Zotac GF9300-A-E Features and Layout
The second board into the PC Perspective lab from Zotac: the GF9300-A-E that as you might guess from the name uses the GeForce 9300 chipset as well.
The layout looks very similar to the MSI board at first glance though there are some notable changes.
The CPU socket here has a bit more room around it for any cooling devices you want to install but I had no problems with ANY motherboard and our Koolance water cooling blocks. The 4-pin AuxATX power connector is seen in the corner of this photo at the top of the board – probably a better location than the MSI offering.
The four DIMM slots support DDR2-800 memory in dual channel mode. The ATX power connector is that very top of the board that might make it hard to remove when in a tight chassis but otherwise will be out of the way of the rest of the components. The IDE connection and four of the six SATA ports can been seen as well.
Here we can see that Zotac chose to use a smaller heatsink on the GF9300 chip but used an active cooling solution rather than passive – a good move on their part as the temperatures on the heatsink were MUCH less than on the other boards.
The expansion is the same as on the MSI motherboard – one x1 PCIe slot, one x16 PCIe slot and two legacy PCI slots.
This image of the bottom of the board shows us how much lower the DIMM slots go on the Zotac GF9300-A-E compared to the MSI P7NGM-Digital motherboard. Also in view are the remaining two SATA ports and the LED POST indicator and DIY-friendly integrated power/reset switches.
The external connections include PS2 ports, digital audio output, HDMI output, VGA and DVI output, four USB ports, Gigabit Ethernet and analog 6-channel audio output. Once again, the DVI connection on this board is single-link and limited to 1920×1200 resolution. The only thing missing from this configuration is the Firewire jack that the MSI motherboard had.
… and to make up for that the Firewire connection is included as a dongle in motherboard box as well as two SATA cables, an IDE and floppy cable, manual and back plate.
