Review: Leadtek K7NCR18G Pro

I wasn't going to cover this specifically but it seemed worth a visit in the end. Using the added VGA/SVHS backplane and enabling nView worked like a charm. SVHS output was excellent giving me excellent output on my television and hardware acceleration of DVD's on the TV-out using PowerDVD. No dropped DVD frames and DivX performance was fine too. XP2700+ and onboard IGP core DivX playback performance is not VIA C3 and integrated S3 graphics like (sorry, couldn't resist an EPIA dig), it works great with no dropped frames.

So just a quick note to say that I was impressed with nView and the dual display output, excellent quality to my tired eyes. Works in Linux too, see below.

Linux Support

This is worth more page time, i'd be doing myself and Forge a disservice if I didn't mention this. While not specifically Leadtek's fault, they do have to bear the problems since they make a board and this goes out to all nForce2 board makers. Please, get NVIDIA to release an nForce2 AGP driver for 2.4 series kernels that works with non NVIDIA cards. AGP support on nForce2 exists but only if you use an NVIDIA display adaptor. Well many of us don't and we'd like working AGP on our boards, thanks. Is it that hard? Apologies to Leadtek for airing this here, not really their fault, it just happened to crop up while I used their board.

Apart from the AGP issue, I've been running Linux on the Leadtek for a while now with no problems. The audio hardware (although not the Dolby Digital hardware as far as I know) works fine, the IDE driver in kernel 2.4 is in and working fine. Just a sticking point with the AGP sadly. The onboard IGP core works perfectly in Linux, the latest drivers are a little buggy to say the least but the previous official set from NVIDIA works fine.

Overall Conclusion

So we covered performance, that's not an issue, the board is quick. The feature set isn't an Asus A7N8X Deluxe, no Serial ATA RAID or dual Ethernet but there's a Pro II version of the board for that if you need dual Ethernet or Serial ATA support. The enthusiast features are there, AGP and PCI lock, multiplier adjust and good voltage range should keep the overclockers happy. The board even supports very big heatsinks.

In fact, I only have two problems with this board, the ATX connector layout and the AGP driver issue in Linux. Both I can live with, the 2nd is even fixable.

Apart from those two issues I am extremely taken with this board, Leadtek wont be getting it back if I can get away with it. It's even quite cheap, £100 from Dabs.com including VAT.

I don't usually get excited about motherboards but this one doesn't put many feet wrong like so many others do. Highly recommended and one to add to your shortlist if nForce2 is your bag.

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