A look inside
Like most SFF units, the aluminium top comes away with the removal of three thumbscrews.
The card reader will sit below the optical drive. It's a standard setup, too. The PSU is on the left, PCI and AGP slots near one side, CPU socket in the middle, DRAM slots on the upper side, and drives on the right. What we immediately like is how the optical drive cable has been pre-fitted by EPoX. There's a molex connector nearby, so it's just a case of pushing in the drive and connecting up. EPoX chose not to do the same with the hard drive cable. That's sensible thinking as SATA drives are becoming increasingly common.
The hard drive is mounted sideways and below the multicard reader. Mounting it in the usual way would compromise the all-in-one cooler. 2 DIMM slots will most likely support a total 1GB of system RAM. Single 1GB sticks are still prohibitively expensive. The PSU's 20- and 4-pin power connects are also pre-attached.
Here's the vista with the cardreader and hard drive cage removed. Notice the elongated CPU retention bracket and bare i865G MCH?. That's where EPoX's 3G-Tek integrated cooling technology comes into play. A single heatsink covers both the CPU and MCH. One side of the cooler is ducted through the plastic housing and exhausted out to the back. That's why we didn't see any central CPU fan cutout, a la Shuttle.
One part of the cooler sits on the CPU. The other part rests on the MCH. Two retention clips are used to secure it into place. Two small fans, which alter RPM depending upon CPU and board temperature, keep things ticking over nicely. Intelligent thinking from EPoX.
The cooler attaches easily into place. The CPU side ducts the warm air out of the back. The MCH side keeps the Northbridge happy. The EP-4PGF+ uses graphics that are integrated directly on to the i865G NB. It's a good idea to provide some form of active cooling.
