Epox 8KRA2+
This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.
LayoutEpox has been falling by the wayside in the US market. This is unfortunate as it wasn’t too long ago when Epox was one of the enthusiast’s better choices for an overclocking motherboard.
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The CPU socket of the 8KRA2+ does not have the four mounting holes but does include PCB guards for standard heatsink installation. There is a lot of room to the right of the socket, but to the left there is a line of capacitors that may keep some larger heatsinks from fitting easily.
The ATX power connectors is placed below the processor socket and this will again force the power cable over the heatsink and processor fan, which isn’t something we like. It is also a bit crowded around it and difficult to remove after installed.
The DIMMs on the Epox board do contact the AGP slot again – a trait that all the 6 PCI motherboards will share. The AGP slot uses a standard retention clip that should work for all purposes.
The heatsink on the KT600 north bridge is of good quality and cooled the chipset very well. However, the corners of it are damn sharp, and I cut myself a couple times on it. Dammit. This is interesting though, as the PCB of the motherboard itself has rounded corners.
The lower right of the motherboard is crowded with a lot of components and features. The IDE channels are placed below the AGP slot but with the width of the board, it shouldn’t cause any installation problems. The SATA connectors are pushed close to the IDE connectors, which may make installation a bit of a pain.
The case connectors are color coded for easy installation.
Features
The Epox 8KRA2+ has quite a few features besides the standard SATA from the VIA 8237 south bridge with RAID. With the inclusion of the High Point 372N chipset, Epox added two additional regular IDE channels with RAID support. Epox is also the originator of the diagnostic LED on the motherboard.
On the external connectors, Epox has included four USB 2.0 ports, a VIA chipset 10/100 network port and 6-channel audio from Realtek.
Included Extras
Epox included one SATA cable and one SATA power adaptor with the 8KRA2+. Also in the box were 2 IDE cables, 1 floppy cable, and a Firewire header with 2 ports on it and a MIDI/Game adaptor header for older non-USB controllers.
Bios
The Epox bios allows for some overclocking options that we like to see. First up is the CPU clock going up to 250 MHz and the CPU ratio up to 25x. Voltage highs are as follows – CPU: 2.0v, DRAM: +0.7v but there are no AGP voltage settings here.
Here you can see all the memory timings that you can set.
Memory Issues
The Epox motherboard had a bit more problems with memory than other boards. It refused to boot with two Corsair DIMMs installed in it, at any memory timings. We were forced to use a single DIMM configuration with this board.