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Last year, as nVidia's GeForce4 Ti series
cards became more mainstream than any graphics card
before, many companies did their best to get themselves
noticed. New companies formed and old ones either
resurfaced or reorganized. In this last group sits
a company that has been around since the days of the
TNT and TNT2 Pine Technology. Mainly producing for
OEMs, Pine Technology has had a strong foothold in
development of many add-in cards, and last year they
spawned their retail graphics division XFX Graphics.
We have had the honor of reviewing a few of their
graphics cards, and were thoroughly impressed with
performance and price.
Well, the trend has swung to motherboards,
and many of the companies that brought us the best
graphics cards are proving themselves in the motherboard
arena, and XFX is throwing their hat in the ring with
their Mach4 lineup. I received one of these bad boys
early on in their release, but for several reasons
including a fried CPU and a failed review sample,
it has been a long process to get this review completed.
Now that my replacement board is here, and I have
salvaged an XP1800+ lets try this again. (Fare
thee well XP2000+ you served me as best you could)
Although their full lineup represents
several chipsets, the board here on the bench is based
on the VIA KT400 chipset. Not Wayne's favorite by
any means, but it is the most recent offering from
VIA, and offers 8X AGP support, as well as unofficial
DDR400 support. After the performance I got from the
Ti4400 and 4200 graphics cards from XFX, I think they
know a thing or two about silicon, and maybe they
will sway Wayne's opinion of the KT400. The Mach4
KT400-ALH, as it's called, also sports onboard LAN,
USB 2.0 and 5.1 surround sound.
Part one: The retail package
Since my first contact with XFX, I have
liked their package graphics. Their tough techno-mascots
are really cool, and the dramatic presentation of
the box really gives the impression that what lurks
inside is chomping at the bit to dominate the competition.
With mace in hand, I dare open the
box to let this beast out...
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