nForce4 Ultra Roundup: Charting the Mainstream
by Wesley Fink on July 5, 2005 10:28 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Epox 9NPA+ Ultra: Features and Layout
| Specification | Epox 9NPA+ |
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | nForce4 Ultra (single chip) |
| BUS Speeds | 200MHz to 400MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Asynchronous (Fixed) |
| PCI Express | 100MHz to 145MHz in 1MHz increments |
| Core Voltage | Off, +0.025V to +0.25V in .025V increments (to 1.75V with a 1.5V CPU) |
| DRAM Voltage | Auto, 2.5V to 3.1V in 0.1V increments |
| Chipset Voltage | 1.5V, 1.6V, 1.7V, 1.8V |
| Hyper Transport Ratios | Auto, 1x to 5x in 1x intervals |
| LDT Bus Transfer | 16/16, 16/8, 8/16, 8/8 |
| LDT Voltage | 1.2V, 1.3V, 1..4V, 1.5V |
| CPU Ratios | Auto, 5x to 50x in 1x increments |
| DRAM Speeds | Auto, 100, 133, 166, 200 |
| Memory Command Rate | Auto, 1T, 2T |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR Dual-Channel Slots Unbuffered ECC or non-ECC Memory to 4GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 1 x16 PCIe Slots 3 x1 PCIe 3 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA | 4-Drive SATA 2 by nF4 |
| Onboard IDE | Two Standard NVIDIA ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) |
| SATA/IDE RAID | 4-Drive SATA 2 PLUS 4-Drive IDE (8 total) Can be combined in RAID 0, 1 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 10 USB 2.0 ports supported nF4 2 1394A FireWire ports by VIA VT6307 |
| Onboard LAN | Gigabit Ethernet PCIe by Vitesse VSC8201 PHY |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC850 8-Channel codec with 6 UAJ audio jacks, CD-in, SPDIF in/out, coaxial and optical SPDIF Out |
| Other Features | AMD X2 Support with MD9N5701 or higher BIOS 2-Digit Diagnostic LED, On-Board Power and Reset Switches |
| BIOS | Award md9n5701 (7/01/2005) |
For quite a while, Epox boards have had the reputation of fast performance at stock speeds. In recent roundups, Epox has also done very well in the overclocking arena. The Epox was our Gold Editor's Choice in the Socket 754 roundup, and was a great all-around performer.
The 9NPA+ continues the Epox tradition of a great feature set at a standout price. The Ultra version sells for about $110, but it is also available as an even cheaper nForce4 4X version, the 9NPA for around $93, and a more expensive 9NPA+ SLI for about $149.
BIOS options and ranges are consistent with a top enthusiast board. Memory voltage extends to a very respectable 3.1V, but it does not reach the levels really needed for OCZ VX or Mushkin Redline. For those high-voltage 2-2-2 memories, you will still need a DFI nForce4 board.
Epox likes to provide Diagnostic LEDs on their boards to assist in troubleshooting, and you will still find the LED display, despite the reasonable price of the motherboard. You will also find a full implementation of NVIDIA nForce4 chipset features, on-board Firewire support, and gigabit LAN supported by the PCIe bus.
Click image to enlarge.
The other less-than-perfect location is the floppy connector at the lower right edge of the board. If you don't care about floppies, then ignore my complaints, but some floppy cables will have a tough time reaching in tall cases. Both IDE connectors are located on the right edge just behind the PCIe slot, so IDE cables have to be very flat under a long card like the top NVIDIAs, or the PCIe will not seat properly.
The rest of the board layout is quite good. All of the SATA connectors clear the big slots easily. The additional on-board connectors are at the bottom edge of the board, away from the slot area. The exception is the location of the CD/Aux in connectors, which are above the big slots. This location is easier to navigate if you use CD-In connectors with your optical drives.
The single chip nForce4 Ultra is cooled with an active fan and heavy heatsink. The nF4 gets hot during the heavy loads of overclocking and Epox provided a solution that seems to work well at keeping the nF4 chip cool during our testing.
Every board in this nForce4 Ultra roundup uses the Realtek ALC850 codec to provide onboard audio, and this includes the Epox. The ALC850 Codec provides four pairs of stereo outputs, with 5-Bit volume controls and multiple stereo and mono inputs, along with flexible mixing, and gain and mute functions. Two 50mW/20ohm headset audio amplifiers are integrated at Front-Out and Surround-Out, and both amplifiers are selectable for Front-Out, Line-In and Mic-In as a Universal Audio Jack.
You can find more information on the ALC850 at Realtek.
