Intel D875PBZ Boards

[bgavin]

I bought three of these on a tip from Willawake. Two are Rev.02 boards, and the 3rd (new) is Rev.01.

The Rev.02 boards are all blue top polymer 4v / 560uF around the VRM. This board has 13 total, 10 at the VRM. The older board has five yellow K-vent polymer, and 5 KZG.

The ATX12V input has four KZE 16v / 2200uF on the old board, and ZL on the new board. Field KZE now have ZL on the new board.

I plan to recap all the AT12V and VRM caps.
Q: for the VRM, should I only recap KZE, or pull all ten and recap with blue top polymer?

Observations:

I like this board. I/O shields are difficult to come by, and there are MANY different cutout patterns. There is some adjustment for memory clocking, but Intel boards really aren't for overclockers. I'm running a pair of XMS2 Corsair 1gb DDR-400 sticks at stock clocking. The heat spreaders are warm to the touch but not hot.

The heatsink for this board is the Thermalright XP90. Weight, size and fit are perfect for the stock P4 retention bracket. I have a Panaflo 92mm 12H that is acceptably quiet mounted on the XP90. This same fan at the rear of the case (Dell mount) is too loud.

The XP90 benefit is the significant cooling flow to the VRM. The fan overhang is on the I/O shield side, and it blows straight down on the VRM. The down draft also produces a significant breeze for the big north bridge sink. Cooling numbers are about the same between the XP90 and an Intel swirly fin stock HSF. The Intel HSF does nowhere near as good a job on VRM and NB cooling.

[willawake]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

I bought three of these on a tip from Willawake. Two are Rev.02 boards, and the 3rd (new) is Rev.01.

whats that? say the end of the product number like -206 etc.

i would go with MCZ on the input and either all MCZ like 1200 6.3 on the output (although 820 will probably be fine) or polymer there like SEPC or PSA/PSC. i would go higher than 560 though if it will be all polymer on the output, if i was doing a mod. although it will be fine with 560.

i forget the revisions, i think 206 was ok for prescott, then later series solve the vdimm voltage problem, it was a little low for some of the oc brands.

[bgavin]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

Rev.01 is BTBZ41200241 AA C26680-303
Rev.02 is AZBZ32104893 AA C27085-206E

The newer board VRM output is all ten as 4v/560 polymer blue top. When Intel did the newer board style, they cut back five 820 KZG and replaced them with five 560 polymers.

Since I always run stock clocking, I figure ten polymers at 560 (like factory) should do the job I need. I'm not a design engineer, so I have no clue about going up 1200 or so.

[bgavin]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

Interesting... looking at the Revision History for this board, the 303 with mixed polymer and electrolytics in the VRM output is the very latest revision level.

Go figure why the 206 level board is all polymer, and the final is mixed. Rev 206 is the 3rd of 11 version changes on this board.

[willawake]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

Go figure why the 206 level board is all polymer,

mine aint



how can a 303 be rev1?

[zandrax]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

Perhaps the 303 is one of last rev 1 boards, so it predates the rev 2 206.

Zandrax

[bgavin]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

The board artwork has a hexagonal figure with "01" or "02" inside.

I looked at the board, then at the full complement of polymer in the VRM output, and it was logical the "02" was an uplevel board. According to Intel's PDF of version history, the -303 is the last of the line, and latest date of revisions. It also has the "01" inside the hex graphic. Go figure.

I see you left the ZL at the VRM input, instead of also recapping with MCZ. No matter, as I'm happy with these boards. I popped all three up to P34 bios level. According to the rev listing, there are some useful fixes in the later bios. All three of mine came with P20.

The two -206 old boards have had bios updates to P20, as they did not ship that way. The memory speed was in energetic user tweak mode... set those back to Auto. Memtest86 Plus runs 100% error free on the 2gb of Corsair memory, dual channel mode.

I notice these boards are still hot on eBay. Lots of bidders, and they sell for a high price.

[willawake]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

i didnt recap. thats stock. i do have available mcz to do the whole board but its perfect as it is.

[bgavin]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

MCZ as factory stock... outstanding. I wish they would continue doing that, and ditch the KZx.

