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Epox EP-8RDA+ Motherboard Review
Author: Dennis Garcia
Published: Monday, March 24, 2003
Introduction
Introduction
We have a very special review for you that really goes against Ninjalane tradition. If you have ever looked though our review history you may have noticed that over the years we haven't done many reviews of motherboards featuring a "standard" PCB color like brown or green. This was initially due to my hatred of the tan/brown PCB color and green being just way too common. Though as you may have guessed this trend is likely to change and it is going to start with this review.
The EP-8RDA+ showed up at about the same time as the Soltek Sl-75FRN-L for purposes of doing a full-scale compairo but due to complications the Soltek board went solo and the Epox went in for repairs. Well the board is back, a version better and ready for testing.
The Epox EP-8RDA+ is one of the more popular and well-known nForce2 motherboards on the market and has been reviewed many times in the past. Unlike other nForce2 offerings it is relatively bare in the added features department but has a wide variety of BIOS options.
Board Features
nVidia nForce2 SPP Northbridge
nVidia nForce MCP Southbridge
Socket 462 AMD processor support
1x AGP 8x
Dual Channel DDR 400/333/266
Ultra ATA/66/100/133
10/100 Ethernet
USB 1.1 and 2.0
6-channel audio
6x PCI slots
3x DDR memory slots
IEEE1394 (Firewire)
Digital debugging display
CPU cooler mounting holes
nVidia nForce MCP Southbridge
Socket 462 AMD processor support
1x AGP 8x
Dual Channel DDR 400/333/266
Ultra ATA/66/100/133
10/100 Ethernet
USB 1.1 and 2.0
6-channel audio
6x PCI slots
3x DDR memory slots
IEEE1394 (Firewire)
Digital debugging display
CPU cooler mounting holes
As you can see the board is very green, and now days with Red, Black, Purple, Silver, and Gold motherboards on the market the old mainstay PCB color, Green, is becoming pretty rare. The EP-8RDA+ uses a pretty standard ATX layout but due to using 6 PCI slots the AGP port is located very close to the DDR memory slots requiring that you remove the video card to replace memory.
