EPOX - EPoX 8RDA3+ Motherboard Review

Here’s something that’s baffled a few of us for a while now - not what’s in the box, but what’s on the EPoX box. Well, if you’ve ever wondered what that skeletal image is and you’re still losing sleep over it, I can put you out of your misery here and now. A few clues to get you started: Thoroughbred, Barton, Palomino, etc…. They’re K7s, but what else do they all have in common? Horses. And the xray image on the box is… a miniature horse! That’s what EPoX UK tell me anyway. Straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak ;)

If boxes dictated performance, the EPoX 8rDA3+ would no doubt win some nice marks. The box is quiet eye catching, sporting what looks to some animals skeleton. Opening it gave way to some nice findings. First off, we find a relatively thorough manual and other written documentation, 2 x S-ATA data/power cables, 2 x purple rounded IDE cables, 1 x ribbon Floppy cable, game & Serial port bracket, IEEE 1394 (two ports) bracket, Back Panel I/O Shieldand, and lastly one EpoX 8RDA3+.

. . . The EPoX 8RDA3+ really impressed me. A great layout, decent bundle, solid performance and lucrative BIOS make it a contender in my books. My only gripes lay within the FDD connector’s location and the lack of a higher quality audio controller. The included C-Media is, as said, sufficient. However, NVIDIA’s SoundStorm is much better and doesn’t require the same CPU usage.