| epox 4gla+ -
p4 |
Approx Price: $100USD est. |
| MFG Link: |
Epox
4GLA+ |
| Northbridge |
Intel i845GL |
| Southbridge |
Intel ICH4 |
| Supported FSB |
100 MHz |
| Form Factor |
ATX |
| DIMM Slots |
Three PC1600/2100 |
| Max Memory |
3 GB |
| Integrated video |
Yes, Intel i845GL |
| Shared Video memory |
1,8MB |
| IDE |
2 Ultra/100, 2 ltra/133 |
| AGP |
4xAGP, 1.5V Lock |
| PCI |
6 32bit PCI's |
| ISA |
None |
| CNR/AMR/ACR |
1 CNR |
| LAN |
10/100 Realtek 8100B |
| Audio |
Realtek ALC650 5.1 C'97 |
| USB |
6 USB 2.0 |
| Power Supply |
Standard ATX |
| Misc |
2 Serial, 1
Parallel | |
Unlike
the micro ATX MSI motherboards, Epox sent us two standard ATX motherboards for
this roundup. The first one is based on Intel's 845GL chipset, officially
supporting 400 MHz FSB based P4's. The layout of the motherboard is almost
identical to the 4G4A+ which is also in this roundup. I845G based motherboards
are a very recent addition to the integrated mainboard market and do a lot to
bridge the gap between these types of motherboards and more intensive visual
applications.
Right from the start
it was obvious that this board was in its early revisional stages, it still has
the 100,133 MHz FSB jumper selector (i845GL only runs on a 100 MHz FSB). The
4GLA+ is tied with the 4G4A+ as the most feature rich motherboard in this round
up.
Other
then Firewire, this motherboard has it all; USB 2.0, onboard IDE RAID, onboard
10/100 LAN, onboard 5.1 audio (AC'97 codec), onboard video with 4x AGP slot and
Epox's trademark Port 80 diagnostic LED, what more could you possibly need?
Being a
standard ATX board the 4GLA+ also offers six 32 bit PCI's and our favorite CNR
slot.
On the
4GLA+ it has a rather large northbridge heatsink cooling the i845GL chipset. It
might be time for the southbridge's to be covered by heatsinks as well since
they do get very warm as well now. We were happy to see that right off the bat
we can use up to four USB 2.0 devices without needing to go to the USB
header.
Unfortunately since the board is still beta (0.1 Revision
PCB), we were not able to get a price for the motherboard. With all the features
it has to showcase we'd expect this board to retail close to the $200 CDN which
makes it close to double some of the other motherboards in this round up.
RSS Newsletter
