The today's state of things with DRR SDRAM promotion is strikingly similar to the old story of common SDRAM as it dethroned the ancient EDO DRAM. It failed to prove as effective as it had been expected to be, but it didn't prevent the new memory from penetrating inevitably into the market. Thus, alongside with pricy mainboards intended for high-performance systems, there also appear cheaper solutions with DDR SDRAM support. One of the few to release products like that is a Taiwanese company called Transcend.

Transcend's major is memory chips manufacturing. But not so long ago the company decided to take up creating mainboards. The beginning, however, was not a success, though as time passed, things got much better. The army of Transcend's admirers kept on growing, while the manufacturer pleased the buyers with both: low prices and a two-year warranty.

As you can see, it's not for nothing that the launching of Transcend Socket A DDR mainboard based on ALi MAGiK 1 core logic grasped the attention of our test lab. This is probably the cheapest mainboard supporting DDR SDRAM today. Besides, Transcend may ship it with its own PC2100 DDR SDRAM modules and this way offer even cheaper DDR systems to the users.

Another point that provoked our testing intentions was the formerly discussed Iwill KA266-R based on the same chipset by ALi, which couldn't boast very high performance. So, we were eager to make sure that its relative slowness was caused by the peculiarities of the chipset, but not by the mainboard. And taking a closer look at a similar product by another mainboard manufacturer was the best way to remove our doubts.

Closer Look

So, here is our today's hero - Transcend ALR4. The first thing we would like to mention is a 128MB module of PC2100 CL2.5 DDR SDRAM with ECC by Transcend, which was enclosed to the board. As long as Transcend is a memory manufacturer as well, it can afford shipping its mainboards together with memory modules, especially since DDR SDRAM is not that popular yet.

Our test showed that this module made of 16Mx8 chips by Samsung works well in nominal conditions, but doesn't allow using CAS Latency 2. As for overclocked FSB, everything is fine when the FSB frequency doesn't exceed 150MHz. That's all we can say about this module, so we'll not dwell on it later in the review.

Speaking about the mainboard itself, let us start with its specifications:

Transcend ALR4 is one of the three Socket A mainboards based on ALi MAGiK 1 chipset that you can presently find in the mass market. In other words, ALi MAGiK 1 is not rating high among the mainboards manufacturers. But bearing in mind who the other two mainboard manufacturers are, it will become obvious that Transcend has chosen the right chipset for its DDR solution. You see, the other two mainboards built on ALi MAGiK 1 are the offsprings of ASUS and Iwill, which definitely belong to the leaders in this field. Moreover, ALi is about to enlarge the list of its partners in the nearest future, hence ALi MAGiK 1 is to become very widely-spread. Indeed, there is every reason for this change: ALi MAGiK 1 is quite cheap in comparison with other DDR chipsets and most mainboard manufacturers are likely to be seduced by it.

Meanwhile, Low-End DDR platforms are not in demand because of the DDR memory high pricing. Therefore, this situation doesn't encourage many mainboard manufacturers to create low-cost solutions for this memory type. Nevertheless, speaking about Transcend ALR4 we should point out that it sells at almost the same price as the products based on VIA KT133A chipset and supporting only PC133 SDRAM.

In spite of its moderate price, Transcend ALR4 is no worse than its well-bred rivals, such as Iwill KA266. ALR4 supports the whole bunch of Socket A processors including the latest Athlon CPUs with 266MHz bus and, most probably, forthcoming processors on Palomino core. Although there are only four transistors used in the CPU power supply circuit of ALR4, instead of six like on ABIT boards, we didn't face any stability problems even when the board was tested with the today's fastest Athlon 1.33MHz known for its largest power consumption. Reliability and stability are one of the highs of Transcend ALR4.

Transcend ALR4 is equipped with three 184-pin DIMM slots for PC2100/PC1600 DDR SDRAM, which is the maximal number of slots supported by ALi MAGiK 1. Currently you can already come across 0.5GB DDR SDRAM modules selling, therefore this board supports the maximum of 1.5GB memory.

