EPoX 9NDA3+ nForce3 Ultra Socket 939 Motherboard

EP-9NDA3+ Board Layout:

The rear I/O port configuration is really packed with features. There are the standard PS/2, Parallel, 4 x USB 2.0, and Gigabit Ethernet Port. Additionally there are SPDIF Coax and SPDIF Optical ports! If SPDIF isn't your thing then there are also the 6 audio jacks which support 8 channel sound. Additional USB ports, Firewire ports, COM2 & Game Port are provided via various PCI brackets.

Our motherboard utilizes the Cicada CIS8201 Gigabit Ethernet PHY, however I've also seen a Vitesse PHY chip used on this model motherboard. These chips only provide the physical layer, either way the network driver is still part of the nForce unified driver set. The Gigabit Ethernet is built into the NF3 Ultra chip itself, thus bypassing typical PCI bandwidth limitations, and providing the user maximum throughput. While on the subject of networking, it is also worth mentioning that the on-chip nVidia Firewall is also supported by this board. By having a hardware based firewall, certain functions can be offloaded from the CPU saving that processing power for the user's applications.

The nForce 3 chipset supports up to four SATA-150 drives, two are supported with a built-in PHY, the other two are supported by a Marvell 88SR3020 PHY. nVidia's "Any Drive" RAID technology is supported on the EP-9NDA3+. Any of the standard four ATA IDE drives or four SATA drives can be combined in a Raid 0, 1, or 0+1 array.

Audio is provided by the Realtek ALC850 8 channel audio chip. Besides the regular audio jacks on the rear I/O panel, EPoX includes both Optical and Coaxial SPDIF connectors too. If needed the user can purchase a SPDIF bracket from EPoX which provides more SPDIF ports. The ALC850 audio codec is fully AC '97 2.3 compliant and features 16-bit, 8-channel audio, and auto-jack sensing with support for a full range of analog and digital I/O.

Two Firewire (IEEE-1394) headers are provided by an onboard VIA VT6307 1394 controller. Yes, this chip is tied to the PCI bus.

The Winbond W83627THF LPC I/O chip controls legacy devices such as the PS/2, FDD, Parallel, Serial, and Game ports. This chip also provides hardware monitoring for voltages and fan speed and CPU temperature.

EPoX includes a diagnostic LED display on the motherboard to help troubleshooting. The manual has a reference for all the POST display codes. The front panel connectors are nicely color-coded and keyed for quick and easy hookup.