A web-site called OCWorkbench.com has discovered that Elitegroup Computer Systems company is selling mainboards based on the high-end Socket A chipset from NVIDIA – the nForce2 Ultra 400. ECS, who has been always associated with cost-effective products, is trying to produce mainboards for less price-conscious customers these days, its first NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400-based mainboard is yet another confirmation to this change in the strategy.

ECS is mostly renowned for its cost-effective products and solutions. The company not only provides inexpensive PCB design and relatively poor feature-set, but also utilizes cost-effective chipsets from SiS, VIA and Intel. Earlier this year ECS unveiled its i865PE and i865G-based mainboards for performance-mainstream Socket 478 market, now the firm also addresses its N2U400A for performance-mainstream Socket A market. Actual specifications of these ECS’ mainboards are not really impressive, but the fact that company offers something truly fast is probably a promising one because in case such product lines are successful, in future we may see ECS providing more expensive solutions!

Specifications of ECS N2U400A are as follows:

• Supports Socket A AMD Athlon XP processors with 200/266/333/400MHz FSB;
• NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset, including MCP 2 I/O controller;
• 3 DIMM slots for up to 3GB of PC2100, PC2700 or up to 2GB of PC3200 memory; Note that for dual-channel configurations you have to install a pair of identical memory modules;
• 5 PCI slots and 1 AGP 8x slot;
• 2-channel ATA-33/66/100/133 integrated controller;
• 10/100Mb/s Ethernet controller from VIA;
• 4 USB 2.0 ports;
• 6-channel CMedia CMI 9739A audio solution;
• ATX Form Factor.

The new ECS mainboards are available now in Europe and Asia. The official announcement has not been done yet, but you can find a mention about the ECS N2U400A at ECS’ web-site here.