The Board

The first thing I noticed was the nice box, very modern and stylish. Removing the outer box leaves a sturdy inner cardboard box which contains the following plethora of kit. 2 Round IDE cables, 2 SATA & power cables, 1 Floppy cable, 1 game port and serial header, 1 x 2 port firewire header, 1 x 2 port USB header, an I/O shield and a very nice Installation CD which I will come back to later.

The EP-9NDA3+. Click for a larger image.

The board comes with plenty of cables.

As with other EPoX boards the PCB is a rather boring green colour (well to some) but that’s where the bad bits end. I've found that the board has quite a nice layout and if it wasn't for the fact that my x800 is water-cooled, would be almost perfect. I really like the position of the four  DIMM's on this compared to my MSI K8N Neo 2, because my case fan can blow air directly on to the modules without any cables causing obstructions.

I like the fact that the 12v and 5v power supply sockets are next to each other which makes for tidy cables.

The anodised gold-coloured aluminium nForce3 chipset cooler is by far the best I've seen to date on a 64-bit board. It is extra wide for better heat dissipation and low-profiled to avoid contact with expansion cards. It has its own fan for increased cooling ability.

EPoX Power Pack

The EPoX Power Pack

Included with the board is the EPoX Power Pack. This includes a case badge, some rather nifty heat sinks, manuals & guides and, the best bit, the EPoX power tool, which is a very useful magnetic screwdriver with 2 double-sided bits. Ive yet to use the heat sinks which are small enough to fit on the voltage regulators.

The back panel, all the necessary connections are there. The only thing that is not present on the back panel is a firwire port, although as mentioned earlier you do get a header panel with 2 firewire ports, but usually I don't bother fitting them because the wires can get in the way of my bit clumsy mits!