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ULi M1697
The
M1697 chipset is ULi's latest offering for AMD processor platforms. The low-cost,
single-chip design M1697 supports AMD's latest Socket AM2, Socket 940, Socket
939 and also the older Socket 754 AMD Processors.
The M1697, of course, fully supports x16 PCI Express, and can be configured for dual x8 PCI Express. Since the M1697 has 20 PCI Express lanes, the remaining 4 lanes can be configured as 3x1 or 1x4.
The M1697 is pretty much similar to NVIDIA's nForce4 SLI, except for the addition of 7.1 channel High Definition Azalia audio. The main advantage of a single-chip design is that there's no need to consider the latency and communication speed between North Bridge and South Bridge. The M1697 communicates with the AMD Processor via the 16x16 HyperTransport Bus, which provides continuous throughput up to 8GB/s.
Additionally, the M1697 also sports the AHCI-based Serial ATA controller which has NCQ (Native Command Queuing) capability and supports up to 4 SATA ports, each running at 3GB/s. RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 are supported on this Serial ATA controller.
EPoX EP-9U1697 GLI motherboard
Today, we are going to have a look at EPoX's EP-9U1697-GLI motherboard which uses the ULi M1697 chipset. This motherboard follows ULi's reference specifications very closely. Here's a short list of its features. If you need more detailed specifications, click here.
Socket Type |
• Socket 939 |
Processor Support |
• AMD Athlon 64, Athlon 64 X2, Athlon 64 FX, Sempron |
Chipset |
• ULi M1697 |
Memory |
• Dual Channel, 4 x DDR SDRAM PC2700/PC3200 (4GB Max.) |
PEG Slot |
• Single x16 or Dual x8 GLI |
Additional Slots |
• 3 x PCI, 1 x PCI Express x1 |
IDE |
• 2 x Ultra DMA/133, up to 4 devices |
SATA |
• 4 x SATA II 3.0Gbps ports |
RAID Support |
• RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 |
USB |
• 8 (4 x rear, 2 x bracket, 2 x header) |
LAN |
• ULi Fast Ethernet
LAN (Realtek RTL8201CL) |
Audio |
• Realtek ALC655 6 Channel Audio Codec |
From this short list, you can probably tell that this motherboard is not targeted for the high-end market. Instead, the EP-9U1697 is a value-based performance motherboard targeted at enthusiasts.
Package Contents
It seems like the package took some abuse before it reached us. We have no
idea what DHL did to the package during the shipment period. 
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Since this motherboard is meant to be low-cost, expect the EP-9U1679's accessories to be very basic.
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Accessories |
The EU-9U1679 actually has a two-pin header to accomodate a thermal probe. However, the thermal probe is optional, so it is not included in the package.
Now, let's have a look at the main features of the EPoX EP-9U1697 GLI.
