LOL! Check out THIS motherboard layout!

[mechBgon]

Friends don't let friends drink and design PCB's...

 

[Soulkeeper]

heh I saw that
and I don't like it
well the whole sis competing against nforce2 is cool but i would never consider such an ackward loooking thing

 

[THUGSROOK]

LMAO!

 

[SupermanCK]

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
LMAO!

wait...is that the floppy connect all the way in the middle of nowhere???

"LMFAO"x2

 

[serialb]

Hey, that's why they are "PCChips"

 

[ProviaFan]

LOL, that's stupid. :Q

 

[Crow]

wait...is that the floppy connect all the way in the middle of nowhere???

Must have copied the layout from some Asus boards which have the floopy connector stuck in a strange place on the board

 

[Peter]

Well that's a board with an entire Xabre 200 graphics card pulled down onto the mainboard - chip, RAM and all.
Sure that makes for a crammed layout - there's multichannel audio, firewire and plenty USB too. Managing all that on a 4- or 6-layer commodity PCB isn't as easy as it looks (particularly to those who laughed).

Regarding the FDD connector, well with the SuperIO chip in the bottom left corner, the FDD connector being near it is just logical. And why not there? There's not going to be anything obstructing it anywhere near.

The board (and its P4 sibling 947) have been receiving positive reviews (most of the time under their ECS names P4S8AG and K7S7AG). Including this one - it is keeping up quite well with nForce2 w/ integrated graphics.

regards, Peter

 

[RanDum72]

The only major problem I see is the floppy connector. The floppy cable would drape itself over some hot running memory/GPU stuff....
They also should have gone with BGA-type memory for the built-in video. They run cooler and has smaller packaging so it saves on PCB space.

 

[Fallen Kell]

hehee....at least you can add new memory modules without taking out a AGP or PCI card

That is about the only well designed part of the layout. The Freaking Floppy bridge is on the LEFT SIDE OF THE BOARD! And the ATX Power connection is almost IN THE CENTER OF THE BOARD!

 

[oldfart]

Hehe... Yet another stellar product from PC Chumps.

 

[Mangler]

haha, I need one of those...lol

 

[Peter]

More laughs from people who haven't ever been near board design.

(1) BGA memory chips cannot be routed on boards with few layers. More layers add cost, over the BGA chips being more expensive to start with. You got to meet your market.
(2) The power connector is exactly where AMD recommends it to be. Bad? No. This is the best spot to route the power from, keeping power rails to everything as short as possible - CPU voltage regs, AGP, PCI, chipset and everything else.
(3) FDD connector. What's the problem again? Route the cable neatly, and it'll be no problem. You can even route it underneath the board. Cable length isn't limited on that old connection.

These boards seem to be selling veeeery well btw. This isn't the first time we get integrated but dedicated graphics right there on the mainboard ... PC-Chips have been doing this in the late Pentium and early Pentium-II days already.

 

[SuperSix]

Originally posted by: SupermanCK

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
LMAO!

wait...is that the floppy connect all the way in the middle of nowhere???

"LMFAO"x2

No crap.. Aside from the floppy connector placement, I don't see a whole lot wrong with the layout..

Lot's o' heatsinks.. Both the NB and SB have them..

 

[Zepper]

Yeah, that's the same as the ECS K7S7AG 'Game Union'. That whole group of companies ECS, PC Cheaps, PC Wave etc. (really divisions of the same company) are mainly building for OEMs and the owners are unlikely to ever look inside the box. If you buy it on the market, it comes with a floppy cable long enough to fit any case. Look at the review on www.OCWorkbench.com - not a bad board. When you put a stand-alone video card chips, dedicated DDR memory chips and all, on a mobo the layout is going to have to be "different". But I agree it does look wierd - even weirder with the ECS purple color PCB.
.bh.

 

[CraigRT]

that is SUCH a fugly piece of hardware... :Q

 

[Dm301]

I just don't like the FDD location...

 

[DAPUNISHER]

The memory controller isn't the fastest, but the HDD performance is outstanding, the graphics will suffice for light gaming, and it seems evident it'll have a sub 100$ price tag, so I'm not at all surprised to hear it's selling well already.

 

[NokiaDude]

The layout maybe a little bit messed up but I think the only thing I like on there is the 12 volt ATX connector. Keeps your AMD CPU pumped up with juice.

 

[CurtCold]

Well it has a "pretty red layout for Valentines Day..." LOL




"Do0d do you think we need red PCB?"
"Just hand me the friggn scotch and a sordering gun will ya?"

 

[jiffylube1024]

HAHAHAHA! That's a good one!

Seriously though, after reading the specs, it almost sounds like a decent board (Firewire and USB 2.0 on a PCChips mobo!?), but it has some serious design flaws.

The first thing I thought was "damn, wtf is the floppy connector doing over there?" as well as a morbid curiosity for what's under those long passive heatsinks. The fact that they snuck 64MB of DDR onto the PCI, although clever, is highly inefficient. It would have made so much more sense to "leach" off the main memory pool like nForce boards.

The integrated video doesn't make sense. "Let's put 64MB of 200MHz DDR to accompany a SiS 200 video card to satisfy people who want good 3d performance (ie similar to GF3), yet have no desire to upgrade cards in the future (no AGP slot)". It's like selling the Xbox motherboard as a general PC.

Edit: to sum it up, this is what I think of this motherboard: it will do great in the next offering from Dell. (too bad Intel scared Dell away from Other CPU companies. Oh yeah and doesn't Dell make their own motherboards now? Maybe they can copy this one! It won't make Dells any less upgradeable!)

 

[McCarthy]

I like it. Would fit perfectly for a friend of mine if it had TV out. But that's a common missing feature with integrated video.

 

[tbates757]

Nice FDD placement

 

[tenoc]

Obviously not designed for the enthusiast market but for those who wouldn't know an AGP slot if it bit them on the butt.

Or care.

 

[chizow]

Desk Jockeys around the world will definitely notice the improvements when playing Solitaire at work

Chiz