EPoX EP-8NPA SLI 754 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: no FREAKIN way! this is the best upgrade i've done in the last 7 years of my PC hardware/gaming hobby since i switched from Intel to AMD. i am all about VALUE and bang for the buck. i've already had a 754 Athlon 64 3000+(2Ghz) and 512x2 of Crucial Ballistix memory for a few years. switched from AGP platform and 6600GT to this bad boy a few months ago. been running it at 250x10 1.56v core 1.5v chipset x3HTT, 1:1 memory 2.5-3-3-9 2T 2.7v, 100% stable, on 24/7. i also picked up 2 used 6800GTs @ 400/1100 and an Enermax EG-651p VE 24p server PSU with a single 12v rail with 36amps! i'm benchmarking my SLI rig at about 90-95% of a single 7900GTX with an FX chip and 2Gigs of dual channel memory at the same settings. BUT! you can get this mobo, the CPU, memory, and 2 used 6800GTs for the price of just a 7900GTX card itself. this thing's INSANE! absolutely happy with it. Newegg rocks! ordered friday was here tuesday. very comprehensive vendor website.

Cons: i need dual LANs, a gigabit for my home network and a 10/100 for my broadband. has the gigabit built in, but with the two video cards using after market cooling and an Audigy 2ZS installed there is no available PCI slot left for my NIC. solved it by buying a USB to Ethernet adapter, no biggie. could have also used the first free PCIe 1x slot, but PCIe NICs are too expensive.

Overall Review: ***939 platform does not offer any advantages for gamers. the Athlon 64 CPUs @200FSB are limited to 3.2Gb/sec memory bandwidth, going to a dual channel 6.4Gb/s memory controller is useless. furthermore, the advantage of supporting dual core CPUs doesn't help gaming whatsoever, b/c with high graphics settings/resolution/sampling/filtering the bottleneck is the video subsystem. spending 50% more on 939 parts to increase performance by 3% is a waste. ***for SLI use a good single rail PSU that can sustain high amps on the 12v rail (varies with the hardware you're running, min of 26a) or get an expensive 4 rail PSU. ATX12v 2.xx is a step backwards for SLI, it doesn't increase power, it limits it to 20a per rail and a 20amp limit is not enough for beefy cards in SLI. you need 6-10amps per card alone for 6800GT-Ultra/7800/7900s. u also DON'T need more than 500watts in ANY SLI rig if you have the appropriate 12v amperage. if you're a true gamer don't believe the hype! inform yourself.

Pros: Ecellent Mobo so far, I have been using it for the past 2 weeks and hadn't had a single problem with it.Overclocking options are great and is definetely a very stable Mobo. I'm running it with two evga geforce 7800 GT Oc and I get higher scores than its 939 counterparts. If you still have a powerful 754 socket CPU just get this mobo as it will save you several hundred dollars and offer you excellent performance

Cons: None so far

Pros: Cheap SLI solution for those who don't want to go Socket 939.

Cons: 2 DIMM slots.

Overall Review: I have had this board about two weeks and love it. Implemented SLI and it runs great. I am running (2) 1 Gig sticks of Cosair XMS and the board sees it as 2 Gig. Bios update utility is great. Also comes with other great overclocking utilities. This is my first Xpox experience and it has been a good one.

Pros: This board is definately worth considering as a cheap upgrade option for those interested in running newer video cards with older equipment. This is the boards greatest strength and its greatest weakness. On one hand you can save yourself at least a couple of hundred dollars worth of upgrades in your CPU and memory (not to mention vast differences in MOBO prices between this EPOX and a 670SLI for instance), I run a 3200+ @ ~2.6Ghz (+15% OC) to feed a 7900GT KO just fine with this arragenment.

Cons: On the other hand, you simply defer future costs of upgrading because this board is a giant brick wall in terms of upgradability; this is about as much as you're ever going to squeeze out of a 754 platform with the exception of maybe an 800GTS. Even then, the 8800GTS comes close to (if not surpasing) the saturation level of PCI-e 8X that this board is limited to per channel and you're probably going to find your CPU limited at that point anyhow. What it boils down to is that barring any huge price drops in current platforms, you might as well add the cost of this board to updrage cost you will eventually face.

Overall Review: As long as the potential buyer fully grasps the unique upgrading concept this board offers, both pros and cons, it's definately represents the best possible performance out of 754.

Pros: I bought this board to mate with a 3400+ I had laying around and to be able to try out SLI. That proc is now at 8x330mhz 100%stable with a 7900 GTO in Vista.

Cons: Nothing I can find yet.

Overall Review: It seems to be a very forgiving board. Every time I push it to hard it still boots and I can make a correction with ease. There are several usefull options in the bios and the layout is better than several of have seen. If your waiting to upgrade but want the preformance of NF4 and SLI but still have a good proc and ram this is a very good transition board.

Pros: The only SLI for socket 754 option, saves having to buy a new processor just to have PCI Express when the sockets are changing again this year and 939 and 754 will be retired.

Cons: no built in Firewire, only 3 memory slots.

Overall Review: If you have a socket 754 chip and don't feel like upgrading to socket 939 with the new sockets coming later this year, this is a great option. I bought this and a 7800Gt (no SLI yet) and it runs every game flawlessly, even with my wimpy AMD 64 3000.

Pros: Great upgrade for older 754 systems. Well designed and has a good layout. Thermalright Si-128 heatsink with 120mm fan fits fine. My on board audio is good with no distortion from the line out. Everything worked fine. Great bios. Includes a 380mhz ram setting between 333mhz and 400 mhz. CPU fan header is 4 pin "duty cycle" speed controller design.

Cons: Although you want to run a single 1 gig stick of ram with socket 754, many people want to run their old two 512M sticks. With only two ram slots, you can't space them out (slots 1 and 3) for better cooling.

Overall Review: So many people mentioned network problems, I dropped my bad habit of hot swapping network cables. I powered down the whole network before hooking up to the network port. I do not use the nvidia firewall or active armor functions as they are not recommended these days. Suggest downloading the latest drivers rather than using the CD. Worked well for me. There's a bios setting to delay for HD detection. I set mine to 10 seconds and bios immediately found both attached WD SATA2 drives no problem. Gives you some time to read your temps and voltages too.

Pros: Just foloowing up on my previous review on 8/19/2006. This board seems flawless. It's been running 24x7 since I set it up and in 6 weeks running there has not been one crash or failure.

Cons: My only beef is the limited number of DIMM slots. This thing handled SLI and I can honestly say I don't know of a single gamer with just two DIMM's.

Overall Review: Newegg is still the best !