Most of you have probably noticed that a trend towards integration has mended its pace lately,and can now be easily detected in the market. Intel feeling that its competitors are trying todeprive it of the sub- $1000 PC market could probably cause such turn. And since the world'slargest CPU manufacturer is not used to being an underactor, it does its best to find as manyways as possible to make its products cheaper. Any means fit here: video integrated into chipsets,chipsets integrated into processors, and a lot of other tricks. And now the integrated mainboardsoccupy a considerable part of the market though some time ago they used to be something reallyexotic. And their share in the world hardware market is about to grow bigger and biggerespecially after the launching of Whitney and announcement of Timna.

However, the mainboard manufacturers haven't also forgotten about the ordinary installationof the graphics chips using local memory onto their boards. ATI Rage chips used to be themost popular solution of the kind because they provided sufficient performance in officeapplications. However, the other graphics developers were also wide-awake. They quicklyunderstood that this market was very likely to become a gold-mine and launched the wholelot of products intended for integrated mainboards. Among them appeared nVidia Vanta, and3dfx Voodoo3 2000. But the mainboard manufacturers seemed to have lost their way among allthese diverse devices and to everybody's surprise started integrating very astonishing things.And a popular nVidia Riva TNT microchip turned out to be among them. Yes, it's all true, this3D-accelerator not long ago so passionately beloved by numerous gamers (before Riva TNT2 andVoodoo3 ousted it from the leading position) has now found its way in the mainboards. Franklyspeaking, the price of this graphics chip is not that high any more that's why a mainboardwith the integrated Riva TNT is no longer an unattainable dream.

Well, today we decided to introduce you an i440BX-based mainboard - PowerColor DREAMCODEGAMEboard with integrated video on nVidia Riva TNT (16MB SDRAM), and integrated sound Yamaha724/740.

Specification

• CPU
  • Slot-1 processor support;
  • Intel Pentium II/III and Intel Celeron processor from 233 to 550MHz;
  • 66 and 100MHz system bus;
  • Automatic CPU voltage detection from 1.3 to 3.5V;
  • Clock multipliers from 3 to 5.5;
• Chipset
  • Intel 82443BX/PIIX4E;
  • Input/Output Winbond W83977EF-AW controller;
• System memory
  • Supports from 8MB to 768MB DRAM;
  • 3 168-contact DIMM slots 3.3V each;
  • 8/16/32/64/128/256MB SDRAM module support;
  • ECC (Error Code Correct) support;
• Integrated video
  • nVidia Riva TNT chipset;
  • 16MB SDRAM;
  • 100/125MHz working frequency;
• Slots
  • 3 32bit PCI slots corresponding to PCI 2.1 specs with Bus Mastering support;
  • 1 shared ISA slot;
• Input/ Output
  • 2 Ultra DMA/33 IDE-ports with BusMastering support;
  • 1 FDD-port, 2 serial COM-ports, 1 parallel LPT-port;
  • PS/2-ports for keyboard and mouse;
  • 2 integrated USB ports;
  • Optional infrared IrDA TX/RX connector;
• Integrated sound
  • 32-bit PCI soundchip YAMAHA 724/740;
  • Uses BusMastering;
  • 3D-sound Sensaura technology support;
• Form-factor
  • ATX, 4-layer PCB 30.5x21.0cm;
• Monitoring
  • Fan activity control, voltage and system temperature monitoring;
• BIOS
  • AWARD BIOS with ACPI, PnP, DMI and antivirus functions support;
  • Boots from IDE, LS120, ZIP and CD-ROM;
• Other
  • Wake on LAN connector;
  • 2 fan connectors.

The mainboard is supplied in a beautifully decorated box even wrapped in a transparentplastic cover similar to the retail package of Diamond and Creative graphics cards. BesidesPowerColor DREAMCODE GAMEboard itself, the package also includes a set of cables, a CD ROMand a mediocre user's manual. But the provided software perfectly makes up for the qualityof the manual. On the CD ROM you can find not only quite ordinary things, such as IDE,graphics and sound drivers, but also a DVD WinDVD software player and a new 3D game -WARGASM.