Unfortunately, ALi MAGiK 1 doesn't allow clocking the memory and CPU buses asynchronously. As a result, the highest performance of the memory subsystem on Transcend ALR4 can be achieved only when using Athlon-C processors with 266MHz bus. In this respect, we wouldn't recommend CPUs with 200MHz bus to be used on Transcend ALR4 at all. According to our previous tests, ALi MAGiK 1 combined with these CPUs and PC1600 DDR SDRAM provides the same performance as the systems with PC133 SDRAM, making the use of more expensive PC1600 in this configuration absolutely senseless.

It's noteworthy that despite all the already mentioned stuff, the BIOS Setup of ALR4 allows you to set the memory frequency 33MHz higher than that of the FSB. However, as you no, there are no real miracles in our down-to-earth world, and in reality this option simply doesn't work. If the system runs with the FSB set to 100MHz, the memory always works at the same 100MHz regardless of the values you set in BIOS Setup. Speaking about the not working options in BIOS Setup, we should also point out one more invalid option responsible for manual adjustment of CAS Latency. Whatever CAS Latency is set, the mainboard takes the values from the SPD module.

Transcend ALR4 features 6 PCI slots and a universal AGP slot supporting AGP 2x and 4x graphics cards. The board doesn't support the outdated ISA bus, and has no AMR/CNR/ACR slots. As a rule, mainboards with only seven expansion slots are regarded as solutions with "easy" layout, which comes in handy when assembling the system or removing some component parts from it. However, the case of ALR4 seems to be an exception. Transcend engineers simply moved all the slots to the right side of the PCB. As a result, the graphics card installed into the AGP slot blocks the clips of DIMM slots. But this is just the beginning. The DIMM modules in their turn may prevent you from accessing the processor cooler fastening mechanism. So, if you want to install the components painlessly then you should do it in the following way: first comes the CPU, then - the cooler, then - the memory modules and then - the graphics card. The system is to be disassembled in a strictly roundabout way :). Eventually, if you need to replace the CPU in the system with Transcend ALR4 mainboard, you'll have to remove the memory and the graphics card first.

All in all, the mainboard layout can hardly be called a success. Full-size expansion cards may be installed only in three out of the six PCI slots. If installed into the other three slots they'll be disturbed by IDE and FDD connectors, which are located in far not the best place: right in front of the first three PCI slots. We could also complain about the location of the ATX power supply connector. As it is situated between Socket370 and the ports that are brought to the rear panel of the case, the ATX cable will hang over the processor cooler, encumbering the proper CPU cooling. The capacitors find themselves too close to the processor socket and thus can be in the way when you'll try to install large coolers. For instance, it caused us great pains to fasten Chrome Orb to the Socket A of ALR4. As for the slot for the extra pair of USB ports, it is placed on the very left of the mainboard, forcing the users to install a bracket with the ports at the very edge of the rear case panel. By the way, the bracket isn't included into the package.

Since Transcend positions its ALR4 as a Low-End Socket A DDR solution, this mainboard is equipped not with a fully-fledged audio controller, but with AC'97 Realtek/Avance Logic ALC100P codec. So, the mainboard can boast basic sounding features, which load the CPU quite tangibly, though.

ALR4 deserves a good word for its hardware monitoring. Here Transcend proved a very responsible company and made use of a pretty powerful Winbond W83782D controller. Namely, it measures nine voltages, the rotation speed of two coolers (unfortunately, the board has only two cooler connectors) and three temperatures. The thermal diodes are located in the following way. The first one lies in the center of Socket A to check the CPU heating. The second one measures the general temperature inside the case, being put behind the AGP slot. The third diode is situated right near the transistors, involved in the voltage regulator circuit. That is why this diode takes the temperature of one more heat-dissipating node - the CPU power supply circuit.

Overclocking

Socket A processors are rather popular among overclockers. There are two reasons for that. Firstly, Socket A processors feature good overclockability. For example, some Duron CPUs tend to surpass their nominal clock speed by 50%. The latest Athlon processors have also turned out well-overclockable. Secondly, when the system works at the increased FSB frequency (usually from 100 to 133MHz) and unchanged CPU frequency, the performance increases tangibly with almost no risk for the system's stability. Let us see, what one can get from Transcend ALR4 in this respect.

