Overall feature-wise, the Transcend TS-ASL3 board is
very similar to my personal P3 system, based on the Asus CUSL2, which utilizes
the same Intel i815 chipset. 1 AGP, 6 PCI slots, and 1 CNR slot, thankfully
moved to the very bottom of the board, where it is not in the way.
One particular area where the Transcend is superior to
the Asus CUSL2, is in socket layout. The larger sideways fan mount heatsinks,
such as the Alpha PEP66T, and the Overclock Warehouse OCW Ofrio, will actually
fit, thanks to the orientation of the socket.
Another feature of note, is that the ATX power connector
has been located to the extreme top of the board, so that the cable can be out
of the way of airflow around the CPU heatsink.
The system's BIOS, is Award, and for the most part is
your standard Award BIOS fare. What *IS* welcome to see, is the addition of
front side bus, and voltage tweaks. You can crank the voltage up only in .1v
increments, unlike other boards which feature smaller .05v jumps up to a maximum
of 2.05v. Front side bus choices are broad. Setting different front side bus
speeds first involves setting a jumper block on the mainboard, to inform the
system whether or not it's working with a 66, 100, or 133mhz processor. Once
set, the ranges are 66-99, 100-132, and 133-166, in 1mhz increments.
My benchtesting of the board went extremely well. I used
my venerable cb0 stepping P3-700, which runs stable as a rock in my system at
1001mhz (143fsb). By being able to fit the much larger Overclockwarehouse Ofrio
heatsink on the Transcend board I was able to take this CPU an extra 5 mhz
higher, hitting 1036mhz/148fsb. Roughly 6 hours running HotCPU, and several
hours of Quake3TeamArena play online, insured me that I had a stable overclock
going on. Testing with two different brands of 128meg SDRAM DIMM's (Mushkin
ESDRAM PC150, AZZO PC133) separately and together, didn't reveal any memory
compatability problems, although this was just an anecdotal test, with only two
sticks.
Next page: Benchmarks
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