ECS P965T-A

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bscox00

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Aug 9, 2002
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Does anyone have any experience with this board?

Newegg has it for $99.99 with a $20.00 rebate available. It seems fairly decent and looks like it would be a good budget board to go along with a 6300.


I don't know much about ECS.
 
ECS = Extremely Crappy Shit

ECS has boards with amazing options that are poorly constructed, extremely unreliable, and ultimately the largest bottleneck on any machine. It is so hard for retailers to sell ECS equipment that they literally combine it in a combo deal for a mobo and processor that ends up costing you less to get both than it would to JUST get the processor. PLEEEEASE do not buy ECS. I own a ECS board, and its GREAT for one thing only. To make sure stuff posts. It is an awesome test board. If you can find one for under $40 - get it - you can make a great test rig. But do NOT rely on it for any reason.

My personaly favorite manufacturers
Intel - Only if your going to the new Conroe - great OC'er board
Gigabyte
Asus
DFI
Abit
MSI
Sapphire - really really pretty boards with quality manufacturing
 
Endrithius said:
ECS = Extremely Crappy Shit

ECS has boards with amazing options that are poorly constructed, extremely unreliable, and ultimately the largest bottleneck on any machine. It is so hard for retailers to sell ECS equipment that they literally combine it in a combo deal for a mobo and processor that ends up costing you less to get both than it would to JUST get the processor. PLEEEEASE do not buy ECS. I own a ECS board, and its GREAT for one thing only. To make sure stuff posts. It is an awesome test board. If you can find one for under $40 - get it - you can make a great test rig. But do NOT rely on it for any reason.

My personaly favorite manufacturers
Intel - Only if your going to the new Conroe - great OC'er board
Gigabyte
Asus
DFI
Abit
MSI
Sapphire - really really pretty boards with quality manufacturing
Click to expand...

ECS motherboards aren't as bad as they use to be back in the Socket 478/A days, but sometimes it comes down to the luck of the draw. I myself have never owned an ECS motherboard although I did build a basic PC for my girlfriend using the 945P-A motherboard, and its been stable for around 6 months now. Sure you would be taking a risk buying this motherboard; however if you don't intend on overclocking and you use a decent PSU then there shouldn't be any problems.
 
Interesting. It seems the consensus is that I'm paying for what I get with an $80.00 motherboard.

Sounds like I should buck up and pay 30 bucks more and go intel or gigabyte.
 
bscox00 said:
Interesting. It seems the consensus is that I'm paying for what I get with an $80.00 motherboard.

Sounds like I should buck up and pay 30 bucks more and go intel or gigabyte.
Click to expand...

In my experience, the ECS boards are usually pretty good for getting a basic system up. I have had several that not only provided a good stable system, but also had a little bit of overclocking headroom in them. I have one running in my brother-in-laws rig at the moment with a socket 754 3100 sempy. It has run flawlessly for about three months now (gaming and video editing/transcoding). Thanks for posting this link. I am considering it, since I hate DFI (tried both lanparty nforce 3 and 4 boards, both gave me nothing but trouble with multiple bios revisions and two different types of memory), and have had mediocre experience with Asus products. Actually, if there was an Epox conroe board, I would be all over it. Don't even get me started on Gigabyte boards. I will have to be desperate to try one of those again.
 
bscox00 said:
Interesting. It seems the consensus is that I'm paying for what I get with an $80.00 motherboard.

Sounds like I should buck up and pay 30 bucks more and go intel or gigabyte.
Click to expand...

Well the saying: "You Get What You Pay For" generally holds true with everything you buy. If you intend to run this board at stock speeds then it should serve you fine whether it be for gaming, audio/video enocding, data compression or all of the above. If it doesn't work too well for you then just RMA it. If you can wait a little longer to make a purchase Foxconn has a P965 motherboard that should be launching any day now. The Foxconn will debut in the $110-$120 range and will more then likely offer more overclocking options then the ECS motherboard. The choices are yours and yours alone.
 
Interesting. I've got a Gigabyte at the moment and have had a fair bit of success with it in terms of overclocking.

So, it would seem that I should avoid the ECS and either wait on Foxconn or go with Gigabyte (based on my own success) or Intel.


Thanks for the advice. Now I just need to convince myself to spend the money.
 
bscox00 said:
Interesting. I've got a Gigabyte at the moment and have had a fair bit of success with it in terms of overclocking.

So, it would seem that I should avoid the ECS and either wait on Foxconn or go with Gigabyte (based on my own success) or Intel.


Thanks for the advice. Now I just need to convince myself to spend the money.
Click to expand...

