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Review: EQS A58XK9-ALF Radeon Xpress 200P motherboard

by David Ross on 11 February 2005, 00:00

Tags: EQS

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qa57

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Specification

EQS A58XK9-ALF
CPU Support All AMD Socket 939 processors
Northbridge ATI Radeon Xpress 200P (RX480)
Memory Support 4 slots, DDR, 4GB max, dual-channel
AGP None
PEG16X One PEG 16x slot
Southbridge ATI IXP400
Audio Realtek ALC655
Audio Connectivity 6 channel backplane speaker, S/PDIF output, 1x speaker, 1x line-in, 1x mic-in
PCI Conventional 5 x 32-bit 33MHz PCI 2.3 slots
PCI Express 1x PCI Express 1x slot
IDE 2x ATA133 compliant port from IXP400
IDE RAID None
SATA 4x SATA-150 ports from IXP400
SATA RAID RAID 0/1 from IXP400, RAID 0+1 via Silicon Image device
Networking Realtek RTL8100C Ethernet Controller, 10/100Mbit
USB IXP400, 4 x backplane USB2.0, 4 x I/O USB2.0
FireWire VIA VT6307 FireWire 400, 2 x backplane Firewire, 1 x I/O Firewire
Other I/O PS/2, Parallel, 1x Serial (via cable)

All in all, a very standard specification on show here, basically offering everything available on ATI's IXP400 southbridge - No more, no less. Of course, this means the presence of up to eight USB 2.0 ports and four SATA devices, which should be plenty for most users. The only real addition to the reference feature set is the addition of RAID 0+1 functionality for those that require it, courtesy of a Silicon Image 3112a controller.

Outside of the southbridge, we find sound provided by Realtek's ALC655 chip, three Firewire ports from Via's VT6307 chip, and basic 10/100Mbit networking capabilities - No Gigabit Ethernet here, although of course this is still no issue to the majority of people.