EP-8RGA+:
• Socket A for AMD Athlon™, Duron™, Athlon™ XP (1500+ to 2800+) CPU. Supports 266/333 FSB (600MHz to 1.4GHz)
• Nvidia Nforce2 IGP-128 Chipset + Nvidia Nforce2 MCP-T
• 1 Floppy drive controller - 1 parallel port
• 1 serial port and Game port by included backpanel cable
• 6 PCI slots - 1 AGP (AGP 8X)
• 2 x E/IDE Ultra DMA/133, 4 drives max.
• 3 x DDR (DDR400) SDRAM PC3200 (184pin 128bits), 3GB max. 128Bit Dual Channel supported
• Winbond W83627HF LPC I/O integrated with FDD, Parallel, Game, Serial and Fast IR Port
• PCI Bus IDE Port with PIO / Ultra DMA-133 x 2 (Up to 4 Devices)
• 4 USB 2.0 ports, 2 extra by optional USB back-panel cable
• Realtek ALC650 6-channel full-duplex integrated sound, with NForce Dolby level decode (AC97 v2.2 Digital Audio)
• Onboard LAN 10/100 Mbit (Realtek RTL8201BL)
• 2 ports IEEE 1394 (firewire™) (Realtek RTL8801B, OHCI 1.1, 400-Mbps)
• Award Plug & Play BIOS
• Standard ATX format ( 305mm x 245mm x 40mm)
• EXTENDED FUNCTION: Supports Hardware Monitoring Function by W83697HF, Supports exclusive KBPO(KeyBoard Power On), Supports STR (Suspend To RAM) power saving Function, Supports CPU Vcore, Clock and CPU Multiplier setting via BIOS, Supports Memory Voltage setting via BIOS, Supports AGP Voltage setting via BIOS, Supports Wake-On-LAN Function, Post port onboard design with LED display
Excellent mobo with loads of facilities. Only downside is that it doesn't come with a digital sound connection, you can get one from EPoX (if you can track down the part) or you can easily make your own.
The built in graphics are fast enough for most games though not at full settings.
NVidia support Linux drivers as well as Windows but their licensing means that you have to download them separately which is very annoying and makes setup much harder than it ought to be for begginers. Furthermore, 5.1 sound output seems pretty impossible and even Knoppix can't get sound to work on bootup! So be warned, NVidia are NOT Linux friendly!
Get the latest BIOS from: http://www.epox.nl/english/support/bios/socketa.htm
Get the latest drivers from: http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp |