Connectivity
Like all other nForce 4 motherboards the EPoX EP-8NPA SLI includes four SATA and two PATA connections that also feature RAID 0, 1, and 0+1.
Click to enlarge.
There are two PCI, and two of each 1x and 16x PCI-Express slots. Being an SLI motherboard, the two x16 slots can be used for boosting your graphics performance by using two matched NVIDIA video cards.
The EPoX EP-8NPA SLI boasts up to 10 USB 2.0 ports with six usable out of the box (4 on the back I/O and 2 bundled on a bracket). Firewire is not supported on this motherboard so you will need an add-on card to gain that functionality.
Somewhat of a rarity are Parallel and Serial ports on a motherboard these days and yet here they are!
For audio, there is an ALC655 chip by Realtek which is a 6-channel solution using 3 jacks on the rear I/O. This means that you will need to disconnect a speaker if you want to use a microphone or use line-in. I’m not a big fan of these “jack-sensing” schemes, but for the EP-8NPA SLI, it all helps keep costs down. There is digital output through a coax connection.
Networking is provided by SimpliPhy on a VSC8201RX Vitesse controller that is capable of 10, 100, 1000MB/s. EPoX uses the same network controller on their more expensive 9NPA+ SLI product.
