Features

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     Essentially what you get is a value packed motherboard that makes a great upgrade. Foxconn gives us all the cabling needed to make any mid-range budget build using this board a great starting point. The instruction manual is idiot proof, easy to read, and contains just about everything you need to make sure your system is optimized.

     The layout of the board is very good. We've become accustomed to good layout's these days. With the culmination of the NF-3 series chipsets came the elimination of AMD's northbridge to be controlled by the on-die memory controller. This allows for a much more simple organization in motherboard circuitry. We liked the rook around the socket area which should help those Zalman owners.

Like we mentioned before, this board has everything. You even get composite and firewire capability. 7-channel audio is standard.

The other side of the board reveals a 12V auxiliary header, the 3 PCI slots, 1x PCI Express x16, and 2x PCI Express x2. Jumpers are in abundance here.

     Shifting over again is the NVRAID. With RAID 5 capability it has an up on the VIA K890 platform. You can really notice how spaced everything is. The addition of a chipset fan is also a welcome addition, although we'll see in a bit whether or not it helps with stability under overclocked conditions.

Lots of room around the socket for big cooling.