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A Closer
Look I'm not sure if Epox have ever deviated from a conventional
green PCB but if they have I must have been looking the other way. Despite the
claim from Epox that this second generation board features an improved design
layout I find it hard to agree with them. The 8RDA3G is one
of the very few motherboards I've seen that manages to position the AGP slot in
such a way that long cards foul the memory retention clips despite the fact it
only has five PCI slots on offer. We regularly see this problem on motherboards
with six PCI slots but as a rule those with only five manage to avoid the problem.
Not so the 8RDA3G. Other niggles relate to the position of
the two IDE connectors which are quite low on the board making life potentially
difficult for owners of full tower cases. They also sit at 90 degrees to the PCI
slots meaning that long cards in slot 1, 2 and 3 will have to sit on top of them.
Slightly less of a problem is that fact that anything in PCI slot three will also
block you from changing the CMOS battery. Hardly a deal breaker considering how
long they last. 
Click
for a larger image
As I mentioned earlier
the gold style SPP cooler is a nice touch and all the more surprising coming from
masters of minimalism Epox. It would have looked even classier on a black PCB! 
The
press shots show the passive cooling on the MCP to be silver so although ours
was gold I'm not certain if all the retail boards are the same. It might seem
like a minor point biut it's not if you're the proud owner of a window mod. 
I'm
not going to complain about the positioning of the ATX power connectors. They
may not be positioned where most enthusiasts would like them but they are where
I would imagine they should be, right alongside the three phase power circuit
which, though it counts for little, is very neatly laid out. 
The
appearance of thge P80P Diagnostic LED is hardly a suprise any more. Epox boards
have had this feature for as long as most people can remember. I still hope someone
will one day create an industry standard block for the front panel connectors
but until they do the next best idea is the colour coded approach that seems to
be catching on with the big manufacturers like Epox and MSI. 
Socket
clearance was a bit of a mixed bag. Generally it's very good but because of its
orientation the corner of the SPP cooling does encroach a little. It was good
to see the protective plastic used beneath the socket lugs to fend off damage
from wayward heat sink clips and slipping screwdrivers. 
An
unusual but welcome feature in these days of inbuilt thermal diodes is the inclusion
of a thermistor for those with older processors. This is a much better design
in that it can be bent up to make contact with the base of your CPU making for
more accurate readings.
The
hardwired connector layout is interesting to say the least. As you can see, both
serial ports are conspicuous by their absence though there is one supplied on
a separate bracket with a MIDI/game port. I'm not keen on wasting an expansion
slot to add a port that there's plenty of room for in its conventional location
but I'm guessing most people don't need and won't use this aging connector anyway.
One of the 8RDA3G's selling points will no doubt be the fact that it features
a dual Realtek
RTL8201 PHY networking capability. 
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