Well, I downloaded the manual for the ECS board and the BIOS looks rather weak in terms of overclocking options (This is usually the case with cheap motherboards); however I'm courious about the two X16 PCI-E slots. I'm sure the second PCI-E slot is only an X4 slot although I'm wandering if SLI can be utilized via hacked drivers? CrossFire is out of the question since the P965 chipset doesn't support peer-to-peer writes.

I'm almost tempted to buy this board and see what it has to offer at the $100 price point.
 
bscox00 said:
Does anyone have any experience with this board?

Newegg has it for $99.99 with a $20.00 rebate available. It seems fairly decent and looks like it would be a good budget board to go along with a 6300.


I don't know much about ECS.
Click to expand...

Here's the ECS and Fox P965 motherboards compared side-by-side:

Motherboards

The Foxconn clearly wins in several areas as you can plainly see. The ECS motherboard doesn't even offer RAID support of any kind according to this website.
 
UPDATE: according to ECS's website this motherboard does supprt RAID 0 and RAID 1; however RAID 5 support is absent.
 
Hmm...this board is suddenly seeming more interesting. I don't really need RAID 5, but dual x16 slots seems intriguing.
 
bscox00 said:
Hmm...this board is suddenly seeming more interesting. I don't really need RAID 5, but dual x16 slots seems intriguing.
Click to expand...

While the board has 2 X16 slots the Orange slot runs in X16 mode and the Blue slot runs in X4 mode. This motherboard doesn't allow CrossFire due to the chipset not supporting peer-to-peer writes, and SLI isn't supported due to driver support. The two PCI-E X16 slots can be used to support two video cards and a maxium of four monitors.
 
I've built a few ECS systems, mostly of the budget variety, and they have run fine. I haven't overclocked any of them and they do tend to lack features, but for the right type of customer that doesn't care what brand of motherboard their pc has it's no big deal.

Actually, my wife has an ECS board I put in her pc, and the above desribes her!
 
Endrithius said:
ECS = Extremely Crappy Shit

ECS has boards with amazing options that are poorly constructed, extremely unreliable, and ultimately the largest bottleneck on any machine. It is so hard for retailers to sell ECS equipment that they literally combine it in a combo deal for a mobo and processor that ends up costing you less to get both than it would to JUST get the processor. PLEEEEASE do not buy ECS. I own a ECS board, and its GREAT for one thing only. To make sure stuff posts. It is an awesome test board. If you can find one for under $40 - get it - you can make a great test rig. But do NOT rely on it for any reason.

My personaly favorite manufacturers
Intel - Only if your going to the new Conroe - great OC'er board
Gigabyte
Asus
DFI
Abit
MSI
Sapphire - really really pretty boards with quality manufacturing
Click to expand...


Times have changed a lot, ECS now makes much better products. I would say that that ECS 965 board is pretty darn solid from its looks. But I would first need to see some testing, but my gut feelings is that its gonna be a pretty strong budget board.
 
Ive had 2 ECS boards and my last one 915p-A was a great stable board. I even OC'ed my Intel 530 3.0ghz to 3.31 on it. They arnt the best OCers but thats was plenty for me. If your really looking for a cheap but good quality board I would reccommend ECS over MSI anyday.
 
I'm really considering picking this board up as it would make a great value gaming board. The Foxconn P965 has better overclocking features, but it's not out yet.
 
cupholder2.0 said:
Times have changed a lot, ECS now makes much better products. I would say that that ECS 965 board is pretty darn solid from its looks. But I would first need to see some testing, but my gut feelings is that its gonna be a pretty strong budget board.
Click to expand...

The high-end version of this board the PX1 looks really awesome, and it of course would provide much stronger overclocking features. Here's a picture of the PX1:

PX1

It's the first motherboard and it looks awesome!
 
There has to be a way to get SLI to work on this motherboard. Someone was able to get SLI to work on the Asus P5B Deluxe over at the XS forums. I wonder what version of the drivers need to be installed?
 
The Doc said:
While the board has 2 X16 slots the Orange slot runs in X16 mode and the Blue slot runs in X4 mode. This motherboard doesn't allow CrossFire due to the chipset not supporting peer-to-peer writes, and SLI isn't supported due to driver support. The two PCI-E X16 slots can be used to support two video cards and a maxium of four monitors.
Click to expand...

I was wondering about this, because I've found websites that commented on it at Computex, saying that it (somehow) supports Crossfire.
 
