Layout
Click for a larger image
Click for a larger image
ECS actually initially shipped me a PF4 sample that was used at Computex 2004 (hand-carried on the plane from Taiwan no less!), that didn't support the 3.4 Extreme Edition CPU I prefer to use for testing, and which had a slightly different colour scheme to the retail board you can see pictured above. It used two purple colour tones for the DIMM slots, which I prefer over the orange used on the retail sample. Other than that however, the two boards are identical.
Starting from the top left as always, the first notable feature is the fan that sucks air from inside of the case from near the CPU power circuirty, and blows it out of your case using the backplane space that the parallel port would use. The shape of the shroud means that it doesn't foul the ATX specification set out for mainboard mounting. The fan is controlled by the same regulation circuit that controls the speed of the northbridge fan, so it's fairly quiet when the system isn't working too hard.
The CPU socket is next, with the area around it free of components that would violate the specification for LGA775 sockets, as set out by Intel. Past that we see the DDR-II DIMM slots, the EPS power connector (with a little sticker saying that it's a 24-pin connector, but that 20-pin PSUs can be used too) and the ICH6/R-powered ATA and floppy ports. I like to see the floppy port high up on a mainboard, for cabling reasons, so thumbs up to ECS for that.
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The northbridge heatsink is flanked on the left by the ATX12 connector for auxiliary board power, with the heatsink itself a multi-finned aluminium affair, decked out with a quiet-ish fan that appears to be speed-controlled depending on heat. It's fairly quiet during light system load and it's bearable when at full speed.
The orange PEG16X slot sits where the AGP slot would on other mainboards, with the ICH6/R and its heatsink sitting just to the right of the PEG16X and first couple of PCI Conventional slots.
Next to the PCI Conventional slots, near the left board edge, sit the Ethernet ASICs, with the PCI Express 1X peripheral slots underneath. To the right of those slots sits the FireWire400 controller and the SiS180 SATA and ATA RAID controller, with the SATA ports for them coloured bright orange and sat in the right-hand corner of the bottom of the board. ECS fill the remaining board space with a monogrammed plate.
The SiS180-powered ATA port, that supports RAID, is the last board feature worth talking about. In this reviewer's opinion, ECS would have been better off putting it where the monogrammed plate is, aligned vertically and pushed near the board edge, but it's not in too bad a position.
Overall it's a good layout with the ATX main power, SATA and ICH6/R ATA connectors in good positions.
