Nvidia GeForce 9300 Launch Roundup :: ECS GeForce 9300T-A Black Edition Layout

Part Number	GF9300T-A
Manufacturer	ECS
Price Check	Find Best Price
Downloads	BIO Drivers Manuals
Chipset	Nvidia GeForce 9300
North Bridge	Nvidia GeForce 9300
Socket	LGA775 Socket
Processor Types	Quad Core, Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Duo, Pentium 4, Pentium D
Number of CPUs	1
Front Side Bus	1333/1066/800
Memory Type	DDR2
Memory Channels	Dual
Maximum Memory	8GB
External Graphics	PCI Express x16
IGP	GeForce 9300
South Bridge	Nvidia GeForce 9300
Audio	8-channel
IDE	133/100/66
SCSI	None
SATA	3.0 GB/s
RAID	0, 1, 0+1, 5, 10
LAN	10/100/1000 4 LAN Ports
Firewire	IEEE 1394a
USB	USB 2.0
Expansion Slots
BIOS	AMI
Form Factor	ATX

ECS chose to go a full ATX layout with their GF9300T-A Black Series motherboard. The board is black as is to be expected from a Black Series motherboard and the CPU area is clean of obstacles allowing the installation of after-market cooling solutions. ECS has a small heatsink covering the GeForce 9300 chip. ECS has made a few interesting choices in the layout. Four DIMM slots for 8GB of DDR2-800MHz memory are present.

Expansion on this board is what one would expect from an ATX case, a PCI Express x16 slot, two PCI Express x1 slots and three PCI slots. The placement of the PCI Express x16 slot should be pleasing for those wanting a system with a lot of SATA drives and a two slot PCI Express video card as the SATA ports are behind the slot and installation of a card won’t interfere with them in any way. There are six SATA ports on the board.

The left side of the board is populated by the IDE port, three USB 2.0 headers, the Speaker headers, the Front Panel headers, and small Power and Reset buttons. The bottom of the board has a LPT header, the COM header, a PWR Fan header, the 24-pin power connector header and the capacitors. The right side of the board has a CPU Fan header and the 4-pin power connector. This placement is perfect for those wishing for good cable management on their case.

The onboard audio on this board is provided by a Realtek ALC889 CODEC. This is the standard in audio CODECs available today as many motherboards feature it. The ALC889 supports Dolby Digital and DTS Connect capabilities and supports 7.1+2 channel High Definition Audio. ECS has provided the board with excellent audio.

The rear IO on this board is rather pedestrian compared to the ASUS board. The Rear IO has a PS/2 mouse, PS/2 keyboard, VGA connector, HDMI connector, six USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit LAN, six audio jacks for the onboard sound and an external SATA connector. The lack of a DisplayPort connector is not a concern as you can use an adapter to run it into a DVI connector.