ATI stated that Crossfire won't work on the P965 due to lack of peer-to-peer writes, meaning it can't properly share information between the two cards. Like as is if there isn't enough issues with the P965. :p

Intel is planning to make a revised version for x8 Crossfire.
 
Endrithius said:
ECS = Extremely Crappy Shit

ECS has boards with amazing options that are poorly constructed, extremely unreliable, and ultimately the largest bottleneck on any machine. It is so hard for retailers to sell ECS equipment that they literally combine it in a combo deal for a mobo and processor that ends up costing you less to get both than it would to JUST get the processor. PLEEEEASE do not buy ECS. I own a ECS board, and its GREAT for one thing only. To make sure stuff posts. It is an awesome test board. If you can find one for under $40 - get it - you can make a great test rig. But do NOT rely on it for any reason.

My personaly favorite manufacturers
Intel - Only if your going to the new Conroe - great OC'er board
Gigabyte
Asus
DFI
Abit
MSI
Sapphire - really really pretty boards with quality manufacturing
Click to expand...


interesting that you think ecs is terrible and that abit and dfi, which are manufactured by ecs, are 2 of your favorite boards. asus, gigabyte and msi manufacture their own boards. just about every other board, retail or oem, is manufactured by foxconn and ecs.
the 20 or 30 ecs rs480 and nf4 boards i have put out in the last year or 2 have never come back. asus and gigabyte, on the other hand........
 
Actually Asus and Gigabyte merged not that long ago. You will find that the P965 boards share some common simularities with Asus products.

DFI is not made by ECS and has no part of the HSING TECH family.
A few years ago, the majority of Asus engineers quit shop and went to ECS. That would explain for their higher quality and reliability. I remember the days where I was replacing M810LMR, K7SEM, and older ECS boards like filling oil in a Ford Escort. :p

ABit is also not made by ECS, they have been acquired by USI.

As for the majority of OEM boards that you see in Dell, Gateway/eMachines, or HP/Compaq systems, those are either MSI, Asus, or TriGem. Compaq used FIC boards years ago as they are the owner of that company, but changed brands due to reliability problems.

I'm waiting to see how many Foxconn boards came back. ;)
 
fireluxx said:
Actually Asus and Gigabyte merged not that long ago. You will find that the P965 boards share some common simularities with Asus products.
Click to expand...

1) This "merger" was announced roughly 17 days ago or so. Not eactly enough time for a product that was developed several months ago at the latest, to have common aspects between them besides the chipset.

2) It's not even truly a merger, but more like a new company that each is investing in (a.k.a. joint venture).
 
Perhaps, but some companies have been known to start their changes before the PR report hits the streets. As for the P965, that chipset was launched in June and the series from Gigabyte is quite recent to the market.
 
I bought an ECS/Athlon combo from fry's 2 years ago, and it has ran rock solid 24/7 as a music jukebox since then. I don't think I would trust it with OC'ing, but then again I'm not really into that anyway. For basic stuff it seems ok. Just ordered their new 965. I think they're great if you don't need the extras... 7.1, dual ethernet, coax and optical out, 50 USB 2.0 :p

But anecdotal evidence aside, what are their return rates? I seem to recall a low percentage when either anandtech or toms did a factory tour.
 
i've built a number of ECS NF4's in socket 754 amd 939, along with asus and DFI's .

they were sort of bare MB's but they worked well and would overclock to about 250mhz/FSB which was the limit of the bios. ECS came out with a bios that allowed 400fsb but none of the settings above 250 worked . but to ECS credit none of the ECS NF4s i built had any problems with PSU's or memory. which is something DFI can't say. but it did have enough voltage options to overclock if it had hade a proper overclocking bios.

i kind of like ECS these days. sort of a no-nonsence type of company.

i picked up those nf4's for like $53 each and they worked well. before you dump $180-$300 on that gold plated "overclocking god board" look around and see how many problems it's having first. maybe a inexpensive MB with moderate overclocking that is stable ain't a bad idea. :) i kinda wish ESC would make a 975x crossfire mb--lol
 
Anyone order a P965T-A and run some benchmarks on it? What about getting SLI to run via hacked drivers? I've been looking at this board for weeks now as a value gaming/encoding board. Sure this board won't overclock well, but what do you want out of a $95 board anyway. This baby paired with a E6600 or E6700 would kick ass.
 
ECS boards are fine for stock speeds. You might even wring a small overclock out of them.

