ECS KN1 SLI Extreme Motherboard Review :: The Bundle

• ECS KN1-SLI Motherboard
• 4 SATA Cables
• 1 SATA Bracket
• 2 USB/1 Firewire Bracket
• 2 IDE cables
• 1 Floppy Drive cable
• SLI Bridge
• SLI Bracket
• Top Hat Flash
• Parallel Port Bracket
• LAN cable
• Front Panel bracket
• Backplate
• Driver CD
• Application CD

ECS really went all-out on the bundle for the KN1-SLI motherboard. Hardware-wise, the board comes with 4 SATA cables, and an External SATA bracket, bringing the total up to 5. The 2 USB/1 Firewire bracket brings the total of both supported by the board to 6 and 2 respectively. There are 3 USB headers on the board, allowing for up to 10 total USB ports without an additional card.

IDE and Floppy Cable

SATA Cables

SATA Power Cable

Parallel Port Bracket

External SATA

USB+Firewire Bracket

LAN Cable

Software Bundle

ECS doesn't stop with their excellent hardware bundle. Their software bundle includes DPU, a file restoration program. Pro Magic Plus restores files but also allows the system to go back to an earlier time point, like GoBack or Windows System Restore. ShowShifter is a Media Player type program allowing you to view TV, video, CDs, MP3s and digital pictures. I'm InTouch is a remote PC access program allowing you to access your home computer from work. WinCinema is a suite of programs WinDVD (DVD Playback), WinDVD Creator, and WinRip.

Software

Top Hat

Top Hat chip

ECS has a unique tool for those who flash the BIOS wrong or corrupt the BIOS on their motherboards. Top Hat is a BIOS chip that fits over the existing BIOS chip. You can boot the computer after a bad BIOS flash by inserting the Top Hat chip, booting and removing the Top Hat chip. After you re-flash the BIOS to the newest version, you're good to go. I didn't have an issue with ECS's BIOS, but on one of the previous boards I reviewed it saved my bacon.

SLI Bridge

SLI stands for Scalable Link Interface. 3dfx first coined the term for their Voodoo 2 video cards, which allowed for two video cards to operate together to nearly double performance. NVIDIA's SLI operates in three modes, AFR, SFR and Compatibility mode. AFR stands for Alternate Frame Rendering. In this mode, each card renders a frame one after the other. SFR stands for Single Frame Rendering. In SFR mode each card renders part of the same frame.

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