Bundle and presentation
The 8RDA3+ is EPoX's most highly featured nForce2 motherboard yet. That means a wealth of features and a decent accompanying bundle. Let's have a look.
The only notable difference here is the new 'FSB400 Ultra Edition' sticker slapped on the front of the box. Otherwise it's a standard 8RDA+ box.
Dual 100MBit LANs stand out on the label's features. S-ATA and lots of USB2.0 and FireWire connectivity give you almost the full complement of features. There's not a lot more you can add to it, really.
EPoX's light-blue rounded ATA133 cables are an acquired taste. We haven't quite acquired the taste just yet. A single S-ATA power cable with an accompanying power cable allows you to setup a S-ATA drive to the integrated Silicon Image controller. A second one should have been supplied to allow you to take advantage of the RAIDing ability. A GAMEport cable is provided. You'll find out why on the following page. I wonder why manufacturers bundle rounded ATA133 cables and then bundle a standard floppy cable ?.
A 2-port FireWire bracket is necessary as there are no ports present on the back panel. EPoX manuals have steadily improved over time. The present manual's pretty good in most respects. The important parts are highlighted in little, visible sections. A second manual highlights the features of the Silicon Image S-ATA controller. The utility CD contains nForce2 1.15 drivers (old), all the relevant chipset and features drivers, MagicHealth, MagicBIOS utilities. Norton's excellent Ghost 7 software and PC-Cillin 2002OEM complete a reasonable CD. A single Silicon Image floppy disk is there for you to boot and install an OS from a S-ATA drive.
Pretty good in most respects.. What would have made it better would have been a) S/PDIF bracket b) USB2.0 bracket c) second S-ATA cable and power connector.
