Epox EP-8NPA SLI

Author: Tim Smalley
Published: 29th November 2005
Comments (6) Stumble
Epox EP-8NPA SLI The Board
The board is slightly smaller than a typical ATX motherboard at only 210mm wide, compared to the ~250mm width of a full-sized board. It does remain the same length, though. Starting from the right hand edge of the board, there are two DDR memory slots capable of supporting upto 2GB of memory in total. Many of you will realise that Socket 754 CPUs only have support for a single channel memory controller, as opposed to the dual channel memory controller supported by Socket 939 Athlon 64s. Despite the lack of dual channel support, it is still possible to run two PC3200 memory modules with a command rate of 1T at DDR400.

The area around the CPU socket is relatively trouble free, despite the boards' smaller footprint. The capacitors next to the power regulation circuitry, and also the closeness of memory slots might pose a problem if you are looking to use one of the larger heatsink/fan combinations in conjunction with something like Corsair's Pro-series memory.

There is the now-standard 24-pin ATX 2.0 along with the additional 4-pin 12v power connector located next to the left hand corner of the CPU socket. The location of these is a slight worry to us and they could have been located in more efficient locations near the edge of the board. Again, you may encounter problems if you're attaching a larger-than-standard heatsink fan solution. You're also going to have to route the cables adequately so that they don't interfere with the CPU cooler.

Epox EP-8NPA SLI The Board Epox EP-8NPA SLI The Board
The nForce4 SLI chipset is located right below the 24-pin power connector, which is actively cooled by a low-profile anodised aluminium heatsink fan. It's quiet and no louder than any other nForce4 SLI chipset cooler. Directly below the chipset, there are connectors for two ATA133 channels supporting four devices, along with four SATA II ports. All of these are controlled by the integrated nForce4 disk controller. The SATA II ports have support for NVIDIA RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and JBOD modes, along with NCQ and device hot-swapping.

Moving down to the left, there is an onboard Post Port LED display for system debugging. If the system fails to boot, the LED display will show an error number that can be looked up in the motherboard's manual.

In the bottom left hand corner of the board, there are onboard power-on and reset buttons that are handy for debugging - or testing - the motherboard out of a case. The BIOS chip and CMOS clear are located above the reset button, with CMOS clear being the yellow jumper next to the system battery.

Epox EP-8NPA SLI The Board Epox EP-8NPA SLI The Board
The floppy port sits next to the system battery, and there are three USB 2.0 port headers. This means that six of the ten USB 2.0 ports featured in the nForce4 SLI chipset are located on the motherboard and are connected via pin-outs. There is only one USB 2.0 expansion plate included in the bundle, so you will have to recycle previous USB 2.0 expansion plates, or look to purchase extras from your local components store.

Right next to the onboard power-on switch, there are the front panel pin-outs. Unfortunately, these are not colour coded, but they are labelled on the PCB. This means that you shouldn't require the motherboard manual to set them up, but there is a guide in there just incase you cannot read the relatively small markings next to the pin-outs.

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