EPoX 8NPA+ SLI Motherboard Review :: Layout and Setup

The layout of the board is typical of SLI motherboards in many ways. The CPU Socket is placed sideways compared to a normal 939 CPU. The memory is positioned next to the CPU Socket meaning that the video card does not block any memory slots when installed. However, a large CPU cooler like the ThermalRight XP-90 may force people to remove the CPU cooler before removing the memory.

MOSFET

EPoX logo

4-pin power

20-pin power connector

The 4-pin power connector is below the CPU Socket on the board, not an optimal location as the power connector needs to route OVER the CPU cooler to fit on my test station. The 20-pin power connector is situated next to the 4-pin power connector, making for awkward positioning. The normal cooling heatsink for an Athlon 64 may have airflow issues with these power cables.

LED

Power and Reset Switch

One thing I like about the board is the inclusion of a Power and Reset switch on the board. This makes for easy testing of the board outside the case before installation. Another positive of the board is the inclusion of a Status LED. If a problem occurs during first POST the LED will give you a message indicating where the likely problem is. A message of FF means boot is likely to occur without issue.

Fan Header

Chipset fan

Vitesse PHY

Fintek chip

EPoX decided to include 3 headers for USB ports, bringing the maximum on the board to 10, the maximum supported by the nForce4 SLI chipset. Firewire support is not a option on the board. One thing I have to take ECS to task for is the placement of the floppy drive connector. On my system I had to route the cable around two 7800GTs meaning that I had to remove the floppy cable to install the video card. In any event, floppy drives aren't important except when installing SATA drives today.

Battery

Installing the board was a bit of a tricky affair with SATA drives. One thing to keep in mind when using NVRAID is the boot ROM needs to be turned on. Otherwise, using two hard drives in RAID 0 will be problematic at best as the drives won't be recognized as bootable. Another thing about the board was the length of floppy cable to the controller meant that installing two cards in SLI meant the cabling was problematic.

Other than those minor quibbles, the board installed without a hitch both in single card and SLI mode. To test SLI I used two EVGA 7800GT CO cards. NVIDIA's Forceware 81.95 drivers were used, the most recent ones on NVIDIA's website that are WHQL. We only use WHQL drivers in our reviews. You can see a comparison with two 7800GTs with our Athlon 64 test platform in the performance section of the review. Note, everything is the same except the CPU, the motherboard chipset, and the memory being single channel.