new standards is immense. These conditions often lead to ill-timed product releases - or worse - products rushed to the market. Anyone who doubts this trend need only to look at the multiple revisions of chipsets with each product cycle.

With the push for bigger, better, and faster, hardware companies are faced with the challenge to "produce" in order to stay competitive. Those who meet demand stay in favor with the leading edge performance crowd. Those who cannot, turn elsewhere, such as the OEM sector, or simply fade away.

Iwill is among a handful of companies that has turned to the "333" branding of their products. Memory makers were some of the first to do so, and the practice has now moved into the mainboard market as well. It should be noted that there is no current JEDEC specification for DDR333 memory, so all of the memory you see running at PC2700 is simply "overclocked" PC2100. This is not to say the chips on the gerber are not verified to run at the speed but the way the stick was put together is not built to any open standard.

With the Iwill XP333R motherboard, the name implies that you are moving up from the current 266DDR platform to a higher 333DDR platform, when in fact, there is no new technology behind this motherboard.

A simple explanation is this:

100MHz processor FSB + DDR platform = 200MHz DDR

133MHz processor FSB + DDR platform = 266MHz DDR

166MHz processor FSB + DDR platform = 333MHz DDR

This means that since the highest FSB currently supported by AMD's processors is 133MHz (266MHz DDR), and the highest official speed supported by most current chipsets is 266MHz (2 x 133MHz), any board that is capable of running at a FSB of 166MHz can, in theory, be labeled a "333" board. It goes without saying that the CPU multiplier will most likely need to be adjusted to accommodate the 166MHz bus speed, which will involve unlocking your CPU. Iwill added a 1/5 divider as well as a 1/6 divider, easing the strain that high bus speeds place on the AGP and PCI peripherals.

Features:

Board basics at a glance. This gives you a highlight of the board's features.

And the obligatory "full specs" from IWill:

The Board

There was a small amount of "controversy" over the layout of the board being identical to the KA266, where in some cases the board even carried the "KA266" brand beneath the new XP333 sticker. The average consumer may be confused by the fact that the boards are identical in appearance and carry almost identical chipsets, since both are technically ALi M1647 chipset boards. Having said that, some people thought they were somehow getting a remarked/substandard board. We checked our board's labeling, and both the sticker and silkscreen read "XP333R".

As mentioned earlier, the actual layout of the XP333R is virtually identical to the KA266R, the theory being "If it works, don't fix it". There are a few improvements around the CPU ZIF socket over the previous design that are welcome changes. The board also features small protective strips under the heatsink retention tabs. These protect the PCB from accidental scratches or damage, such as can happen if your screwdriver slips while installing the HSF.

   

The CPU temperature sensor is still located in the center of the socket, although the type of sensor used does not make actual contact with the bottom of the CPU. This type of sensor makes getting an accurate CPU temperature reading impossible, since the unit actually measures the temperature of the air below the CPU and not the CPU itself.

We tested with the largest heatsink we could find to ensure there were no clearance problems around the CPU socket. I am confident most HSFs will fit this board, since the very large Alpha 8045 HSF fit without any clearance issues.