As we all know, Intel didn’t take into account the wishes of numerous computer users and introduced only Serial ATA interface support in its new chipsets. As a result, mainboard manufacturers have to fix the lack of IDE support on their own, and we – to pay extra for their efforts. As a rule, the mainboard is equipped with an additional onboard controller that ensures support of ATA hard disk drives and optical devices. EPoX Company decided to take another route, which they called EZ-IDE. Instead of the additional controller EPoX EP-5P965+ GLI mainboard features two SiI3811A converters, each capable of transforming one SATA chipset channel into IDE and adding another SATA channel to it.

There are special EZ-IDE cables that serve to connect the converters with the chipset: they are about four times shorter than the regular SATA cables.

Of course, EPoX Company claims that this is a much better way, because it requires no software support from the drivers. As a result it simplifies the installation and ensures that the devices will work fine in any operating systems. In my humble opinion, there are a few drawbacks here.

“Converted” IDE channel supports only one device and if we need to connect two, at the bottom there will be a big cable knot of two EZ-IDE, two IDE cables and some cables coming out of the case front panel and USB ports. Besides, we will lose one or two chipset SATA. The two additional SATA channels provided by the converters cannot be considered a fully-fledged replacement. Firstly, they do not support RAID, and secondly, you cannot connect a boot-up device to any of them. Finally, I think that a single controller providing two additional SATA channels and a single IDE ports supporting two devices should be cheaper and easier to lay out on the mainboard PCB than two converters, two IDE connectors and four SATA.

If we cannot make up our mind whether EZ-IDE should be considered an advantage or a drawback of the EPoX EP-5P965+ GLI mainboard, then the POST-codes indicator is a definite plus. We should also give due credit to the developers for very well-balanced quantity of PCI-E and PCI slots. There are three PCI slots on this mainboard, because there are much more cards with this interface in the market today. As for the graphics cards with the PCI-E x16 connector, the board will accommodate two of them, although the second one will work in PCI-E x4 mode. Another advantage of the EPoX EP-5P965+ GLI PCB design is an almost ideal back panel carrying both: old and new connectors. And as we have already mentioned above, there is a special bracket bundled with the mainboard that will bring you two additional USB ports to the back of your case.

Well, we would like to complete the list of drawbacks we uncovered with the availability of only three fan connectors, which is surely not enough for a contemporary system. More to that, all of them, except the CPU fan connector, are placed in far not the best spots.

At this point the conclusion shapes up pretty arguably. Some indisputable advantages of the EPoX EP-5P965+ GLI are diminished by some very evident drawbacks. Despite the great first impression, I would estimate the PCB design as something between “good” and “satisfactory”.