We would also like to point out that the official specs posted above do not fully coincidewith what we see on a mass piece. Of course, it slightly spoils our impression of the manufacturercompany, but such is life. This strange discrepancy will be discussed a bit later in our review.And now you have just opened the box and…

Installation

Before we start let's try to find out who may be particularly interested in the mainboardswith integrated graphics based on Riva TNT. For sure DREAMCODE is not a low-cost chipset that'swhy it will be a bit too expensive to be installed into the cheap office PCs used for runningdifferent simple applications and not for playing Quake. As for the extreme gamers, the integratedsolution seems absolutely unacceptable for them, because such dedicated people assemble their PCs ofthe newest components and change them separately several times a month as soon as something coolturns up. :) So, we arrive at the conclusion that PowerColor DREAMCODE is mostly intended for thoseusers, who feel quite happy with the 3D-power of Riva TNT, and would be glad to have it in theirhome PC. The integrated graphics and sound solution has an indisputable advantage compared to allthe rest. It's main trump is maximum simplicity of assemblage and installation operations, and weare secured from any kind of problems in such a system. All this proves that PowerColor DREAMCODE isquite a nice solution for home PCs and the best choice for unpretending users and lazy assemblers. Ifyou are not going to constantly upgrade your system components, then PowerColor DREAMCODE can definitelysave you some money - this product will cost you a bit less than a separate Riva TNT with an i440BX basedmainboard.

After we have cleared out the application of PowerColor DREAMCODE, let's take a closer look atits exterior. The board is made extremely carefully and neatly. However, the integrated Riva TNT togetherwith the graphics memory had to be moved to a farther edge of the mainboard so that to reduce the influenceof the electric field and to fight the image quality worsening. As a result the engineers were forcedto sacrifice several PCI and ISA slots, and there remained only 4 of them: 1 ISA and 3 PCI. Thoughsuch scant amount of slots is quite enough, actually. ISA-cards are a pretty rare thing nowadays, andare likely to totally disappear in a while. And as for PCI-devices, it seems rather complicated to runout of PCI-slots with the already integrated sound and graphics if you are not demanding anything veryspecial from your system. By the way, there is no AGP-slot on this mainboard since the on-board TNTalready occupies it. That's why even if you disable the AGP in Setup BIOS, you can hardly even thinkof upgrading the graphics part of your PowerColor DREAMCODE, especially taking into account thatpractically all leading graphics cards manufacturers have ceased producing PCI-cards. The lastone is probably 3dfx Voodoo3 2000.

As for the mainboard layout, it seems to be OK: all the connectors are quite easy to reach.However, only one PCI-slot allows installing a full-size board. Unfortunately, if you try to instal suchboards in the two remaining slots, as well as in ISA-slot, light-emitting diode connectors, casebuttons connectors and the Flash-BIOS microchip will undoubtedly be in the way.

The chipsets cooling (main logic and graphics chipsets) is also worth mentioning here. To ourgreat delight the cooling system isn't based on usual Chinese radiators, but on a very high-qualityone for i440BX fastened by means of two special rivets and a radiator with a small fan for Riva TNT.However, unfortunately this radiator is simply pressed to the chip surface with a spring, and noheat sink grease is used that is why the temperature is a bit higher than it could be.

The configuration options offered by PowerColor DREAMCODE BIOS do not demonstrate anything special.You can change memory timing properties, and can't assign IRQs for PCI-slots and disable the USBcontroller. Actually, this is quite enough. Particularly for a mainboard, which is supposed to easesystem configuring and assembling.

It seems to be the main reason for PowerColor engineers not to include into their BIOSthe SoftMenu support, which implies the possibility to change processor frequencies and clock multipliersfrom the Setup. All CPU settings can be made by means of two blocks of dip-switches, which proveda bit more practical than the usual jumpers. And the fact that you canset the maximum multiplier equal only to 5.5 shouldn't discourage you that much. All today's CPUs,which require a higher multiplier, will still perform correctly, because Intel's policy in terms ofclock multipliers locking allows the processors to simply ignore the parameters of the mainboard in suchcases.

System monitoring is based on W83783D controller, which is actually intended for Socket-370mainboards. That's why the number of voltages controlled is restricted to 5, while usually we speak about7 or even 9 voltages. The board can also check two temperature values with a special temperaturesensor located behind Slot-1 and a connector for an external thermistor, which is not included inthe supply, unfortunately.

