facebook rss twitter

Review: Leadtek Twinforce 2

by Ryszard Sommefeldt on 26 October 2002, 00:00

Tags: Leadtek

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qanv

Add to My Vault: x

Hardware Installation and Layout




Installing the hardware was simple and will be to anyone familiar with PC internals. If not, Leadtek's manual for the Twinforce 2 setup is comprehensive and guides you through it without a problem. It was a simple matter of removing the existing motherboard and add-in cards and installing the nForce motherboard into the case.

The cooling solution on the Ti4200 doesn't block the nearest PCI slot for me but that may not be the case depending on your motherboard and whether you actually use the slot. A quick test with the Ti4200 and my Audigy in the nearest PCI slot was fine, if a little close, but definitely workable given good case airflow.

The motherboard itself uses a full 9-hole ATX mount system but that's no issue for todays well specced mid, midi and full tower ATX chassis'.

Layout

Starting at the top left as usual and working our way across and down, the first thing we come across is the power regulation hardware for the CPU socket first in the form of 6 capacitors and related hardware. The CPU socket area has plenty of space around it and features the all important mounting holes for a larger cooler and the board passed the Swiftech MCX462 test without a problem.

Two more capacitors and a fan header to the right of the socket before we come across the 3 DDR SDRAM slots for up to 1.5GB of installed system memory.

Working our way down we come across the only problem with the layout on the board and it's a shame it's the ATX power connector in an awkward place below the CPU area. On some cases, mine included, that means dragging your ATX cable across the CPU socket area obstructing airflow in some cases. This can affect cooling performance. If your ATX cable is long enough (god praise Enermax power supplies for their long main ATX cable) you can minimise the impact.

Next to that you've got the nForce northbridge and its accompanying heatsink which on the shipping test board was black without a fan. I've seen shots of the board with a silver sink with green Leadtek logo but the shipping heatsink was very reminiscent of the black sink that ABIT ship with the NV7-133R and NV7m.

From there on down starting with the AGP slot, everything is thankfully standard in layout when compared to any recent board. The southbridge is the focus point in the bottom half of the board due to the aural delights that it can produce. A single CNR, presumably to interface with the communications hardware on the MCP southbridge brings up the rear.

As far as hooking up your case to the board, the pins are in the standard bottom right position but I had to refer to the manual for the exact pins to use.