Supports Intel Pentium CPUs from 75MHz to 200MHz including the P55C MMX CPU.
Supports all AMD-K5 and AMD-K6 CPUs.
Supports all Cyrix 6x86 CPUs: P120+, P133+, P150+, P166+, P200+.
Also supports the Cyrix M2.
Reserved circuitry for future sixth generation CPUs.
CPU type, voltage, and bus speed / clock multiplier are set through the Soft Menu BIOS Setup.
Chipset
Intel Triton 430HX
Supports PCI 2.1
L2 Cache Memory
Supports 256K or 512K Pipeline Burst SRAM (NOTE: If the motherboard has 256k on-board, the board will contain a COAST socket to allow you to upgrade to 512k. If the motherboard has 512k on-board, then the IT5V will not have a COAST socket.)
System DRAM
Four 72-pin SIMM sockets that support Fast Page and EDO DRAM.
Supports 512MB Maximum Memory
BIOS
Award BIOS
Supports Plug-and-Play (PNP)
Supports Advanced Power Management (APM)
Supports Desktop Management Interface (DMI)
Multi I/O
Two Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports
Infrared remote Connector
PS/2 Style Mouse Port
Standard AT Keyboard Connector
Four fast IDE channels (PIO mode 0-4 and Bus Mastering)
One EPP/ECP parallel port and one 16550 serial port
Two floppy disk drive connectors (FDD) (360K, 720K, 1.2M, 1.44M, and 2.88M)
Other features
Dimensions: 13in. x 8.7in.
Four (4) ISA bus slots and four (4) PCI bus slots,
Supports 3-MODE for Japanese floppy disk drive,
Supports two bootable hard disks - enables the use of two different operating systems.
The CPU Soft Menu is a menu within the BIOS Setup that allows you to setup the speed and voltage of the CPU, as well as the bus speed and multiplier factor. Because the CPU is setup completely through the Soft Menu, there is no need for jumpers or DIP switches.
Soft Menu's outstanding features:
The ability to specify the the CPU speed and have the external clock and multiplier settings automatically set,
The ability to manually specify the external clock settings. The IT5H supports bus speeds (ext. clock) of: 50MHz, 55MHz, 60MHz, 66MHz, 75MHz, and 83MHz.
The ability to manually specify the clock multiplier settings: 1.5x, 2.0x, 2.5x, 3.0x, and 3.5x,
The ability to manually specify the voltage from single or dual. Single processors such as the Pentium P54C, the Cyrix 6x86, and the AMD-K5, use only one voltage. However, more advanced processors such as the P55C MMX Pentium, the Cyrix 6x86L, and the M2, require dual voltages - one for the internal processing of the CPU and one for external processing.
The single voltage options are: 3.38v, 3.52v, and 3.6v. The Dual, Core Plane Voltage options are: 2.50v, 2.70v, 2.80v, 2.93v, and the I/O Plane voltage options are: 3.30v, 3.38v, 3.52v.
The table below is a reproduction of the Soft Menu in the BIOS Setup:
ROM PCI/ISA BIOS !! CPU SOFT MENU !! AWARD SOFTWARE, INC.
CPU Name Is
: Intel Pentium MMX
CPU Type (Speed)
: User Specified
-External Clock
: 83MHz
-Multiplier Factor
: 2.5
CPU Power Plane
: Dual Voltage
-Core Plane Voltage
: 2.80v
- I/O Plane Voltage
: 3.30v
BIOS Options Besides the Soft Menu Setup, the BIOS Setup contains a Chipset Features Setup Menu, a Power Management Setup menu, and a PCI & Onboard I/O Setup Menu. The BIOS Setup options for the Chipset Features menu are detailed in the tables below. (See the review of the IT5V for detailed options for the other menus)
(SETUP OPTION CHARTS COMING SOON)
Documentation The manual for the IT5H is detailed, accurate, and very complete. There are explanations for all of the external connectors, all of the CPU Soft Menu settings, and almost all of the BIOS settings. It is by far one of the most complete manuals I have seen. By comparison, most manuals give pictures of what settings are present in the BIOS Setup, and some even say what the options are for each setting, but few offer explanations on what the settings do.
