I never did sort out the conflict between MS' Crimson Skies game and Dx9, if that's what it was. I tried some other Arcade quality "flying shooter" games as well. Problems with those, although not about DirectX, so I'll be pulling out that PC to bring it back here to perform more exhaustive testing than I can do where it is now.
I have a slightly less powerful (KT-266A) MB in a really old mid-tower enclosure as its replacement, with some heavy cooling mods (the only convenient place for my grandson to play with a PC there at the home of his day care provider, and not have a couple of smaller kids pestering him, is the uncooled garage, and then only in the mornings during summer {this being Texas, after all}, and a garage is nowhere to spend time in the afternoon here in June or July!). I'll add another side panel fan to the case he's been using with the current 8RDA+ while I have it here, and a more efficient heat sink as well, in case he does decide to play on an afternoon!
One thing I hadn't realized was that the model number sequencing from Epox is different from what I expected. I've now acquired an 8RDA-3i from an eBay auction, and I really had thought that I was buying an upgrade version of the MB I'd already used. Apparently, the -3 uses different nVidia chips. One has the MCP-T with the Sound Storm, and the other seems not to.