Epox EP-8K7A+
Board Revision: 1.0
BIOS Version: 06/06/2001
Company Info
Being a large motherboard manufacturer, Epox has a lot of experience in this sector. The company has several branch offices and does both OEM and retail business.
Hardware Features
This board already left a good impression in the initial review (check the link above). It has six PCI slots, AGP 4x with a card lock system, Highpoint HPT370A IDE-RAID controller, two DIMM sockets, integrated debug module (see lower left corner of the image) and an AC97 sound system with three line-ins.
Overclocking fans will get three fan headers and DIP switches to change the multiplier. There are some jumpers to adjust the DDR voltage (JP3) and others for the CPU core voltage (JP2).
BIOS
Standard Phoenix BIOS with many options and the seven standard items for DDR timing.
Configuration And Manual
There are some yellow jumpers right below the AGP slot. They are used to select the FSB speed (100 or 133 MHz). In addition, you can alter the particular speed within a certain range in the BIOS. RAID drive arrays have to be set up in the BIOS of the on-board Highpoint controller, which can be accessed during the boot process.
The manual includes all kinds of important information, starting with a detailed description of the hardware features and ending with a description of the BIOS.
Test & Performance
Though the EP-8K7A+ achieved the highest SYSmark score, it is not able to take the lead in the other benchmarks. The Epox board showed average but stable performance.
Shipment
Inside the box is a driver CD, the manual, a USB adapter cable (for the ports 3 and 4), each one 40-pin and 80-pin IDE cable, floppy cable, a Highpoint driver disk plus a little RAID manual and a short notice explaining that Suspend to RAM does not work as long as the RAID Administrator software is running.