First of all, like every other high-quality mainboard, ALR4 allows changing the clock multiplier of the AMD Athlon/Duron CPUs with unlocked multiplier (if you are willing to learn how to unlock the multiplier of Socket A CPUs, you may consult the corresponding article). For this purpose the mainboard has a set of five dip-switches, which is situated in front of DIMM slots.

Some time ago it was considered a wonder when a mainboard offered the opportunity to adjust the multiplier of Socket A processors. Now you can see it on almost every new mainboard. The only manufacturer, which doesn't provide its new DDR products with these function for some reason is ASUS.

Adjusting FSB frequency on Transcend ALR4 is even more thrilling. There is one more set of dip-switches on the mainboard serving to change the FSB frequency from 100 to 133MHz and vice versa.

Apart from that, ALR4 allows finer FSB tuning in the BIOS. A corresponding section in BIOS Setup enables the users to change the initial frequency and to set it equal to one of the following values: 100, 101, 102, 103, 105, 107, 110, 120, 126, 133, 136, 137, 140, 142, 146MHz.

We have to warn you in advance that you'd better not touch this option in BIOS Setup? For goodness' sake! For some unknown reasons, any other but default FSB frequencies lead to a dramatic dwindling of the memory subsystem performance. Below we have prepared a diagram showing the memory bus bandwidth according to SiSoft Sandra 2001 benchmark corresponding to different FSB frequencies set in BIOS Setup:

Well, to tell the truth, the results look as if Transcend were mocking at overclockers, since according to this test higher FSB frequencies cause the reduction of the memory subsystem performance instead of improving it. The only consolation is 142MHz and 146MHz, which don't make FSB overclocking unreasonable. Especially, since ALR4 feels absolutely stable during when overclocked.

Perhaps, after all you won't take seriously our complaints about the board's pretty poor range of supported FSB frequencies and relatively low top frequency, but we can't help mentioning it, anyway.

Unfortunately, that's all we can tell you about the overclocking potential of ALR4. This mainboard lets change neither Vcore, nor Vio. Though the layout envisages a jumper for manual Vcore adjustment, the jumper itself is not soldered to the board.

As a whole, Transcend ALR4 can hardly be regarded as a solution for an overclocker.

Testbed

The tested Transcend ALR4 showed no higher results than the previously discussed Iwill KA266 based on ALi MAGiK 1 chipset. So, we decided to compare its performance solely with that of other mainboards built on the same chipset. To get acquainted with the performance rates of Socket A systems based on different chipsets, click here. This way, we selected three systems to take part in our tests:

We tested in Microsoft Windows 98 SE.

Performance

Since we have already talked a lot about the performance of mainboards built on ALi MAGiK 1 chipset, we will restrict to simply comparing the results of the mainboards tested in Business and Content Creation Winstone 2001 as well as in Quake3 Arena:

The first thing we would like to remind you is that our previous tests proved that mainboards based on ALi MAGiK 1 were slower than similar products on AMD-760. Compared with its counterparts in office and gaming applications, Transcend ALR4 represents a good stable solution, falling a little bit behind ASUS A7A266 in Quake3 and Iwill KA266 in Winstone 2001, which are the leaders in different tasks.

Conclusion

Well, as a result we get a pretty controversial product. On the one hand, Transcend ALR4 is a stable and relatively high-performance Socket A solution built on ALi MAGiK 1. On the other hand, it cannot be treated as a good finding for advanced users because of the freaks it shows during overclocking. Nonetheless, if we take into account its evident advantage of being one of the cheapest DDR mainboards on the market today, we may disregard some of the drawbacks discovered while testing. So, this board may become a perfect choice for those who don't belong to extreme overclockers and aren't going to crazily speed up their CPUs.

Highs:

• Low price;
• High stability and reliability.

Lows

• Insufficient overclocking potential;
• Some design drawbacks.