Link to D875PBZ and XP-90 Photos

#10, #11 and #13 are some of the best views. Sorry about the slow download time... they are 2mb files, and I have a very slow upload on my server.

These are photos of the Thermalright XP90 sink on the D875PBZ board. I shot them outside on a trash can with a Nikon D200 and 55mm Micro-Nikkor at f/32.

I'm really impressed how well the 92mm Panaflo cools the entire VRM and NB area.

[linuxguru]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

It's sufficient to replace the KZGs - the KZEs at the VRM input won't fail unless you have a really bad PSU, in which case MCZs as well as ZLs could also fail at that location.

[Paul S]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

I have two -205 boards and a -303 board. None of them have polymer caps, as far as I can tell.

These boards are used in HTPC systems, so they are usually on 27/7. There are no signs of bulging or leaking caps, or system instability. I don't know why you would want to replace caps if you don't have too.

[bgavin]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

I have a bunch of dead Intel boards with popped KZx. I'm just gunshy of those caps, which is why I would replace with MCZ. I have the caps in stock, and plenty of experience, so it is a no-brainer job.

All the boards I build for clients are expressly for stability/reliability. Most go into servers.

The only downside to the D875PBZ is the price. I'm paying $80 to $125 each for these boards. Add in the price of a good P4, and it is actually silly to build them at all. I'm prototyping the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3x for client systems, and performance is SO much better with a modest Core 2 Duo and DDR-800 memory, for not much more expense.

I got started on D875PBZ because I have an inventory of good P4 Northwoods accumulated from dead boards killed by Bestec power supplies.

[zandrax]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

The only downside to the D875PBZ is the price. I'm paying $80 to $125 each for these boards. Add in the price of a good P4, and it is actually silly to build them at all. I'm prototyping the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3x for client systems, and performance is SO much better with a modest Core 2 Duo and DDR-800 memory, for not much more expense.

Some past models or pieces have terrible prices: until a few months ago, Tualatin P3s were extremely expensive (from 3 or 4 to even 9 times the price of a 1000EB Coppermine), so core Barton Athlons.
Besides performance, new Core 2 have another advantage: they draw less current and heat a lot less; the DS3x family, and in general the majority of P35 based motherboards, are very good for any not-Extreme cpu.
IMHO the P35 is likely to be the heir of 865 and 400BX chipsets: good memory bandwith, decent FSB range, wide cpu support (from old Prescotts to 45 nm cpus), good overclocking capabilities; the 965 is too limited regarding fsb support and the new P45 differs only from PCIe 2.0 support and 1333 MHz FSB, which is unofficially reacheable by P35. It's the sweet spot and it's going to last till late 2008 - first 2009, when Intel is going to introduce a new processor with embedded memory controller, a new socket type and obviously a new chipset.

Zandrax

[willawake]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

difference is the D875PBZ is proven. for most server apps should be fine with nice amount of ram.

[zandrax]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

difference is the D875PBZ is proven. for most server apps should be fine with nice amount of ram.

Sorry, I didn't catch it is for HA servers.

Zandrax

[bgavin]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

...and 1333 MHz FSB, which is unofficially reacheable by P35.

I don't understand this one. My PDF copy of the P35 datasheet clearly states support for 1333 FSB.

My E8400 processor just arrived, so I will be installing it in my P35 board in a few days. I sure do hope it doesn't balk at 1333 FSB. Gigabyte says the board is rated for 1333 without overclocking.

[zandrax]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

You're right bgavin: P35 supports the 1333 MHz fsb. I confused fsb with memory frequency: P45 officially supports DDR3 at 1333 MHz while the P35 stops at 1066, or at least should stop

Zandrax

[linuxguru]

Re: Intel D875PBZ Boards

The last time I bought a Tualatin P3 (1200MHz/256K cache/133FSB), it cost just the same as a Coppermine P3 1000EB, i.e. peanuts. OTOH, the 512k cache version is unobtainium around these parts.

Thanks for the heads up on the P35 - I'll probably go that route later this year, with a Q6600 or similar CPU.