EPOX EP8K7A+(RAID) Skt A DDR

Hi, well, i want to tell u guys that my Epox EP8K7A DDR mobo worked fine for 8 months, but yesterday it suddenly burned my 256MB DDR SDRAM memorys...

I can see the C1 Error on the onboard led display, and tried with some other memories and they worked fine, so i get to the conclusion, nice mobo to use for a months, but sooner or later it will end crashing your DDRs...

At first glance the EPOX EP8K7A+(RAID) Skt A DDR Motherboard has a clean layout and in testing is easy to install. There is plenty of room between dimms and agp slot and this layout allows for good ventilation. Its agp slot also has a lock system to prevent it from coming loose, which prevents a common problem of panic when the monitor wont come on in bootup after moving the case.

It has implemented a move away from the standard pc beeps whenever an error has occurred, to a more meaningful hexadecimal system display on the motherboard itself which allows you to check against a full error code listing in the manual. It can have up to four usb should you ever need them. There is ac97 sound onboard so standard users wont have to fork out for a soundcard, avid gamers though are recommended to do so.

If you're worried about chips and fans there is ample room to install any fan without worries of damaging capacitors.

Raid support is present allowing up to 8 IDE devices at ata100, with raid 0 and 1 permissible, the setup of the arrays turned out to be simple and the highpoint controllers were effective.

It does have some drawbacks, for one it has moved away from a softmenu bios back to jumpers, whcih can still be used effectively by overclockers, but if they wanted to accommodate everyone, they should have put them both in. Saying this though it did show quite impressive results for overclocking.

Also there are known instability issues in systems using SB Live cards and aureal.

Another drawback is that only two dimm slots are present and the board can only take up to 1GB, for the normal user absolutely smashing, no problem, for some overclockers and game experts I know, its too limited compared to other boards now present which allow up to 3GB.

Manual is very basic with only basic installation guide and the bios description section is very vague and doesnt describe what different settings do, but just say what you can do, i.e. disable, enable etc.

On the whole the board gives and average but stable performance and always comes out midrange against opposition in its own category. For beginning overclockers the board needs a softmenu so it may be wise to go for one which has one, for experience overclockers the board is quite capable, one test showed it able to increase an unlocked duron from 1.2 to around 1.6 MHz (not exact figures).

If you're a standard user who does not want to freak their motherboard, it is a stable and capable board with a not too dear price tag and good features and good performance.

As with all my IT purchases I did my homework before making the choice, Epox seemed to come accross as a quality brand with a good name (loads of reviews on the net etc). The Gladiator site gave me a good summery of the specification and told me exactly what I got for my money.

Quick delivery and easy installation, also pleased to find thhe board came with Norton Ghost which is a great tool for making back up images of your hard drive is case you bump into a problem with your software at a later stage (dont we all).

The Epox 8K7A gave me RAID, DDR memory and Althon XP support for a good price, I will be happy to by Epox boards in the future and will recommend them to my friends.

As the main part of any PC I think the motherboard should big the starting point for any system builder.