Epox provides a full selection of rear I/O ports. These include 6 programmable audio mini jacks plus optical and coaxial SPDIF out connectors to support the Realtek ALC850. The back panel also includes PS2 mouse and keyboard, 1 standard Firewire (IEEE1394a), Parallel port, 1 serial port, 4 USB, and one RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet.
Epox does not offer additional RAID controllers, but the 9NPA+ Ultra does implement the full nForce4 feature set of 10 USB ports, 4 SATA 2/4 IDE, which can be combined in RAID arrays, and an on-chipset hardware firewall.
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Zebo - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Does ECS build EPOX's boards? just curious because they look pretty cheap like ECS IMO..Heidfirst - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
"[b]#19 and Others - I'm sure you must have noticed that some web sites have never posted a negative review of an Abit board. Also water cooling and asynchronous ram is hardly comparable to our air-cooled tests.The first thing I did was check other reviewers and users of the Abit board. The great majority are running into problems at about 250 FSB - although a few are getting better performance. Abit has had so many complaints about the OC performance of this board that I would fully expect a hardware revision on the horizon.[/b]"
Well the Fatality AN8 SLi, AN8 SLi, AN8 Ultra, AN8 V2.0 & AN8-V are effectively the new revision as I pointed out. Why buy a Fatality AN8 when the AN8 Ultra has better Vcore, better sound & is cheaper?
& people have had HTT395 & DDR660 out of them on air ...
Heidfirst - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
#19 and Others - I'm sure you must have noticed that some web sites have never posted a negative review of an Abit board. Also water cooling and asynchronous ram is hardly comparable to our air-cooled tests.The first thing I did was check other reviewers and users of the Abit board. The great majority are running into problems at about 250 FSB - although a few are getting better performance. Abit has had so many complaints about the OC performance of this board that I would fully expect a hardware revision on the horizon.
Abit set the expectation that the AN8 Fatal1ty was the best of the best with a price tag to match. It's an interesting board with many interesting features, but it's performance as it now stands is nowhere near the best.
TheGlassman - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
I think that a round up such as this would serve the readers better if three types of memory were used and various dividers used.My Chaintech VnF4 is running at 256x11 quite happilly, so I know it will run well over 245 with a divider with my memory, and I'm sure most of the other boards as well. And yes, many people run it over 300 HTT with lower multi cpu's.
This is not to say that 1:1 testing is not important, but since this is a round up, the various needs and budgets of your readers should be taken into account.
Seeing bios's used that are dated during the testing, with a known single memory may if repeated cause readers to think that Anandtech doesn't deserve it's well earned reputation as a fair and complete tester of all things important to PC ethusiasts.
Using memories with 3 different types of chips and using relevant dividers to find maximum HTT's and cpu speeds with each, while being more work, I think will be worth while to your readers, especially in a round up where boards are compared directly to each other.
This current round up implies that most nF4 boards are not capable of high HTT's, but the truth is you have only shown that most do not run one type of memory at very high speeds. You have not exposed the limits of the boards, nor do we know if the situation is the same with any of the other commonly used memories.
bldckstark - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Xpose-Not too early. I don't have my board yet. I have been waiting on X2. Using your same logic that means that nobody has a board yet right? I mean, since I am the only person I know that is going to build a A64 system soon then I should assume that nobody has one.
Geez
xpose - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
This Editor's Recommendation for best motherboard is at least 3 months too late. We already have had all of our boards.Also, to say that the VN4F Ultra is a bad overclocking board is completely wrong. I have a 3000+ CPU running at 2.67gz now. That is about 49% OC and damn good reguardless of the MB.
Son of a N00b - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
great article! you can clearly see the hours of hard work you put into it. Great Job, I enjoyed it and it was jam packed with info.one quuestion though where was the gugabyte board ultra board?? sure you may have reviewed it in the SLI roundup, but then did you not do the same with DFI? Plus you had great results with the reference gigabyte board, but not the revision 1 board...i'd like to see how ir fairs now...maybe i missed something why you reviewed the DFI board again becuase I am not familiar witha ll their variations and naming scheme, but to me it looked the same...why review that one and not the others? sure its great to rehash what a great board the DFi one is but....
just wondering as I have always had great success with gigabyte boards...but i probably missed something even thought i read it back to front, sorry if i did as i know that you would never do something without a good reason behind it...
anyway thanks, keep the awesome articles rolling...
smn198 - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Hi Wesley, thanks for the clarification on the HTT. do you know if it would have any more of an impact when dual core is brought into the equation?Thanks again. Good article BTW!
BigandSlimey - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
#18 I really like that idea, would probably be a headache to make it and keep it updated though.