Epox EP-9NPA+ Ultra

• Reviewed by:

  Strengths: none

  Weaknesses: TECH SUPPORT

  Overall: Epox tech support is a joke. I asked for answers to 3 questions. They never even responded to 2 questions and the USB problem that I had was answered by telling me that theirs works. I am returning the EPOX board and will never buy their product again

• Reviewed by: Pookymeister

  Strengths: Solid board - no problems whatsoever

  Weaknesses: None apparent

  Overall: I bought this motherboard a few months ago in order to upgrade my video card.New video card(PCI Express) needed a new motherboard, which in turn needed a new processor, and i got new memory for the heck of it.Needless to say, I am currently writing this review months later on this setup and everything runs flawlessly. I used to have trouble with my last board and dust , but nothing here. My box stayed the same, no new fans, so I'm happy.The price was right , great value - Definitely recommend this board if you plan on going AMD.

• Reviewed by: michaelhryu

  Strengths: Good value, great accessories

  Weaknesses: External devices may cause problems at start up, awkward power plug placement

  Overall: The EP-9NPA+Ultra is a great motherboard at a great price. Most other full-featured nVidia nForce4 Ultra boards are at least $20 or $30 more expensive. The performance is top notch, and I have been able to overclock the board by 50% (using Athlon64 3000+) with no problems whatsoever without any additional cooling. There are accounts of greater feats of overclocking, and you can try pushing the limits by increasing the clock by 1 MHz at a time. I especially liked the accessories that came with the board, which includes a screwdriver pen, several mini-heatsinks to attach to chips on the board for additional cooling, and headers for USB 2.0 and Firewire connections. Combined with the already formidable feature set of the board, which includes surround sound and on-board Ethernet, the value is tough to beat. One minor problem is that the power plug is in an awkward place, making it a chore to keep the power cables from running into the fan blades. But that's a minor annoyance. The only real qualm I have is that the board recognizes external hard drives (this includes an Apple iPod) on start up, and this may cause problems with the boot order and/or drive letter assignments, which are a pain to straighten out, especially since I have two drives, each with multiple partitions. Otherwise, the board is a good value, and I highly recommend it.

• Reviewed by: cheerful

  Strengths: good layout, comes with everything

  Weaknesses: chipset fan too loudno 1394 on the back

  Overall: The board is really easy to setup. Everything is clearly labeled. The round IDE cable is really nice too.The chipset fan, however, is really loud. The heatsink is too small I think as it is quite hot with the high speed fan.I would also like to see 1394 port on the back panel, in stead of using that PCI slot bracket (included). If you have front 1394 connection, then you would not care.

• Reviewed by: tjpricefreak

  Strengths: Price, Stable, Has all features you really need, Problem free, performance and overclocking potential is top notch. Good bios options.

  Weaknesses: A few layout issues, Not the best tech support(because it seems like it is by email only). Northbridge fan gets loud after a while(might need to seek out a replacement over time.)

  Overall: This is actually my second Epox 9NPA+ ultra board that I have purchased in the past 3 months. I definitely have good things to say. Part of the reason I love these boards is how problem free they are. Many other brand NF4 socket 939 boards have issues. Both of my 2 Epox 9NPA+ ultra boards had no issues booting up for the first time. Perfectly stable out of box. Board comes with great accessories. Also overclocking potential and performance is great as well. Good bios options. The only poor things that I thought could be thought out better were a few layout issues. Such as, all 4 memory slots behing so close to the CPU as well as being so close together, that Memory with heatspreaders(like Corsair) have a hard time fitting in next to eachother in dual channel mode. I had to move the bracket on my Corsair memory down on 1 chip, to squeeze them in together. The ATX power connectors could have been better thought out as well. They are not necessarily in a bad position, but with certain computer CASES, it might cause a problem. This is definitely still a fantastic board. Well worth the pricetag. If you want an ultra socket 939 NF4 board, you should definitely consider this one.