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The Board
The 8RDA+ is a little larger than most boards I've worked with in the past, requireing ten motherboard screws to mount it into your case. Given the amount of quality integrated peripherals, the six PCI slots should last you a very long time. Layout-wise, there were a few things that initially caught my attention as being less than ideal.
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To begin with, the ATX power connection is located in the upper left hand side of the motherboard (looking at it socket up, length up/down). It is a fair distance away from the Socket-A, but its location, being slightly below that of the socket, can create problems with ATX power cables interfering with CPU fans. You can easily route power cables away, but the power connection would be better suited closer to the memory slots.
 
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Speaking about memory slots, they are almost certain to rub closely with large video cards such as the Ti4600 (again... as with most motherboards it seems). Although it didn't snap any capacitors off, uninstalling ram will almost certainly require the removal of the video card first. Epox is aware of this, and documents it . In anycase, cards such as the Radeon 9700 don't even come close to the memory slots, so if your card is on the more "normal" size of things, you'll be fine.
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The IDE and floppy connections were a little oddly placed, in my opinion. Being at the lower right of your motherboard, if you have a large full tower, it is possible that you'll have problems hooking up optical drives. A maximum of 4 IDE devices are supported, which is probably enough for most users. Power users will be somewhat discouraged that there is no RAID controller (for RAID or extra IDE connections). Serial ATA is also absent, but at the moment, there isn't exactly a whole lot of choices when it comes to shopping for a SATA hard drive.
 
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A lot of motherboards these days lack the four holes needed for large heatsinks, such as the Swiftechs and Alphas, due to AMD's new specifications. This is not an issue exclusive to nForce2 mobos, but many KT400s as well. In terms of nForce2s, I believe only the Asus, the Epox, and revision 2 Abit nForce2 motherboards have them.
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The Northbridge (SPP) uses a passive heatsink. Considering that there's no GeForce 4 MX, it isn't necessary for an active solution. Silent freaks will appreciate one less fan to deal with.
The I/O back panel is not quite standard affair, if you're used to PC99 standards. There are 4 USB 2.0 slots, a couple serial ports, a printer port, PS/2 ports, a LAN connection and a speaker output.
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The 8RDA+ uses the Realtek RTL8201BL as the onboard LAN controller. What happened to the nForce2 LAN? To understand a bit about how networking works, you can take a look at . Basically, the nForce2 MAC handles the first four networking layers, and the Realtek controller is the Physical Layer (PHY). It provides the connectivity for the nForce2 MAC, which in turn, handles the traffic. Like we mentioned earlier, there is no PHY for the 3Com MAC, which the nForce MCP-T supports.
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Much like the networking portion of the 8RDA+, the sound works the same way. The Realtek ALC650 is the Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) for the nForce2 APU. The nForce2 APU does the work of processing the sound, and the ALC650 (which supports 5.1 output) converts that into an analog signal for your speakers.
  
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As with the sound and LAN, the Firewire output is provided by the Realtek RTL8801B, whereas the communications and processing is done by the MCP-T. There aren't any ports built-in, so you'll need to use the included two port bracket and plug them into the Firewire header on the motherboard.
 
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The 8RDA+ supports 6 USB 2.0 connections, with four of them already installed. There is an USB bracket included for an additional 2 USB ports in the rear, but if you're looking to move those to the front of your PC, you can only bring one as there is only one USB header on the motherboard, unless your case supports two connections via one header.
The BIOS
  
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The Phoenix Award BIOS powers the Epox 8RDA+. It's fairly flexable, allowing for a number of changes and tweaks to be made. Standard items such as PC Health are present.
  
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Things get more interesting with the Advanced Chipset Features. You can adjust the multiplier, front side bus, and memory timings. The memory timings are especially impressive as you have a lot of options available for CAS latency, and Active to Precharge timing. As with other nForce2 boards, AGP 8x is supported. Another nice touch for overclockers is the option to lock the AGP bus at 66MHz. Like the PCI lock, this AGP lock will come in handy as you start jacking up the FSB.
  
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FSB options are fairly extensive, though you'll need to have to have the latest BIOS to unlock speeds up to 250FSB. One frustrating aspect of this is you can't key in the FSB you want. Instead, you'll have to scroll up and down, which can get to be a bit of a hassle. If you're worried about you PCI cards not being able to handle excessive overclocking, don't be, as they are locked at 33MHz. Overclocking would come to a screeching halt without voltage adjustments. The 8RDA+ has plenty of options for you to choose from, allowing for a maximum 2.2 vCore. Ram and AGP voltage options are also available, and it can go a long way towards a stable overclocked environment.
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Next Page - Overclocking and Test Setup
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Epox 8RDA+: Although they are no strangers to motherboards, the 8RDA+ marks the first time Epox have worked with nVidia. With the nForce2 getting a lot of good press, we take a look at Epox's nForce2 solution, and determine if this motherboard is worth consideration.
