ECS PX1 Extreme 965P Motherboard Review :: PX1 Extreme Layout.

The layout of the board is excellent in most respects. The positioning of the capacitors is ok, with clearance around the CPU Socket area allowing for after-market coolers. The Northbridge is cooled by a heatsink with a heatpipe leading out to another heatsink that may interfere with larger after-market coolers might interfere.

Expansion on the board is excellent. In addition to the two PCI Express x16 slots for Crossfire mode, there are two PCI Express x1 slots and a three PCI slots (with one of them being the PCI Extreme slot. Crossfire mode is enabled when two ATI cards of the same type are installed, with the second PCI Express x16 slot operating in x4 mode.

ATI's Xpress 3200 chipsets support 2 cards operating in x16 mode, and the Intel 975X boards support two cards operating in x8 mode, but with the limitations of the 965P chipset the choice of x16 x4 is understandable. The positioning of the PCI Express x16 slots means that using two x1950XTX cards would be virtually right next to each other, showing a potential problem with the cooling in an enclosed case, as the X1950XTX runs very hot normally.

ECS decided to use the Intel ICH8DW Southbridge chip. This differs from the standard ICH8R Southbridge by the addition of Intel Quick Resume Technology. There are two aspects to QRT, Visual Off and CE-like On/Off. Visual Off makes the computer look like its off. It turns off the display, sound, front panel lights and mouse/keyboard but the computer can still run applications.

ECS was extremely generous in the SATA port department. Six SATA 2 ports are aligned on the bottom of the board next to the FDD controller. An additional SATA port is above those six sitting next to the IDE port. This port is used for the SATA to IDE Bridge. The last SATA port is located on the Rear IO panel, bringing the total to 8.

On the left side of the board are the headers for the USB and Firewire ports. Three headers for USB ports and two Firewire headers are on the board, bringing the total USB ports possible to 10 and the total Firewire ports supported by the board to 2. ECS outfitted the board with four fan headers including the CPUfan, the Powerfan, the Sysfan and a Auxfan header.

Realtek Control Panel

Onboard sound has made a quantum leap since the days of a few years ago when everything was AC'97. Today the most modest audio CODEC supports 7.1 Surround Sound, multiple Audio streams and the other features of High Definition Audio standard. The ECS PX1 Extreme has the Realtek ALC885 CODEC controlled by the ICH8DH Southbridge.

The Rear IO panel on the ECS PX1 Extreme board is unique in some ways. The board has the PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports for legacy devices. Personally I use Wireless Keyboards and Mice from Logitech, meaning USB is important. The board has four USB 2.0 ports, the standard on today's motherboards. There is an eSATA port on the Rear, allowing for external SATA hard disks to be attached.

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