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Iwill KK266 Plus Motherboard Review
Iwill KK266 Plus Motherboard Review - PCSTATS
The immensely popular KK266 line of motherboards has already won over the hearts of performance users and overclockers a like...
 92% Rating:   
Filed under: Motherboards Published:  Author: 
External Mfg. Website: Iwill Aug 26 2001   C. Sun  
Home > Reviews > Motherboards > Iwill KK266 Plus

5.1 Integrated Audio

Iwill ships the KK266Plus with integrated 5.1 audio care of the C-Media 8738 chip. While the same chip is present on the Iwill KK266 line of boards, it has been upgraded from a 4.1 audio solution to 5.1.

5.1 audio introduces a new channel to support the center speaker. With this upgrade to the onboard audio, from a multimedia experience anyway, it's no longer necessary to purchase a PCI hardware 5.1 sound card.

During the testing period, I compared the onboard 5.1 audio to my Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1, and while the audio sounded every bit as good as the sound produced by my Live (I'm not an audiophile), it seemed to lacked at 3D sound. Especially in games it just wasn't up to par. The sound wasn't really bad, but I couldn't really hear where my enemies were.

This isn't a knock against C-Media, most soundcards out there aren't as good as the Live! series. Then again, I am in a dire need to upgrade my old Cambridge FPS2000 speakers and since they're not 5.1 speakers, I found the center channel emulation to be pretty lousy.


Simple, but it works!

And lastly, because of the northbridge heatsink, there were only 3 fan headers left available. Still, that should be more then enough for even the most hardcore tweaker. There was a second USB hub header, but no USB bracket was supplied. Speaking of USB, I had a major problem with my USB Logitech iFeel MouseMan. About 70% of the time, while booting into Windows, it would turn itself off! It got so bad that I ended up buying a USB to PS2 mouse converter (and using PS2 Rate!)

The BIOS is curtsey of Award. Very straight forward, and very tweakable as you're about to see...

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Contents of Article: Iwill KK266 Plus
 Pg 1.  Iwill KK266 Plus Motherboard Review
 Pg 2.  KK266Plus Specifications
 Pg 3.  KK266 vs the new KK266Plus
 Pg 4.  — 5.1 Integrated Audio
 Pg 5.  KK266Plus BIOS
 Pg 6.  Test System Spec's & WinMark 99
 Pg 7.  SiSoft Sandra 2001 TE Benchmarks
 Pg 8.  3DMark Benchmarks
 Pg 9.  AquaMark, Quake III Arena Benchmarks
 Pg 10.  Serious Sam, MDK2 Benchmarks
 Pg 11.  Conclusions on the KK266Plus

 
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