To finish this section, we would like to say a few words about the sound. YAMAHA 724/740is a very cheap chip, however, this doesn't automatically imply that it is a bad chip. Quitethe opposite. Despite its cheapness and lack of the popular 4-speakers support, it provides aperfect 3D sound based on Sensaura (3DPA) technology. Having listened to it we can say for surethat the quality of the sound played through 2 speakers is not much worse than that played byexpensive MX300 and SBLive! through DS3D, of course. Besides, we shouldn't leave out almostthe best software synthesizer using Yamaha wave tables, and we suppose that you won't really feellike disabling the integrated sound for the sake of some external sound cards. Only if you suddenlyfind some extra 50 bucks for an SBLive! or 60 for an MX300. :)

Overclocking

Here we will take a look not only at the processor overclocking on PowerColor DREAMCODE, butalso try to overclock the integrated Riva TNT.

This mainboard is not a good choice for an overclocker. No normal overclocking fan - if heis in his right mind, of course! - will ever buy a system with the integrated graphics. Thus,PowerColor DREAMCODE is for "quiet" users. And since they are very unlikely to be interestedin overclocking, the mainboard isn't boasting either SoftMenu, or the possibility to increase theCPU voltage. And the set of officially supported FSB frequencies is relatively poor: 66, 75, 83,100, 112 and 133MHz. However, there are two more frequencies not mentioned in the manual - 103 and124MHz. To set the frequency equal to 103MHz, you have to change dip-switches to 1011, and for124MHz - to 0001. And that seems to be about all concerning the processor overclocking.

And now let's pay our attention to the integrated Riva TNT overclocking. According to themainboard specifications the working frequency of TNT is 100/125MHz, which is actually abit higher than the usual 90/110MHz. However, to our great disappointment this is absolutelywrong. The TNT working frequency on PowerColor DREAMCODE board is even not a standard one, buta lowered to 90/90MHz, and as a result the 3D-graphics performance is also below the expectedone. This situation makes us more willing to speed up graphics by increasing the graphics coreand memory frequencies. Judging by the tests we can guarantee stable performance of theoverclocked TNT only at the frequencies not more than 110/125MHz, which is actually the usualvalue for cards on Riva TNT chip. But there is still a little hope that the core can be much greateroverclocked if we apply special heat sink grease between the chip and the radiator to increase thecooling of the chipset.

Performance

We decided to compare PowerColor DREAMCODE performance to that of an analogous mainboardwith the integrated Riva TNT - Intel SR440BX, and to that of an ordinary mainboard Chaintech6BTM with an ordinary graphics card based on Riva TNT - ASUS V3400TNT. Besides these, the testsystems included the following component parts:

• Intel Pentium III 450 CPU
• IBM Titan DJNA 372200 harddisk
• 128MB SEC PC-100 SDRAM

The benchmarks utilized the following applications:

• Windows98
• WinStone99
• 3DMark 99 MAX
• Quake2 massive1 working through OpenGL

Here are the results obtained:

When we were testing the performance in standard office applications using Winstone99,PowerColor DREAMCODE proved to be quite OK, though it performed a bit worse compared to theother tested mainboards. As for its performance in 3D graphics applications, the mainboardundoubtedly lagged behind the system, which looked as follows: "an ordinary i440BX mainboard +a graphics card on Riva TNT". Of course the cause of such poor results is evident, because thefrequency of Riva TNT integrated into PowerColor DREAMCODE is a bit below the standard. That'swhy the overall performance of DREAMCODE leaves much to be desired.

Conclusions

Well, the main advantage of PowerColor DREAMCODE is still its maximally simple installation.If you are ready to sacrifice the possibility of future upgrade of your graphics system for thesake of easy and quick system assembling and of saving some money, then PowerColor DREAMCODE isexactly what you need. However, if you believe that Riva TNT accelerator is indisputably out ofdate, then all you can do is just forget this review together with the PowerColor DREAMCODE boardas a nightmare, which no longer exists as soon as you wake up.

Highs

• Extremely easy to install and to maintain
• Cheaper than an ordinary i440BX based mainboard with a Riva TNT graphics card

Lows

• No upgrade is possible
• Lower performance because of the lowered TNT working frequency