Albatron KX18D PROII: nForce2 Ultra with Memory Ratios

Final Words

The Albatron KX18D PROII is blessed with the most interesting and comprehensive group of overclocking and tweaking controls we have yet seen on an Athlon motherboard. Certainly, the DFI NFII Ultra has better choices for memory tweaking, but the vCore range to 2.65V, combined with vDimm to 3.0V, and adjustments for chipset voltage make the Albatron the most flexible Athlon board we have tested. Add to this the totally unique memory ratios on the KX18D PROII and you have a board (on paper) that is the overclocking king.

Our testing indicates that the Albatron is one of the top overclocking Athlon boards you will find, but it is held back in several areas from being the best. It requires more voltage for overclocks than competitors, and it seems much less capable at higher FSB settings than the DFI or Gigabyte boards. You can reach outstanding performance levels with the KX18D PROII, but you will likely have to reach those levels with higher ratios or with a combination of a higher voltage with a higher FSB. In addition, the new memory ratios seem to have problems working at the very ranges most enthusiasts will want, which is the DDR500 range. We don’t know if this is a limitation of the nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset or if it is something that can be fixed with a BIOS update, but if you buy the Albatron KX18D PROII to run DDR500 memory, you will be disappointed.

With all of the wonderful promise of the Albatron, we were a bit disappointed in the execution. The top-performing nForce2 Ultra 400 boards we compared to the Albatron all had the additional 12V power connector that is optional on AMD and standard on the Pentium 4. Albatron chose not to use this. We suspect this is part of the reason the Albatron is more voltage hungry than the top boards to which we compared it. We expect that Albatron will improve the board’s memory-ratio performance with BIOS updates, but we also suspect that there will need to be some revisions for the board to reach the top-of-the-Athlon-heap where it belongs.

As it is now, the Albatron is fast — one of the fastest Athlon boards we have tested. Its performance and overclocking capabilities place it among the top 3 or 4 Athlon boards we have tested. As long as you are realistic with what the Albatron can and cannot do well, and you are willing to feed it voltage, you will not be disappointed. With a few revisions to the power regulation on the KX18D PROII, it could become the best Athlon board on the market. However, it is now outperformed in several overclocking areas by a few of the top Athlon boards we have tested. The Albatron KX18D PROII is a wonderful board, but its promise is not completely fulfilled.