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Part two: A Closer Look
I have always liked black PCBs, they
really let your components stand out. This version
has white PCI slots, which the rep tells me is most
likely going to change as they are discussing a brighter
hue, probably neon green. I also noticed the passive
cooling for the northbridge chip. XFX seem to have
chosen to go with a no-noise solution, rather than
the more common active cooling for the northbridge.
This situation, paired with the two phase power scheme
leaves me to question the overclocking potential of
this board.
There are 6 PCI slots and an 8X AGP
port. One thing that threw me off was the total lack
of a locking mechanism for the AGP card; especially
from a company that manufactures a very nice line
of graphics cards. One would think that the expectation
for tinkering and full-sized graphics cards would
be in the plans for 'The ultimate graphics mainboard'
The CPU socket is situated 90 Degrees
from normal, making installation of a HSF as burly
as the Volcano7+ a daunting task. There is no way
to get this thing on or off once the motherboard is
situated in a case unless it has a removable tray.
My ThermoEngine was a little better fit, but still
had to be installed with the board on the bench. The
row of capacitors and northbridge heatsink make the
area a bit snug for maneuvering a screwdriver into
the locking clip.
While checking the seat of the HSF,
I noticed this transistor sticking up in a curious
place. If one is not careful, they might just find
themselves with an RMA no sooner than installing the
HSF.
The three DIMM sockets support up
to 3GB of PC2700 RAM @ 333MHz.
To my surprise there are only two fan
headers on the motherboard; one for the HSF and another
at the bottom edge below PCI 6, much too far for the
PSU fan to reach. Any extra fans (including the PSU
or northbrige cooling, should you upgrade) will have
to use 4 pin MOLEX connectors. I guess two phase power
leaves little room for 'extras' like cooling. I prefer
to use 3 pin headers for my fans so I can keep an
eye on them with Motherboard Monitor, but this may
not be important to the average Joe.
The ATX connector is in a fairly common
place and should be accessible by most PSU cabling.
A little low for some, but most modern PSUs are designed
with full size towers in mind so there should be no
problem.
A closer look at the Northbridge chip
reveals:
1) The lack of thermal paste on this
sample (which, I am told is a mistake and there should
have been some) and…
2) ...That this really is a KT400 (The
southbridge is the VT8235)
The I/O panel on the rear of the board
has a full roll call of connectors. From 5.1 surround,
2 USB 2.0 ports and onboard LAN, I can't think of
anything that was omitted. There should be no surprises
when you go to connect most peripherals.
Let's get this thing installed and
booted up....
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