EPoX EP-9NPA3ULTRA

[nerp]

I saw this board appear on Newegg and other sites recently. I'm curious if anyone has had a chance to use it yet and can give me some indication of its reliability and overclockability. It looks to be a somewhat scaled down version of the 9NPA+Ultra, lacking the IEEE port and a couple extra USB ports. This is of no consequence to me.

The reason I ask is that having been a loyal and happy EPoX customer for several years, I went ahead and purchased this to base a new system around. There were no customer reviews on the 'egg so I thought posting here might turn up someone with some experience with the board.

The price is pretty good and if it performs like the other EPoX nForce4 boards, I'll be happy.

Newegg Link

Mwave link

If nobody replies or knows about this board, I'll be sure to type up a more formal review for everyone once I have it up and running.

 

[GTaudiophile]

I am looking at this board too, hoping it has revised USB2 implementation.

 

[CommodoreRed]

As am I looking at this board. Some reviews be appreciated =) I have looked at newegg user reviews, and hardware sites such as anatech reviews. All show for the price, it's a stable, very OCable, good layout (minus no IEEE and one layout design flaw, probably fixed in this one) Certain reviews vary in likeness to the board, some give harder time, others great stable board. Overall, i've found it well worth it to get, every board as it's issues, look at any user review or site review. Still, I need IEEE and really want get Epox. Arg... mobo searching isnt fun.

(btw board reviews of original 9npa+. Which should be perenant to this. Not sure why Epox made a even more scaled down version, the original was scaled down to begin with.)

 

[nerp]

Are you referring to the existing 9NPA+Ultra? If you look closely, this new board has a few minor changes in the layout, notably the power connector seems a bit more logically placed closer to the other connections.

 

[CommodoreRed]

Yeah I heard, no firewire support tho, do vid editing with it.

 

[nerp]

Well, the motherboard is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow. I'll probably start posting some general comments tomorrow night once I've had time to get everything plugged in and running.

I can't let myself fall in love with the Windows install once I've put all the hardware together. I've got a Western Digital Raptor 36 GB coming that I ordered today for a slick, 10,000 RPM system drive. Woohoo!

Anyone play with one of these boards yet? I'm happy to be the internet's guinea pig, though.

 

[nerp]

Got it today. Set up flawlessly. Nice build quality. So far I'm running my Opty 148 OCd with stock voltages and everything is stable as heck! Prime95 and Memtest stable so far, I'm going to let this burn in a little before I push it any higher. See my sig for details below. I'll write up a more formalized review of the board in a couple days once I start messing with it more and have a better feel for it.

So far, big thumbs up for this new board.

 

[SPQQKY]

Gotta love those Epox boards. I kinda miss my 9NPA+Ultra.

 

[nerp]

Why'd you switch?

 

[SPQQKY]

I switch rigs like some people change clothes. I get bored with a rig after a few months and try something new.

 

[nerp]

I see. Yeah, I see a lot of folks like that on these here forums. I'm somewhat different. I like to get a rig all tweaked and tuned, stable as a rock, and play games. When the games start to perform like crap, I repeat the process.

I enjoy building and tweaking, but I'm more into the end result than the process. The endless builds you guys do help people like me out tremendously, though. If it weren't for all the testing and such, I'd not have had such an easy time getting this rig going.

 

[GTaudiophile]

What mobo did you have previously? Any USB2 issues with this one? I keep debating between it and the EP9NPA+ ULTRA.

 

[nerp]

I had an 8RDA3I before that with a Barton 2500 OC'd to 2.2ghz.

I've read about the usb 2.0 issues on the +. Since I've gotten the board today, I've only been using my Logitech G5 mouse with the USB, no problems. I don't have any external CD or Hard Drives to test large amounts of data transfer. . . I haven't even connected my printer.

I'll get my printer hooked up and start moving some large voice recordings out of my digital voice recorder onto the machine and see what happens. I'm a newspaper reporter so I'm frequently dumping 24bit .wavs of interviews across the USB port. That's about as strenuous a test I can give it, though.

 

[nerp]

Nudged it up another 5mhz to get it to 2.8, still at stock volts, been priming for hours, spot on solid.

 

[5t3v0]

nerp, hows your vcore fluctuation on that board? My 9NPAJ SLi is all over the place & I've seen some guys with the 9NPA+ boards have similar issues. It's forcing me to push up to 1.6v to compensate for the drop under load (sometimes down to 1.583v), but then it over-volts up to 1.627v at idle. Perhaps its not an issue until the MHz is pushed up high.

 

[nerp]

I haven't seen overly dramatic fluctions. Very minor, similar to what I'm used to seeing in the past as well with other lines.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

model: 9NPAJ / 9NPA3 Ultra / 9NPA+ Ultra
DDR slots: 4 / 4 / 4
PCIe x16: 1 / 1 / 1
PCIe x1: 3 / 2 / 3
PCI: 3 / 3 / 3
PATA: 2x100 / 2x100 / 2x100
SATA: 4x150 / 4x300 / 4x300
RAID: no / 0,1 / 0,1,0+1 JBOD
audio: 7.1 / 7.1 / 7.1
LAN: 1000Mbps / 1000Mbps / 1000Mbps
USB: 4e6i / 4e4i / 4e6i
firewire: no / no / 2a
SLI: no / no / no

 

[nerp]

So what's the difference between 4e6i and 4e4i USB?

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Originally posted by: nerp
So what's the difference between 4e6i and 4e4i USB?

4 external (back), 6 internal (front).

 

[nerp]

Aha, that makes sense.

 

[shd17]

wat's the default voltage for opterons? I see the vcore on my epox as 1.49V. Is that normal?

 

[5t3v0]

It is on the Epox! Default is 1.35-1.4v but the Epox gives it 1.5v. If you're not OCing, you'll need to change this by lowering the voltage -0.1v in the BIOS. If this option isnt available, you'll need to flash with the latest BIOS.

 

[nerp]

You're right, dude. I noticed this after your post. I thought I was lower than I actually was.. So I lowered the voltage by -0.1v and sure enough, I'm where I should be and my temps under load dropped by a couple C. Good tip.

Is this intentional?

I should note that since lowering the voltage the minor voltage changes seem to be even more subtle. It was never a measure of concern, like you're having 5t3v0, but mine is hardly budging now. :/

I still haven't encountered any usb issues. I should find someone with an external USB hard drive enclosure and an external DVD burner and try to burn a disc off the usb hd. My tests have resulted in no errors, which involve transferring large .wavs of about 250mb in size back and forth from my digital voice recorder.

I primed all night with the lower voltage and let it continue priming all day.

 

[5t3v0]

Cant imagine why it would be intentional. They do say Opteron isnt officially supported. I guess its a carry over from the older socket 940 Opteron which was 1.5v.

I've also noticed that vcore fluction is less the lower I drop it. Its still bad enough at 1.55v but I'm sticking here for now.

 

[nerp]

Stinks you can't get it to at least 2.7 ghz. I've heard the CABNE stepping is a good one, too. Have you thought about replacing it with one of the newer CACJEs?