X-bit labs

EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra Mainboard Review: Meet NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra Chipset! (page 10)

Category: Mainboards

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 01/12/2005 | 05:15 AM ]

The results of our overclocking tests are listed in the following table:

We would like to note that it’s easy to overclock on EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra: if the mainboard cannot start up after you changed the BIOS Setup parameters, it returns the parameters to its default values and restarts automatically. That’s why we never had to try reach for the Clear CMOS jumper during our overclocking tests.

As for the hardware monitoring capabilities of this mainboard, it allows to control the temperatures of the CPU and the system, the speeds of the three fans that can be attached to it, and the seven basic voltages. The sample of the mainboard we had for our tests didn’t display the CPU temperature correctly, but we hope off-the-shelf products will do it right.

EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra also supports Smart FAN technology that controls the CPU fan rotation speed depending on the CPU temperature. You can choose a desirable CPU temperature and the mainboard will regulate the fan speed to maintain it. EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra also supports AMD Cool’n’Quiet technology. The combination of these two technologies allows building a noiseless and power-thrifty computer.

Software

Mainboard makers have recently been very careful about the selection of the software titles they supply with their products. Besides older versions of popular programs, the software bundle now often includes hardware monitoring, overclocking and other utilities developed by the mainboard manufacturer, so we are going to check out these programs in our reviews, too.

The software pack you receive with EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra consists of two parts: programs developed by NVIDIA for its nForce4 chipset and utilities from EPoX.

We’ve discussed the first part (nvMixer, nvRAID and Network Access Manager) in detail above. Unfortunately, we cannot add the useful utility called nvTune to this list as it didn’t work with EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra correctly.

As for the second part of the software pack, EPoX says it is going to consist of the following utilities:

• EPoX USDM, a utility for hardware overclocking;
• Magic Flash, a utility for updating the BIOS via the Internet;
• Magic Screen Utility, a utility for choosing the picture to be shown during the POST procedure.

Right now, however, these utilities don’t support EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra, although they are universal for all EPoX mainboards. So, we have to postpone their discussion till better times.