<p> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> </meta> </p> <p style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span style="font-size: small; ">In a world where space is at a premium, the smaller motherboards get, and yet still retain full functionality, never ceases to amaze me. With desktop Llano processors taking the integrated graphics crown, an all-in-one mini Llano system becomes ever more appealing. To support this, ASUS have sent us their premium mini-ITX motherboard for review, which I have put through the bench suite.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 19px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span style="font-size: small; "><br type="_moz" /> </span></p> <p style="line-height: 19px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span style="font-size: small; ">We have had a number of ASUS boards through our hands this year, all of which give a comfortable feeling of design we have come to expect from ASUS, and their mini-ITX is no different. The package includes Bluetooth, integrated wireless (and antenna), as well as extra onboard USB 3 and a variety of video outputs, all in a tiny form factor.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span style="font-size: small; ">One of the surprising bits about this package is that the install CD offers Google Chrome 11 as an install, perhaps suggesting that ASUS and Google have a software distribution partnership, like ASUS and Norton have had for a while.&nbsp;</span></p> <p style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span style="font-size: small; ">I had severe trouble overclocking this motherboard when in AHCI mode, with a distinct refusal to boot into Windows beyond a base frequency of 107 MHz.&nbsp; Using software, I was able to bring this up to 110 MHz when on the integrated graphics. When using a discrete GPU, I still could not get past this 107 MHz bootable limit, but could reach 120 MHz using software quite easily. In IDE mode, the overclocking worked flawlessly at 140 MHz, which is quite a feat.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span style="font-size: small; ">When I initially started testing the board, the only benchmark that was out of place was our DPC Latency test. Every five seconds or so, it would jump to between 1000-3000 microseconds. &nbsp;After about a week (!) of to and from with ASUS trying to find the cause of the issue, which they had trouble replicating, I found that their software AI Suite II was the culprit. This software, when installed, will become part of the startup sequence - but when turned off, the DPC Latency reduced to a normal level. Note, most users wont actually notice a DPC Latency of 3000.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span style="font-size: small; ">As I was testing this board with a pre-release BIOS, it stands to assume that ASUS may iron out these discrepancies by the time the board comes to market. &nbsp;With that in mind, combined with a 3 year warranty, the F1A75-I Deluxe should be a reasonable package for any Llano user if it hits a reasonable price point - ASUS have told me an expected RRP of $145.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 19px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span style="font-size: small; "><a target="_blank" href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/4833/asus-f1a75i-deluxe-review-llano-and-miniitx">Read more...</a></span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p>