Review: Leadtek K7NCR18D Pro II Deluxe Limited

Performance Conclusion

I apologise for the unenthusiastic tone during the benchmark analysis. But it was for good reason. Since we've covered nForce2 Ultra 400 performance with the XP3200+ and some high performance memory before, all we were looking for today was performance parity to make sure we did nothing wrong in the initial look at that setup, and indeed todays look at the Leadtek.

So it's with honest enthusiasm that I can report that the Leadtek performs like a champion, just like it should.

This review is a lot more about the features the board has, rather than the performance, since we knew what the graphs would look like before we even started.

Overclocking

With the gigantic mosfet heatsinks, generous voltage adjustment and good memory modules, egging me on, it would be rude not to see how the board overclocks. I'm only interested in front side bus clocking, rather than pushing the CPU to its limits, since the CPU would run out of headroom on the stock AMD heatsink way before the board would run out of front side bus headroom.

So with the multiplier dropped to 10x, the CPU voltage set to a toasty 1.85V (remember, you've got up to 2V on this board, should you need it) and the chipset voltage set to 1.9V, I relaxed the memory timings all the way down to make them receptive to high bus speeds. It was then a simple matter of bumping the fsb up a notch or two on each boot, running 5 copies of Pifast at once, followed by a single loop of 3DMark 2001SE, before recording the fsb if it passed that test.

While it's not stressing the system for very long, only around 7 minutes after I've faffed about clicking things, at least it lets us get the testing done, record successful boot attempts and give it some stress.

The final front side bus speed, at the chosen settings, was 240MHz. I have a sneaky feeling that the CPU gave out first, 2.4GHz is around the upper limit on the chosen heatsink at other multipliers. Leadtek made a big deal about equipping the board with 3-phase power, unlike the 2-phase solution on the ASUS, along with the heatsinks everywhere and the chipset voltage adjustment. They made a big deal for a reason, it overclocks like a champion, at least the review sample does.

Overall Conclusion

This board is all about the features. It has all the ASUS' features, mostly down to the ever-so-sexy ACR card (yes, I called an ACR card sexy, pick yourself up off the floor), and all the ASUS' performance, and it overclocks better.

I'd argue the bundle is better too. You get SATA cables, but only a single PATA cable, but that's made up for by the value added £10 Toslink optical cable, the first I've seen bundled with any motherboard. Combine all of the above with good presentation, a great looking, if slightly un-coordinated, PCB and you have yourself a motherboard that wouldn't be out of home in any performance workstation or enthusiasts box. I'm sad to give it back, it's great.

The only possible downside is price, and without a set price from Leadtek and my inability to find it at retail, I can't confirm if it's good or bad. However, given the Deluxe Limited moniker, don't expect it to cost you £20.

In the absence of pricing information, a bad decision or not, full marks to the Leadtek, a great end of era motherboard for the Athlon XP platform.

Score

Pro's

Performance
Features
Good bundle
Good layout
Good audio solution, with Dolby Digital optical digital capability out of the box

Con's

Possible high price
I can't keep it

Thanks

John @ Leadtek UK for the sample
Komplett for the digital camera used to take the shots

Buy one here! from Overclock.co.uk!