The only shortcoming of the manual's explanations is on the DRAM memory settings. Instead of detailing what each of the settings does, the manual simply states:
"... If you do not understand this very well, don't make any changes. Our BIOS is able to autodetect the characteristics of your DRAM and to choose the best settings."
There are a ton of diagrams in the manuals that include information such as:
For Pentiums: What multiplier factor and external clock settings should be used with a certain speed CPU. The diagrams even go so far as to list the CPU model number to be certain that the voltages/clock settings are set correctly for each model.
For Cyrix and AMD:
Tables that describe the different parts of the CPU model number to help you decifer the codes into different things such as Internal Clock speed, processor name, P-Ratings, Package Type, Case Temperature and Operating Voltage.
All of the tables are extremely detailed and contain very useful information.
The performance of the IT5H was evaluated using a number of benchmarking programs. They are: CPUmark16, CPUmark32, Winstone 97, Quake FPS, Norton SI, and CacheCHK v4.0. Take a look at the results:
Test System Specs:
Pentium P55C-200MHz MMX CPU Matrox Millenium w/ 4MB WRAM Video Card 32MB 72-pin EDO DRAM SIMMs (Two 16MB) Western Digital Caviar 22100 2.1GB
Windows Benchmarks
Setup: 1024x768, 16 bit color, Bus Master PIIX3 Driver...
Processor/Bus Speed
Winstone 97
CPUMark16
CPUMark32
Norton SI for Win95
200MHz (66 x 3)
39.7
425
419
55.3
210MHz (83 x 2.5)
41.1
447
434
57.6
225MHz (75 x 3)
40.6
466
449
60.5
The Norton SI scores, as well as the CPUMark scores, increased as the CPU speed increased. However, you can see that the Winstone 97 score is ranked in increasing order of bus speed (since Winstone 97 relies heavily on video performance, which greatly benefits from higher bus speeds).
The main memory speed was not consistantly faster because the DRAM timings had to be adjusted to work with the 75MHz and 83MHz bus speeds. As you can see, graphics intensive apps. benefit greatly from the higher 83Mhz bus speed.
Excellent documentation over all areas including the BIOS Setup (except Advanced Chipset/DRAM memory timings).
Disadvantages
No SDRAM Support,
Same old poor documentation of Advanced Chipset/DRAM memory timings.
Overall Report Like the IT5V, the IT5H is a terrific performer, and an overall great board. The SoftMenu CPU setup is in my opinion one of the best features of the board, since it saves SO much time/work changing the CPU speed, Bus speed, Clock mult., and voltage settings, for those who change them often for different software applications, overclocking, etc.
The stability of the IT5H is amazing. It functions flawlessly at speeds up to 250MHz. At 210MHz (83MHz x 2.5), it was completely stable with fairly fast DRAM timings (certainly didn't have to back them off to their maximum slow settings - far from slow indeed). At 225MHz (75MHz x 3), I encountered absolutely no problems (even without a fan on the heat sink). At 250MHz, it functioned fine until the CPU heated up at which time it froze up. I didn't have a CPU fan on the heatsink at the time of the 250MHz test, so that might be the cause of the lock-up. To get the CPU to function at 250MHz, I had to increase the core plane voltage from 2.8v to 2.93v. Nevertheless, it did indeed function at 250MHz. Though it doesn't support SDRAM, it does support the 83MHz bus speed. Plus, try to find a CPU that it doesn't support (except PPro class CPUs)! Pentium, K6, 6x86, 5x86, K5, M2!
Though you might want to consider waiting for ABIT to release a 430VX or 430TX based board with 83MHz support (which they have now in fact, the new PX5 based on the 430TX PCIset supports SDRAM and 83MHz) in order to get the SDRAM capability, you should still consider the IT5H - especially if you have EDO RAM and don't want to upgrade to SDRAM just yet. The IT5H (rev 1.5) is another fine board from ABIT! I'm trying hard to find one I don't like but haven't yet! ;)
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