Socket 754 Roundup: Comparing Generation 2
by Wesley Fink on May 28, 2004 5:57 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Epox 8KDA3+: Features and Layout
| Motherboard Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 754 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | nVidia nForce3-250Gb |
| CPU Ratios | 8 to 22 in 1X increments |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 350MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Auto, 66MHz to 100MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| HyperTransport | 1x-4x (200MHz to 800MHz) |
| Core Voltage | 1.55V to 1.70V in 0.05V increments |
| DRAM Voltage | 2.5V to 2.8V in 0.1V increments |
| AGP Voltage | 1.5V-1.8V in 0.1V increments |
| Chipset Voltage | 1.60V to 1.75V in 0.05V increments |
| Memory Slots | Three 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Unbuffered Non-ECC Memory to 2GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 1 AGP 8X Slot 6 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA/RAID | nVidia 2-Drive SATA(RAID 0, 1) Plus SiI3114 4-Drive SATA (RAID 0, 1, 5, 10) |
| Onboard IDE | Two Standard nVidia ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports supported by nF3-250 2 1394A FireWire ports by VIA VT6306 |
| Onboard LAN | 1Gigabit Ethernet on-chip by nF3-250GB |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC850 8-Channel with UAJ |
We were very interested in seeing what Epox would do with the nForce3-250 chipset. Epox has a history of building motherboards that are extremely fast with a very wide range of tweaking options. Frankly, while we were impressed with the features that Epox packed in the 8KDA3+, we were quite unimpressed with the mediocre range of tweaking options when we received the Epox. However, Epox persevered and the board improved dramatically over 2 BIOS revisions during our testing. The latest BIOS for the 8KDA3+ provides a very competitive range of tweaking options and it also turns out to be an outstanding performer.
Epox uses their same ugly green trademark for the 8KDA3+, so this is not a board for case modders who demand color coordination. The full-size ATX board is generally well laid out, however, with plenty of room around the CPU for even the largest heatsink/fan. Since this is a board that might find its way into a tower case, we should point out that the floppy and IDE connectors are very low right on board. This is not the best location and will cause a reaching problem in many case designs. Epox is the only board in the roundup with 6 PCI slots, if that is important to you, but the price that you pay for this feature is possibly having to remove very large video cards when you want to change memory. There is also the Epox 2 digit LED trademark that provides diagnostic read-outs to assist in troubleshooting.
Epox does use the latest Gb chipset, so you have both on-chip Gigabit LAN and on-chip Firewall. There are no firewire connections, however, but these can be easily added with a PCI card if you need them. Both Optical and Coaxial SPDIF connectors are handily located on the back IO panel. Epox also has used the Silicon Image SiI3114 controller instead of nVidia's accessory chip. The 3114 supports up to 4 additional SATA drives with standard RAID 0 and 1 plus the option of RAID 5 and 10. RAID 5 and 10 provide options for a Hot Spare and on-line mirror rebuilding to the 4 SATA drives.
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karlreading - Monday, August 30, 2004 - link
i braught the chaintech vnf3-250 based on the review it recieved at AT and TBPH its a cracking motherboard, plus it easily gets my 2ghz a64-3200+ to 2.4 ghz and lets you run 1ghz HT if u running the cpu stock, something whic supposidly only the nf3 ultra let u do.all in all a very fast, very reliable, very overclockerbul motherboard which i have NMO regrets about buying :)lem79 - Friday, August 6, 2004 - link
I have the Epox 8KDA3+ here with an Athlon64 2800+, runs nice, except for one quirk, which Anandtech failed to mention here (they probably didn't even know)..Cool'n'Quiet only works on this board when _one_ DIMM slot is in use (that is, DIMM1). If there's RAM in DIMM2 and DIMM3 slots, Cool'n'Quiet gets disabled by the BIOS (July revision, earlier BIOS images leave it enabled, but Cool'n'Quiet activation causes system instability and lockups). Epox themselves told me that this was the case.
I think the review needs updating..
operator - Sunday, June 6, 2004 - link
I have the same question as #25. with a small addition.when will the msi k8n or the epox board be available in Canada?
Zebo - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
This is a very good review Wesley, thanks. I really like how you went into detail with memory and boards FSB capabilites for the clockers out here.:) Looks like the Chaintech is the board for me. Cheap and a real performer. It's really to bad nVidia failed to have a decent sound solution though.Sk0t - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Nice review.... BUT Im unable to understand why the Epox 8KDA3+ was awarded gold, and MSI K8n Neo Platinum only awarded silver ?Epox pros over MSI:
6th pci-slot
Slightly better overclocking
MSI pros over Epox:
Firewire
3 working dimm sockets (at 400mhz)
Slightly better layout (dimm-sockets)
Supports Cool&Quiet*
*Since the review seems to completly ignore cool&quiet (unless i missed it?) I will stick to my current rule of thumb, that only Asus & MSI fully supports this feature
Did I miss some wonderfull feature on the Epox ? or was slightly better overclocking considered more important than features & layout ?
gmenfan - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Does anyone know when the MSI K8N Neo will be available? Thanks.mbf - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Nice review! I just have one question; how can there be boards *without* ECC support, when the A64 has the memory controller on-die and it *inherently* supports unbuffered ECC memory? I'm especially thinking of the Epox and MSI boards, since they interest me the most (hardware firewall et al).Actually, I wrote to MSI (US) about this and was told that indeed ECC is supported and the "non-ECC" statement on the product spec page was erroneous. The page was immediately updated (http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?mode... However, only the US site has been updated, and neither the manual (PDF) nor the BIOS available from the MSI Taiwan site state ECC support. Neither do the manual or BIOS for the Epox board.
As ECC support is pretty important to me having had some bitter experiences with regular memory, I was wondering if some kind person at Anandtech might be persuaded to throw in a stick of unbuffered ECC memory into either the K8N Neo or the Epox 8KDA3 and let me know if the memory is detected as such? I'd really appreciate the effort!
I know the ASUS K8N-E Deluxe (http://www.asus.com.tw/products/mb/socket754/k8n-e... states ECC support, but it's anyone's guess when that board will be out, since they cannot even make their mind up if the board is to be shown on their home page or not (right now it is, tomorrow it may not).
l3ored - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
price is mentioned as a component in electing the epox as the gold winner, so whats the current street price?SilverRyu - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
Do you think shuttle will make a 250Gb or K8T800Pro XPC?cnq - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
Wesley,Nice writeup...
A question about overclocking: you tested at 1:1 ratios, meaning you didn't really find the bounds of the FSB/HTT so much as you found the bounds of the PC4400 RAM that you used. If you had dropped the RAM ratio, do you have any indication which boards could have topped 300 MHz? I am of course thinking of your great AK89 Max review from a few weeks back, where you made waves by showing FSB/HTT speeds of 347 MHz. Will you have time to do similar tests on these new boards? (Or, for that matter, can I ask why you didn't do similar tests on these new boards? Is it merely because ClockGen hasn't yet been ported to NF250?)
I'd also like to second the suggestion made by posting #1 (he mentions aceshardware.com. techreport.com has also chimed in with recent articles on the subject. Not surprisingly, their conclusion is to just avoid cheap Realtek products if you want good CPU utilization. And sudhian.com found great ethernet performance with low CPU overhead from the NF250-GB chip's embedded controller.)