For the most part, they follow the specs of whatever chipset they're making to the letter and they don't offer much beyond the basics. The caps are probably budget and you don't get all kinds of fancy accessories. I had a biostar NF3 motherboard that got knocked out by a PS failure, I just replaced it with an ECS board and it works just fine, I didn't even have to reinstall windows. The only difference between the two boards was the color of the PCB, the biostar was red, the ECS is purple. Ive built computers for others using ECS motherboards and I've never had a problem that could be traced back to the motherboard -- if you use them for what they're intended for, they're a great alternative to spending a lot of money for features you're not going to use.

Considering that the whole draw of conroe is that they're great overclockers, personally I'd pass on this board for the DS3. A couple bucks more to get a motherboard with proven overclocking abilities and more features just makes more sense.
 
I just RMAed the board because it arrived with a dead LAN port. The overclocking options/screens shown in the motherboard manual did not exist in the BIOS. It looked totally different. I saw some voltage adjustments and some other selection but I didn't fool with it. I need to learn the basics of overclocking before I attempt it. On a positive note, the Scythe Infinity fits on the board with no problem. If anyone would like to see some benchmarks with this board let me know and I'll do my best to get them.

(Note: the other components in my rig of importance are an E6600, 2GB of XMS2 (DDR667 if I remember correctly), 150GB Raptor.
 
CrossFire should now be capable on this motherboard thanks to the new beta driver from ATI.
 
The second slot can only run at 4x. Will crossfire work with one at 16x and one at 4x? Or even 8x and 4x?
 
PCMusicGuy said:
The second slot can only run at 4x. Will crossfire work with one at 16x and one at 4x? Or even 8x and 4x?
Click to expand...


Yes.

ATI has released a beta driver that will enable CrossFire on P965 motherboards with 2 X16 PCI-E slots. While the X4 will have a negative impact on performance CrossFire will work regardless of the slots configuration.
 
The P965T-A (1.0B) will support Kentsfield with the 9/27/06 or later BIOS.
 
Things are getting very interesting. Kentsfield's release might finally convince me to upgrade. Rip an mp3, update nortons, play oblivion and watch a movie...
 
Hmm... I've picked up an ECS P965T-A 1.0b and Core Duo 6600 as part of the Fry's deal ($299) recently, which, from what I've heard, is almost cheaper than just buying the chip itself. I'm almost finished with putting it together (it's my first computer I'm putting together from scratch, don't want to spend too much), and the entire time I got hounded by the salesman about how horrible it is. I've heard that this board may have problems, what I don't know is how accurate the guy's claims were. I'm not sure if I should try to POST with this thing or to buy a better board now (adding about $139 for an Intel 965 and increasing total computer cost by about 23% at the moment...)

Claim 1: It has horrible memory compatibility.
He claims that the Kingston 1GB PC4200 DDR533 stick that I picked up the same day has a 25% chance of working, implying a 75% chance of failure. He says that's even better than other brands, which have a 10% chance of working.

OK, I've heard of bad boards before, but if this claim is true, then they're basically selling defective products (the entire ECS line), which is almost a lawsuit waiting to happen (for both ECS and Intel). The Kingston 1GB model, by the way, is listed in the manual as a stick that has been "tested for compatibility."

Claim 2: After filling out my order - "Don't even think about gaming with this"

Let's see here,

-Intel 965 chipset - check
- PCI-express x16 - check
- Core Duo 6600 - check
- 2 GB of at least PC4200 - check
- 7200 RPM SATA - check
- Geforce 7950 GT (maybe 8800 GTS or ATI 1950XT if I feel like putting down the cash) - check
- Oblivion at 1280 x 1024 (the most my LCD can handle) - check

It seems like the major problem people have with ECS is the entire motherboard not working within a few months, which he never mentioned except for a very vague "unreliable" and "we get the most returns for." Oh how I love Fry's bait-and-switch tactics.

If I try to POST it, I'll let you guys know how it goes, but for now, I'm just curious what your thoughts are about the claims.

Thanks for going through my rant.
 
You should report that guy to the store manager. BTW, I picked up the same 299 combo. Great deal. As was said earlier, they work great at stock but are not the best choice for overclockers.
 
Board is defective. Either I got unlucky or this is just ECS. Or just Fry's repackaging defective products as new. Returning today.

All power is plugged in (Motherboard, graphics card, hard drive, DVD), CPU is in, heatsink & thermal paste is on, fans are plugged into motherboard.

No output on my LCD.

I grab another PCI express card (cheapo with VGA/DVI to test both) and also nothing. I move it over to the PCI x4 slot, and nothing for both. The chance that both cards are defective is very low.

Fans turn on, lights go on, so part of the motherboard is working... but it seems that all of it isn't.

Going to grab a boxed Intel chip and Intel brand 965. This is not worth the trouble.
 
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